Three Japanese Cabinet ministers paid their respects yesterday at a controversial war shrine in Tokyo that is vilified by Asian neighbors for glorifying past military aggressions.
The visits to the Yasukuni shrine by Farm Minister Seiichi Ota, Justice Minister Okiharu Yasuoka and Seiko Noda, state minister in charge of consumer affairs, came on the 63rd anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II.
Former prime ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe also stopped by separately at the Shinto shrine, which honors some 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including executed war criminals.
PHOTO: AFP
But Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has vowed to stay away from Yasukuni, focusing instead on improving ties with neighboring countries.
Koizumi’s repeated visits to Yasukuni while in office from 2001 to 2006 hamstrung relations with China and South Korea, who denounced the act as a sign Japan had failed to fully atone for invasions and atrocities during the period.
Nationalists and many conservative Japanese, however, see the shrine as a legitimate way to honor fallen soldiers. They accuse critics of trying to force Japan into paralyzing war guilt even after more than six decades under a strictly pacifist Constitution.
PHOTO: EPA
“I visited the shrine because I hope those who contributed their lives in the past wars would rest in peace,” the Kyodo news agency quoted Ota as saying.
Fukuda’s pointed refusal to visit Yasukuni is part of an outreach to mend fences with Japan’s neighbors.
In the most conspicuous sign of progress so far, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) traveled to Japan in May — the first visit by a Chinese leader in a decade — and held a formal summit with Fukuda, and they agreed to work together on everything from climate change to territorial disputes.
Like many right-wingers at the shrine yesterday, Yoshimitsu Sanada, 75, admonished the prime minister for not making a Yasukuni pilgrimage for Aug. 15 — a day that every year draws crowds of veterans, their relatives, tourists and militarists to the shrine.
“He’s stupid,” Sanada said of Fukuda. “He’s a Chinese servant.”
Sanada, who wore an old army uniform and carried a sword, said his uncle died in Saipan during World War II.
Other members of Fukuda’s recently reshuffled Cabinet are unlikely to visit the shrine. Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said at a press conference he would not go to Yasukuni.
Fukuda paid homage yesterday to Japan’s war dead by laying flowers at the secular Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery. He also attended a memorial service in Tokyo along with the emperor and empress.
“Once more, we renew our vow to renounce war,” Fukuda said at the service. “We pledge to lead the world as a peaceful and harmonious country and to work proactively toward establishing permanent world peace.”
Despite Fukuda’s open opposition to visiting Yasukuni, other politicians have remained steadfast in their support. A group of 62 lawmakers went to the shrine in April amid heated wrangling over the release of a documentary film about Yasukuni directed by a Chinese national.
The threat of right-wing violence intimidated several theaters in Tokyo into canceling plans to show the film, and the distributor delayed the original April 12 premier by several weeks. When Yasukuni finally opened on May 3, it played to sold-out crowds without incident.
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