Koizumi urged not to visit war shrine
A top politician today urged Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to reconsider his annual visit to a controversial war shrine, warning it could damage Japan’s already strained relations with China.
Yohei Kono, the speaker of Parliament’s powerful lower house, told Koizumi he should “use extremely careful judgement” when considering whether to make a visit this year to the Yasukuni Shrine, the house speaker’s secretary said.
The shrine honours Japan’s 2.5 million war dead, including executed war criminals from the Second World War. Koizumi’s annual visits to it have outraged China and other Asian countries that suffered during Japan’s brutal invasion in the run-up to and during the Second World War.
Koizumi told Kono that while he understood the concerns, he had repeatedly explained his beliefs about visiting the shrine to China’s and South Korea’s leaders, Kono’s secretary said.
“I have explained about my thoughts … many times and I believe I have gained their understanding,” the secretary quoted Koizumi as saying.
Koizumi has recently faced calls from within his own ruling party to halt the visits, which have exacerbated tensions between Japan and its neighbours. Some politicians have suggested removing from the shrine’s list the names of the most high-profile war criminals. Shrine officials recently rejected the idea.
In a rare step, Kono last week organised a meeting with several former prime ministers to discuss Koizumi’s shrine visit. The former leaders shared their concerns and agreed to urge Koizumi to stop his visits to the shrine. One of the attendants, Yoshiro Mori – Koizumi’s predecessor and his senior in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party faction – joined Kono in conveying their message to the prime minister.
Yasukuni reveres the spirits of 2.5 million war dead, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and 13 other leaders convicted of the most serious war crimes at the 1946-1948 international war tribunal in Tokyo.
Japan-China relations have plunged in recent months amid renewed criticism that Japan refuses to face up to wartime atrocities, which has fuelled opposition to Japan’s pursuit of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
