The government Monday criticized Chinese Premier Li Keqiang for his comment that Japan had "stolen" islets claimed by Beijing in the East China Sea.
"That remark ignores history. (Japan) can never accept it," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters, in the latest flare-up of the bilateral dispute over the uninhabited, Japanese-administered islets called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.