Japanese hostage killing Abe's fault: China paper

The Islamic State group said on Sunday that it had executed Haruna Yukawa, one of two Japanese hostages it has been holding, in an apparent beheading that has been slammed by leaders around the world.

China's Global Times, which is affiliated with Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, wrote in an editorial that the Japanese leader's support for the US had drawn Tokyo into the conflict, even though "East Asian countries are not supposed to be key targets" of IS jihadists or global terrorism.

"The killing of the Japanese hostage is more or less the price that Japan has paid for its support to Washington," the newspaper said in the personalised editorial, which was headlined "Abe strategy clearer after hostage crisis" and referred to the Japanese premier by name five times.

Abe could seek to use the hostage crisis to repeal Japan's pacifist constitution, first imposed by the US in the wake of World War II, the paper suggested.

Beijing and Tokyo have been at loggerheads over a territorial dispute in the East China Sea, and while the world's second- and third-biggest economies have close business ties, their political relationship is heavily coloured by history.

Abe branded Yukawa's murder "outrageous and unforgivable" and called for the immediate release of the other Japanese captive, freelance journalist Kenji Goto.

The Islamic State group initially demanded Japan pay a $200 million ransom within a 72-hour deadline announced Tuesday, while Abe vowed Tokyo would never give in to terrorism.

AFP