Japan marked the 80th anniversary of its World War II defeat yesterday, with at least one Cabinet minister joining thousands of visitors at a shrine that Japan’s Asian neighbors view as a symbol of its wartime aggression.
Japanese Minister of Agriculture Shinchiro Koizumi, a contender in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) leadership race last year, arrived at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo early yesterday, local media reported.
Among the 2.5 million war dead commemorated at the shrine are 14 wartime leaders convicted of the most serious war crimes, along with more than 1,000 others found guilty by Allied tribunals after Japan’s 1945 defeat, as well as 30,304 Taiwanese soldiers killed in the war.
Photo: AFP
China and South Korea have criticized past visits by senior Japanese officials that they say gloss over Tokyo’s wartime actions and damage diplomatic ties.
Supporters say the shrine honors all of Japan’s war dead, regardless of their roles.
No sitting Japanese prime minister has visited the shrine since then-Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in December 2013, drawing an expression of disappointment from then-US president Barack Obama.
Photo: EPA
The last prime minister to visit on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender was Koizumi’s father, former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, in 2006. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba yesterday sent an offering to the shrine, Kyodo News reported.
Another offering Ishiba made in October last year provoked criticism from South Korea, a Japanese colony for 35 years, and China, whose territories were occupied by Japanese forces in World War II.
Ishiba is expected to meet South Korean President Lee Jae-myung when he visits Japan on Saturday next week and Aug. 24 to discuss regional security and trilateral ties with the US.
Photo: EPA
While relations between Tokyo and Seoul have often been strained, in recent years the two countries have deepened security cooperation to counter China’s growing influence and the threat posed to both by North Korea.
Koizumi was joined at Yasukuni by former Japanese minister of state for economic security Takayuki Kobayashi, local media reported. He also ran in last year’s LDP leadership election.
As many as 60 national and local lawmakers from Japan’s far-right Sanseito Party were also expected at Yasukuni. The “Japanese First” party wants to curb immigration, which it says is a threat to Japanese culture.
In July’s upper house election, it won 13 new seats, drawing support away from Ishiba’s LDP.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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