Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday the government will consider stopping financial contributions to UNESCO or reducing the amount, given the U.N. body's decision to add Chinese documents on the Nanjing Massacre to the "Memory of the World" program.
The top government spokesman made the remarks on a TV program.
UNESCO's decision Saturday drew an immediate protest from the government, which questioned whether the U.N. body was "neutral and fair" in registering them.
Beijing's dossier on the widespread killings of Chinese citizens and soldiers following the 1937 capture of Nanking, which is presently known as Nanjing, by the Japanese military is among dozens of new additions of documentary items, also including two sets of archives from Japan.
The government lodged a protest Saturday with China's Foreign Ministry via the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, saying China "should not unnecessarily use the arena of UNESCO for a political purpose," according to Japanese officials.
The "Documents of the Nanjing Massacre" consists of court documents from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that convicted several Japanese as war criminals and a Chinese military tribunal, among others. They also include photos of the killings said to have been taken by the Imperial Japanese Army and film footage taken by an American missionary.