Japanese politicians visit controversial war shrine

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Dozens of Japanese lawmakers made a pilgrimage to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on Tuesday morning, a site which neighbors China and South Korea and many other countries see as a symbol of Tokyo’s militaristic past.

No senior ministers were among the group and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe refrained from sending an offering as he has done in the past, a shrine official told AFP.

In total, 61 MPs - mainly from Abe’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party - attended the war shrine and 75 sent a representative, according to one deputy who briefed reporters at the scene.

The shrine honors millions of Japanese war dead, but also senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes after World War II.

A group of protestors demonstrate outside the Consulate-General of Japan in Chicago over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. /Xinhua Photo

Beijing and Seoul view it as a symbol of Tokyo’s past military aggression.

The site has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism by countries that suffered from Japan’s colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century.

In October, Abe sent a ritual offering to the shrine but did not visit, a move seen as an effort to minimize protests from neighbors over the issue.

Abe visited in December 2013 to mark his first year in power, a move that sparked fury in countries including China and South Korea and earned a diplomatic rebuke from close ally the United States, which said it was ”disappointed” by the action.

But he has since refrained from going and sent ritual offerings instead.

Abe and other nationalists say Yasukuni is merely a place to remember fallen soldiers, and compare it with Arlington National Cemetery in the United States.

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Source(s): AFP