Japan shelves quake aid plan after China criticism

TOKYO, May 30 (Reuters) - Japan has shelved plans for its military to fly tents and blankets to China in the aftermath of the devastating May 12 earthquake, having found some within the Chinese government opposed to the move, media reported on Friday.

Japanese media said on Thursday that the military would deliver assistance in what would be its first deployment to China since the end of World War Two and a step in strengthening Sino-Japanese ties, long troubled by their wartime past.

But the plan has been postponed, with tents and other aid to be sent by chartered commercial planes for now, newspapers said.

"We could not get a consensus from within the Chinese government," the Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted a government source as saying.

The Yomiuri Shimbun daily also said the plan to send the military had been shelved, citing Beijing's concern after messages on Chinese Internet sites criticising the move by linking Tokyo's military with its wartime troops.

Japan sent rescue teams and a medical team to the devastated region shortly after the May 12 earthquake, and Japan said it had received a request from China for military assistance earlier this week.

Bilateral ties chilled during former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's 2001-2006 term over his visits to Yasukuni shrine, seen by critics as a symbol of Japan's past militarism because it honours some convicted war criminals along with the country's war dead.

Relations have since improved, but many Chinese harbour resentment over Japan's 1931-45 military aggression in China. (Reporting by Chisa Fujioka; Editing by Bill Tarrant)