A Taiwanese politician criticized the Japanese government Wednesday for refusing to honor wartime military bank notes and former German marks that Japan distributed in Taiwan when it colonized the area during World Wars I and II.

Visiting Tokyo with 10 members of Taiwanese citizens' groups, Chang Shih-liang, a Taiwanese legislator, said at a news conference that Japan should convert the war coupons into their current yen equivalents for Taiwanese who were stuck with the notes following Japan's defeat.

Chang also said the Japanese government paid Taiwanese in German marks after World War I and promised 10 years later to exchange them for yen.

More than 30,000 people in Taiwan still have those marks, which are estimated to have a total face value of about $30 billion, he said.

According to the citizens' groups, Germany made reparations to Japan in marks after World War I.

The Japanese government paid Taiwanese people in marks for sugar, rice and other produce, promising to convert them into yen later with interest, the groups said.

Foreign Ministry officials, however, denied the government was involved in the practice, saying they could not find any evidence to indicate the government at the time circulated marks in Taiwan.

They maintained the government cannot exchange war coupons for yen because the Finance Ministry ended their convertibility into yen in September 1945.