Most Japanese believe Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should halt his annual visits to a Tokyo war shrine, poll results released yesterday showed amid warnings from China that further visits will inflame troubled relations with Beijing.
The results come, however, a day after a ruling party lawmaker said that Koizumi likely intends to continue worshipping at Yasukuni Shrine, which honors war dead including convicted war criminals.
TBS television network said that 61 percent of Japanese believe Koizumi should not visit the shrine while in office, while 34 percent said he should continue what he believes.
Koizumi has visited Yasukuni Shrine four times since becoming prime minister in 2001. The visits have riled neighboring countries, who consider the shrine a glorification of Japan's militarist past.
Hidenao Nakagawa of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said on Sunday that the leader would likely visit again.
"I think Koizumi will visit the shrine again this year, while carefully considering the timing," Nakagawa said on a TV talk show.
Koizumi has argued that the visits are simply a way of paying respects to the country's war dead, rather than an honoring of Tokyo's wartime militarism.
Chinese officials, including Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (李肇星) this past weekend, have repeatedly cited the visits in explaining deteriorating relations and anti-Japan protests in China last month.
In the TBS poll, the largest percentage of respondents attributed the surge in anti-Japan sentiments in China to Chinese education and its negative portrayal of Japan.
Respondents also cited Japan's own approach to history, wartime atrocities committed by Japan's military and visits to Yasukuni.
Tokyo-Beijing relations have sunk to the lowest level in decades since violent anti-Japan protests erupted last month in several Chinese cities over Tokyo's wartime past, and over Japan's push for a permanent UN Security Council seat.
The shrine honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including wartime prime minister and convicted war criminal Hideki Tojo. Another trip to the shrine this year by Koizumi would be certain to anger China, South Korea and other countries in the region.
But another LDP lawmaker, Koichi Kato who is a close Koizumi ally, said halting the visits would not help Japan-China relations. The only way to appease Beijing would be to find a different shrine for the convicted World War II criminals, or to set up a separate, secular war memorial, Kato said on the TV Asahi show on Sunday.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in