Japan needs sensitivity in China quake aid offer: minister

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Japan has to understand the historical sensitivities of the Chinese people in its offer of aid to China in the aftermath of the devastating May 12 earthquake, Japan's defense minister said on Saturday.

Japan has shelved plans for its military to fly tents and blankets into China's quake-hit regions, following concerns in China over the move.

"I believe that if the Chinese people have various perceptions about Japan, well of course we were engaged in a war before, that is our history," Shigeru Ishiba, Japan's defense minister, told delegates at a defense summit in Singapore.

"The important thing is that if Japan were to assist China in any way, we have to be sensitive to cultures and traditions in China," he added.

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

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said on Friday that the idea, floated after Japan received a request from China for assistance, had been put off.

Aid would be delivered by chartered commercial planes instead, Machimura said.

China's deputy chief of the People's Liberation Army, Ma Xiao Tian, speaking to delegates at Saturday's summit, said Beijing welcomed any form of international assistance, including that from Japan and its military, but urged understanding of the latest decision.

"Thanks to many historical reasons including what Minister Ishiba mentioned... he understands why the Chinese government and people made such a decision, and I think you all would understand that too," Ma said.

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 honors some convicted war criminals along with the country's war dead.

Relations have since improved, but many Chinese harbor resentment over Japan's 1931-45 military aggression in China.

(Reporting by Daryl Loo; Editing by Valerie Lee)