China and South Korea yesterday reacted strongly to visits by two Japanese Cabinet ministers to a Tokyo shrine that honors war dead, including several Taiwanese, although Japan’s prime minister stayed away.
Japanese National Public Safety Commission Chairman Keiji Furuya, one of the two ministers who visited the Yasukuni Shrine, said it was “only natural as a Japanese” to honor those who had given up their lives for their country.
Japanese Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Yoshitaka Shindo told reporters his visit was a vow to never wage war again, and shrugged off concerns it may set off a diplomatic row.
Photo: Bloomberg
“If it does, the government should give a clear and good explanation,” he told reporters after praying at the shrine.
China lambasted the visits as proof of Tokyo’s incorrect understanding of history, calling Yasukuni “a spiritual tool and symbol for the Japanese militarists.”
“Sino-Japanese relations can develop in a healthy and stable way only if Japan can face up to and reflect on the history of invasion and make a clear break with militarism,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said in an online statement.
Photo: Reuters
In Seoul, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said some Japanese politicians were acting in a way that hurts both South Koreans and Japanese, and further pushes the countries’ people apart.
In a speech marking South Korea’s independence from Japanese colonialism, Park also asked Japanese leaders to act wisely and expressed hopes that next year the countries would move together toward friendlier ties.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not go to the shrine, but sent a gift through an envoy. His visit to Yasukuni in December last year drew widespread criticism, including from the US, Japan’s most important ally.
Abe signed the gift as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and not as prime minister, a party official said.
The enshrinement of Class-A war criminals, such as wartime Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo, among the 2.5 million dead at the Yasukuni Shrine makes the visits a target of condemnation from China and South Korea, which suffered from Japan’s aggression and see the shrine as a symbol of brutality.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga defended the visits as religious freedom, saying that praying for the war dead is natural for any country and that the ministers acted in a private capacity.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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