Abe’s offering at Yasukuni shrine sparks protests
Print Edition
CHINA and South Korea called on Japan to face up to its wartime past after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent an offering to a shrine to war dead yesterday, the anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender.
Masahiko Shibayama, a lawmaker who made the offering on Abe’s behalf, said he did so to express condolences for those who died in the war and to pray for peace. He said Abe was sorry he could not visit the Yasukuni shrine.
Past visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni have outraged Asian nations because it honors 14 Japanese leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals.
China’s relations with Japan have long been poisoned by Tokyo’s failure to atone for its occupation of parts of China before and during the war. Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945.
The war shrine has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism by countries that suffered from Japan’s colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century. China, North Korea and South Korea consider the shrine a painful reminder of Japanese colonialism and invasion.
Abe, a staunch nationalist who wants to see Japan’s pacifist constitution amended, visited the shrine in December 2013, but has stayed away since.
His only visit as prime minister sparked fury in China and South Korea, and even earned a rebuke from the United States.
Dozens of Japanese lawmakers visited the shrine yesterday, prompting protests from the South Korean and Chinese governments.
South Korea’s foreign ministry expressed “deep concerns” that leaders of Japan’s government and parliament were paying tribute at the shrine.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China resolutely opposed Japan’s “wrong actions” over the shrine. “China urges Japan to earnestly face up to and deeply reflect upon its history of militarism,” she said.
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