Tokyo and Seoul yesterday struck a conciliatory note on the anniversary of the end of World War II, with South Korea’s president calling for a “future-oriented” relationship and Japan’s prime minister denouncing the “horrors of war.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual donation to a controversial Tokyo war shrine, but again avoided visiting it, in an apparent nod to China and South Korea.
Meanwhile, South Korean President Park Geun-hye called for a “future-oriented” relationship with Tokyo even as a group of Seoul lawmakers sparked official anger in Japan by visiting islets claimed by both nations.
The anniversary is an emotional date in both countries, remembered in Japan as the day in 1945 when wartime emperor Hirohito announced the surrender. In South Korea it is marked as the day Japan’s 35-year occupation of the Korean Peninsula came to an end.
China, which was partially occupied by Japan from the early 1930s to 1945, marks the end of the war on Sept. 3.
A frequent flashpoint for nationalist tensions is the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors millions of war dead including 30,304 Taiwanese killed in World War II.
Abe visited in December 2013, sparking fury in Beijing and Seoul and earning a rare diplomatic rebuke from close ally the US.
He has since refrained and reactions by China and South Korea to visits by cabinet ministers and lawmakers, while still critical, have become less intense.
Separately, Abe and Emperor Akihito both reiterated Japan’s commitment to peace at an official ceremony to commemorate the war dead.
“We shall never again repeat the horrors of war,” Abe said.
Akihito expressed similar sentiments.
“Reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never be repeated,” he said.
Park, in her nationally televised speech in Seoul, stressed the need to look forward.
“We should newly define relations with Japan to forge future-oriented ties,” she said.
However, her remarks coincided with the visit by 10 lawmakers to the Dokdo Islands (known as Takeshima in Japan) where they met South Korean security personnel based there.
South Korea has long controlled the islands in the Sea of Japan (known as the “East Sea” in South Korea and the “East Sea of Korea” in North Korea), but Tokyo has never renounced its claim.
“We absolutely cannot accept this,” top Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo, calling it “extremely regrettable.”
Abe and Park are scheduled to visit China early next month for a G20 summit hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while Japan is due to host a trilateral leaders’ meeting later this year.
Abe sent the offering to Yasukuni as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party rather than as prime minister in an apparent attempt to lessen criticism.
Sixty-seven members of Japan’s parliament — 59 from Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party — visited the shrine en masse in the morning.
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