China summons Japanese envoy over Yasukuni visits
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Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent an offering to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine yesterday, the anniversary of Japan’s World War II defeat, while cabinet members visited in person, drawing strong protests from China and South Korea, and putting at risk tentative steps to improve ties.
At least three cabinet ministers and dozens of lawmakers paid their respects at the Yasukuni Shrine, seen as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism.
“I asked my special aide to make the offering on my behalf,” Abe told reporters.
“As for when I might go to Yasukuni Shrine, or whether I will go or not, I will not say as this should not become a political or diplomatic issue,” he said after his Liberal Democratic Party aide conveyed the offering in the name of “Shinzo Abe, LDP leader.”
Yasukuni evokes bitter memories across Asia of Japan’s colonial and wartime aggression. The shrine honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including war criminals such as Hideki Tojo, a prime minister during World War II, who was executed in 1948.
China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin summoned Japanese ambassador to China Masato Kitera and lodged representations over the issue, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
“It does not matter in what form or using what identity Japanese political leaders visit the Yasukuni Shrine, it is an intrinsic attempt to deny and beautify that history of invasion by the Japanese militarists,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“We urge Japan to take concrete steps to win the trust of the international community, otherwise Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbors have no future.”
A retired Chinese general was more blunt. “Can you imagine what the world would think of Germany if they paid homage to Nazi boss Hitler?” retired Chinese Major General Luo Yuan wrote in the Global Times.
South Korea’s foreign ministry called the visits “deplorable,” saying they showed the Japanese ministers were “still keeping their eyes shut to history” and urged Japan to offer a sincere apology.
Internal affairs minister Yoshitaka Shindo and administrative reform minister Tomomi Inada visited the shrine as did a group of 89 lawmakers, including LDP policy chief Sanae Takaichi and aides to another 101 MPs.
“Japanese leaders should show their courageous leadership to heal wounds of the past so that both countries can develop as a true cooperative partner,” South Korean President Park Geun-hye said in a speech in Seoul marking the anniversary of the end of Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korea Peninsula.
During a speech at a memorial service in Tokyo yesterday, Abe did not mention Japan’s wartime aggression in Asia, something Japanese premiers have done at the annual commemoration since 1994. Unlike the past years’ speeches at the commemoration, Abe also did not “pledge not to fight a war.”
Abe said: “We will carve out the nation’s future that is full of hope, while facing history with humility and deeply engraving lessons to be learnt in our minds.”
Visits to Yasukuni by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi during his 2001-2006 term sent Sino-Japanese ties into a chill.
The deeply conservative Abe improved relations by staying away from the shrine during a previous short term as prime minister, but later said he regretted not paying his respects as premier and made a visit after becoming LDP leader last September.
Abe’s agenda of bolstering the military and easing the limits of the pacifist post-war constitution on Japan’s armed forces as a prelude to revising the charter raised concerns in the world.
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