The policy chief of Japan’s ruling party vowed yesterday to keep paying homage at a controversial shrine, despite anger and diplomatic protests by China and South Korea.
Nearly 170 Japanese lawmakers made a pilgrimage last month to the Yasukuni Shrine, a flashpoint in a bitter dispute between Japan and Asian neighbors that were victims of its 20th century militarism.
For foreign critics, the shrine is a stark reminder of Tokyo’s brutal occupation of the Korean Peninsula and imperialist expansion leading up to World War II. Among the 2.5 million honored there are 14 men convicted of war crimes by a US-led tribunal after Japan’s 1945 surrender.
Sanae Takaichi, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) policy affairs council, was one of the senior lawmakers who joined last month’s visit and yesterday defended the practice.
“It’s an internal affair [of a nation] how to commemorate the people who sacrificed their lives for the national policy,” Takaichi said on a program on public broadcaster NHK.
China agreed to the principle of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs when Tokyo and Beijing established diplomatic ties in 1972, she said.
Takaichi also voiced doubt about a 1995 landmark statement Japan issued under then-Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, which acknowledged it followed “a mistaken national policy” and advanced along the road to war.
“There is no doubt that [Japan] hurt the ethnic pride of people in colonized countries and caused them tremendous sufferings,” Takaichi said. “But the Murayama statement mentions ‘a mistaken national policy.’ Then, would it have been best for Japan not to fight [major Western powers] at all and to take the path of becoming a colony amid embargoes?”
“I think no politician in today’s Japan can tell us with confidence what was right in the international situation at that time,” she said.
Takaichi also said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may have different views on history from past Japanese governments that accepted the judgement of the post-war Tokyo tribunal.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number