The Foreign Ministry is seeking to counter anti-Japan sentiment in China and South Korea by bolstering its Internet-based public relations operations.

To this end, it has created a new section and has given its home pages a facelift.

"Now, a part of (the undertaking of) diplomacy is going to be shouldered by information technology," said a ministry official in explaining why the IT Public Relations Section was created on July 25. The ministry had started reviewing its internal setup in May.