Japan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, said Mr Tanaka had stepped down due to ill health.

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"They have strongly requested measures to increase discipline and prevent things like this from happening again, " Mr Fujimura said.

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Earlier, new Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura announced the line-up of the new Cabinet, with Kocher Gemba named as foreign minister.

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Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said that representatives from the defence ministry had told US officials that "the incident is completely unacceptable".

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Mr Fujimura was quoted as saying the visit would still go ahead, but that the topic of the statue would be unavoidable at the summit talks.

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