Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong expressed concern Monday about Japan's imminent dispatch of troops to Iraq, saying it is a "sensitive" issue for China, Japanese officials said.

Zeng told a delegation from Japan's ruling coalition that China understands the dispatch of the Self-Defense Force is aimed at making humanitarian reconstruction activities. But he voiced reservations.

In a meeting with the policy board chairmen from the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito, Zeng urged Japan to learn from history, apparently a reference to Japan's aggression in China and elsewhere in Asia before and during World War II, and follow a path of peace, they said.

He also criticized Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine on Jan. 1.

"The Chinese people are feeling displeased. We do respect Japanese culture and customs, but (Yasukuni) enshrines Class-A war criminals. It is an act that neither China nor any other country that suffered during World War II can accept," Zeng told Fukushiro Nukaga of the LDP and Kazuo Kitagawa of New Komeito.

The Shinto shrine honoring Japan's war dead is seen by other Asian nations as a symbol of Japanese militarism.