China and South Korea have slammed Japan's attempt to re-write the history of its past military brutality by retracting its 1993 apology to wartime sex slaves.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said any move by Japan to deny its war crimes and revise its history of aggression will spark angry opposition from the Asian countries that suffered under Japanese occupation.
She says there is solid evidence proving that the Japanese military forced women into sexual slavery during WWII, which was a grave crime against humanity.
Meanwhile a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said the Japanese government must stop actions that would once again inflict "unbearable pain and open scars" of the South Korean women who were forced to become sex slaves.
The comments came a day after Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga indicated his government will undertake an overall review of interviews conducted more than two decades ago with 16 South Korean "comfort women", who identified themselves as World War II sex slaves.
