China executed three Japanese nationals for drug smuggling and trafficking on Friday, state news agency Xinhua said, following the execution of another Japanese citizen this week.
On Tuesday, China said it had put to death Mitsunobu Akano in the northeastern province of Liaoning for drug smuggling, ignoring concern from Tokyo that the move could inflame public opinion.
Japanese media said they were the first executions in China of Japanese citizens since the two countries normalised diplomatic relations in 1972.
But so far there has been no public outcry in Japan, which along with the United States is one of only two Group of Eight countries that conduct executions.
A government poll showed in February that 86 percent of Japanese approve of the death penalty.
The three Japanese who were put to death in Liaoning included Teruo Takeda, 67, who was convicted of buying about 5 kg of methamphetamine in China in 2003 and instructing another Japanese to take the drugs out of China, Xinhua said. The two others were 48-year-old Hironori Ukai and 67-year-old Katsuo Mori, it said.
While relations have improved of late, the two countries regularly clash over Japan's wartime past in China and various territorial disputes.
Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama is likely to express concern about the executions in possible bilateral talks with President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of a summit on nuclear security in Washington next week, Japanese media said on Friday.
In December, China executed a Briton, also for drug smuggling, prompting a British outcry over what it said was the lack of any mental health assessment.
China has executed other foreign nationals for drug offences. It recently executed an Afghan citizen, and there are Nigerians and Filipinos on death row.
Rights group Amnesty International believes China executes thousands of people every year. Beijing does not give a breakdown of the number of people it puts to death.
