Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi offered his silent respects at a controversial war shrine yesterday, keeping a promise to visit the shrine but abandoning a plan to do so on the anniversary later this week of Japan's World War II surrender.
Koizumi, who was led to the shrine's altar by a silk-clad priest, had repeatedly said since taking office in April that he would like to visit Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine on the anniversary of Japan's Aug. 15, 1945 surrender, which is tomorrow.
PHOTO: AP
But he announced yesterday that he had decided to speed up the visit because the plan to go on the anniversary had generated outrage from Japan's neighbors and concern among members of his own ruling coalition. Many Asians see the shrine as a monument to militarism, and some Japanese fear official visits to it violate the separation of religion and state.
Koizumi tried to dispel criticism that the visit was intended to glorify Japanese militarism.
"I want to express my deepest condolences to all the people who sacrificed their lives in the war," he said in a statement issued just before the visit. "Our country should never again walk the path to war."
The last prime minister to go on the anniversary was Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1985. Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto went to Yasukuni on his birthday in July 1996, but the furor abroad was so intense he canceled subsequent visits while in office.
The shrine is not merely for those who died in World War II -- the souls worshipped there also include nearly all Japanese war dead dating back to the late 1800s.
But politicians' visits to the shrine, part of Japan's Shinto religion, are particularly controversial because war criminals -- including executed former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who led Japan during World War II -- are among the 2.5 million Japanese soldiers honored there.
"The Chinese side's standpoint on this issue hasn't changed," China's foreign ministry said in a statement. "We oppose Japanese leaders' visiting this shrine that has memorial tablets to Class A war criminals."
Because of such anger, Taku Yamasaki, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, urged Koizumi to pay his respects at Yasukuni before tomorrow to tone down the symbolism of the visit.
But conservatives in Koizumi's administration countered that the visit would only be meaningful if conducted on the anniversary, and that changing the date would be an insult to the veterans and their survivors.
Neighbors protest
The loudest protests against the visit had come from South Korea, China and other Asian countries that were victims of Japanese aggression.
In Seoul, 20 South Korean gangsters chopped off their fingers in public yesterday to protest the visit, local television and witnesses said.
South Korea's Yonhap Television Network said the 20 men chopped off their little fingers with scythes in front of the Independence Gate in Seoul after shouting slogans against Koizumi's visit. South Korean news photographers who witnessed the incident said the men were gangsters who had been prevented from protesting in front of the Japanese embassy.
No reaction from taipei
Meanwhile, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has yet to deliver an official statement with regards to Koizumi's visit, officials said yesterday.
"We [don't have a statement] as of now. The superiors are still considering [their response]," ministry spokesperson Katharine Chang (
Some Taiwanese, who fought for Japan during World War II when Taiwan was a Japanese colony, are worshipped in the shrine as well.
For instance, Lee Teng-chin (
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