Japanese prime minister’s visit to Yasukuni war shrine
spurs new tension in Asia
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, second from
right, follows a Shinto priest to pay respect for the war dead at Yasukuni
Shrine in Tokyo Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013. Abe visited Yasukuni war shrine in a
move sure to infuriate China and South Korea. The visit to the shrine, which
honors 2.5 million war dead including convicted class A war criminals, appears
to be a departure from Abe’s “pragmatic” approach to foreign policy, in which
he tried to avoid alienating neighboring countries. It was the first visit by a
sitting prime minister since Junichiro Koizumi went to mark the end of World
War II in 2006.
SEOUL — Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday visited a Shinto shrine that honors
Japan’s war dead, including 14 war criminals, and is seen by Asian neighbors as
a symbol of the nation’s unrepentant militarism.
The visit to Yasukuni
Shrine, the first by a sitting Japanese leader in seven years, raises the
prospect of even deeper hostility between an already-isolated Tokyo and its
neighbors. It also suggests that Abe, after a year of focusing on pragmatic,
economic issues, is increasingly willing to play to his conservative base — a
group that believes Japan has been unfairly vilified for its wartime past.
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Abe said he made the
trip to reflect on the “preciousness of peace,” not to antagonize South and
China. But those two countries responded furiously to Abe’s visit, with
Beijing’s foreign ministry calling it a “gross violation of the feelings of
Chinese people and people from other Asian countries” who were harmed during
World War II.
The visit also causes
fresh concerns for the Obama administration, which has encouraged Abe to
reconcile with Japan’s neighbors and keep quiet about deeply held, but
historically inaccurate, views on Japan’s wartime past.
“Japan is a valued
ally and friend,” the U.S. embassy in Tokyo said in a statement. “Nevertheless,
the United States is disappointed that Japan’s leadership has taken an action
that will exacerbate tensions” in the region.
Abe’s visit comes
amid a fierce territorial dispute with China over maritime territory in the East China Sea. Abe has
said for months he’s interested in quieting tensions with dialogue. But some
analysts said Thursday that Abe’s trip to Yasukuni hints at a different
strategy, one in which he abandons the idea of reconciliation and instead uses
the tensions to justify a broad right-wing platform that includes
constitutional changes and relaxed restrictions on Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.
Relations in this
region remain fraught in part because of the debate over wartime history, and
over whether Japan has properly atoned for the deeds of its imperial army. Some
previous Japanese leaders have tried to apologize for those wartime actions.
Others have spoken little about them. But Abe has frequently suggested in
speeches that Japan should be proud of its history. While the sentiment is
sensible, critics say it invites a white-washing of past atrocities, one that
the Yasukuni Shrine has come to represent.
“I think he wants to
show the Japanese people that he’s a leader who will stand up to pressure from
the neighbors,” said Jeff Kingston, an Asian studies professor at Temple
University’s Japan Campus who has written extensively about wartime memory in
Japan. “No more masochistic history to please the neighbors. Japan is, in a
sense, deciding unilaterally to turn the page on history.”
Abe’s trip to
Yasukuni was given full-on coverage by the Japanese media, whose helicopters
buzzed above the presidential motorcade en route to the site. Abe wore a formal
“morning dress,” which includes a long, flowing coat and striped trousers, and
stayed for roughly 15 minutes, according to the Associated Press. Abe said in a
statement that he prayed “for the souls of all those who had fought for the
country and made ultimate sacrifices.”
“Regrettably, it is a
reality that the visit to Yasukuni Shrine has become a political and diplomatic
issue,” Abe said. “Some people criticize the visit to Yasukuni as paying homage
to war criminals, but the purpose of my visit today, on the anniversary of my
administration’s taking office, is to report before the souls of the war dead
how my administration has worked for one year and to renew the pledge that
Japan must never wage a war again.”
For many Japanese,
Yasukuni is simply a religious site meant for honoring the nation’s 2.5 million
war dead. But the site is contentious, even
domestically. Japan’s emperors have quietly boycotted the shrine
since 1978, when the war criminals were enshrined. At a war museum on the
grounds of the shrine, Japan’s brutal invasions of and China are described as
justified attempts to free Asia from imperialism. There is no mention about the
Rape of Nanking, or about the military’s use of front-line sex slaves.
Visits by prime
ministers have long caused diplomatic consequences. When Yasuhiro Nakasone
visited in 1985, the backlash was strong enough that no other prime minister
visited for the next 11 years. Junichiro Koizumi visited every year between
2001 and 2006, but those trips sparked a severe downturn in relations with
China.
It was Abe, in his
first stint as prime minister from 2006 to 2007, who helped temporarily repair
ties with China. But he has since expressed regret for staying away from
Yasukuni during that period. In October 2012, two months before his election,
he made a trip to the site. During spring and autumn festivals this year, Abe
stayed at home, but both times he sent an aide to deliver a ritual offering.
Abe’s visit to
Yasukuni is “ill-advised” politically, said Harumi Arima, a Tokyo-based
political analyst and a former parliamentary aide, but comes from Abe’s own
“philosophy and conviction.”
Since Abe took
office, he’s taken several trips to Southeast Asia, where nations have similar
concerns about China’s expansionism. But he has yet to meet with China’s Xi
Jinping or South ’s Park Geun-hye, both of whom are hemmed in by anti-Japanese
sentiment in their countries. In South , some 5 percent find Abe “favorable,” a
rate just slightly better than that of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un,
according to the Asan Institute, a Seoul-based think tank.
Meantime, rancor
between China and Japan increased last month with Beijing’s announcement of a new air defense identification
zone over the East China Sea. China says its
maritime action has been spurred by Japan, which last year purchased several of
the contested islands from a private landowner. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman,
Qin Gang, said Thursday that relations can only improve if Japan is able to
face up to its “history of aggression.”
“Instead of reining
in his acts, the Japanese leader has gone out of his way to once again create a
serious incident on the issue of history, thus erecting a new, major political
barrier to the improvement and development of bilateral ties,” the spokesman
said. “The Japanese side must bear the responsibility for all the consequences
arising therefrom.”
Yuki Oda, in Tokyo,
and Liu Liu, in Beijing, contributed to this report.
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