Minister’s visit to shrine ‘a coincidence’
Print Edition
A JAPANESE minister offered prayers at a controversial Tokyo war shrine yesterday, shortly after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a highly symbolic visit of reconciliation to Pearl Harbor.
Masahiro Imamura, minister in charge of the reconstruction of northern Japan after the massive 2011 tsunami, visited the Yasukuni Shrine in the afternoon and public broadcaster NHK showed him throwing coins into a wooden box as an offering and bowing low.
“I reported about this past year’s work, expressed gratitude and prayed for our country’s peace and prosperity,” he said.
Imamura said his visit “has nothing to do with” Abe’s trip to Pearl Harbor and the timing is “a coincidence,” according to NHK and other Japanese media.
But Haruko Satou, professor of international politics at Osaka University, suggested the timing was suspicious.
“His real intention behind the visit is unknown, but it’s natural to think that he chose the same day when Prime Minister Abe visited Pearl Harbor,” Satou said.
Imamura’s action is “likely to have a negative impact on Japan’s diplomacy and offset the positive image of Abe’s historic visit,” Satou said.
The minister also visited the shrine on August 11, several days before the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II. Cabinet members often journey there at that time and during spring and autumn festivals.
It has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism by countries such as China and South Korea which suffered under Japan’s colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century.
The Shinto religious shrine honors millions of mostly Japanese war dead, as well as senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes after the World War.
Abe, a staunch conservative who has called for strengthening Japan’s military, has avoided visiting Yasukuni in an apparent attempt to prevent controversy after going there three years ago to celebrate his first anniversary since being elected prime minister.
Japanese conservatives have called on him to visit again.
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