Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration has again deepened international suspicion that it aims to revise history despite repeated denials.
The Foreign Ministry has deleted a page from its website that carried a 1995 appeal for donations to a government-linked fund for former "comfort women" forced to work at Japanese wartime military brothels.
The move drew immediate protest from the South Korean government, which issued a written statement by a spokesperson at its Foreign Ministry, because it came at the demand of a right-leaning lawmaker who has called for the retraction of the government's apology, made in 1993.