China slams Japan UNESCO bid for 'colonial' sites

BEIJING - China on Thursday warned Japan not to glorify the colonial past in its bid to list old industrial facilities as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Application for World Heritage status should comply with UNESCO's principle of "building peace in the minds of men and women" and should not glorify colonial history, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a daily press briefing on Thursday.

Her comments came after the Republic of Korea (ROK) expressed strong opposition to a Japanese UNESCO application concerning seven sites in which about 57,900 Koreans were enslaved, with 94 of them dying.

The facilities include coal mines, shipyards and steel mills, according to a report by the ROK Yonhap news agency.