The protest was the latest Chinese reaction to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit Monday to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors nearly 2.5 million war dead, including 14 class-A war criminals.

A female student who declined to give her name read aloud from a copy of the letter handed over to the embassy.

"We strongly demand that the Japanese government make an official apology to China and to other Asian peoples who have suffered," she said.

The students then chanted slogans such as "Down with Japanese imperialism," "Long live the Chinese people" and "You can't bully the Chinese," while flashing blank cards.

"The meaning of the cards is to show that we have nothing to say when the Japanese government speaks nonsense," said a student surnamed Liu.

"I suppose we are allowed to organize this protest because we have a patriotic, just cause," said an economics student.

In Shenyang, the capital of northeastern Liaoning province, a group of historians and World War II veterans on Tuesday wielded banners and posters in anger over the shrine visit, the Procuratorial Daily reported.

Also on Tuesday, several thousand people participated in anti-Japanese demonstrations in the southern boom city of Shenzhen, the China News Service reported.

The Shenzhen demonstrations started when a group of high-school students staged a protest against Japanese reluctance to face its imperialist past in its history textbooks, the news service said.

China, which was at war with Japan from 1937 to 1945, is the main victim of past Japanese imperialism.

(Agencies 08/15/2001)