Japan is planning to send special envoys to 15 countries involved in the designation of the UNESCO World Heritage sites to push for the controversial listing of some of its industrial sites, government sources said Thursday.
Joining moves by South Korea to oppose the envisioned listing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing the same day that Beijing is also against the registration of the facilities, which include places where people from China and the Korean Peninsula were forced to provide wartime labor.
"China shares South Korea's strong concerns over Japan's application," she said, becoming the first official to explicitly express China's opposition.