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.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
RSS