Abe defends controversial war shrine visit
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not ruled out the possibility of visiting a war shrine in Tokyo viewed by neighboring nations as a symbol honoring his country's wartime imperial past, according to an interview with a U.S. magazine.
Speaking to Foreign Affairs magazine, Abe likened the Yasukuni Shrine to the Arlington National Cemetery just south of Washington D.C.
"About the Yasukuni Shrine, let me humbly urge you to think about your own place to pay homage to the war dead, Arlington National Cemetery, in the United States," he said in the interview to be carried by the July/August edition of the bimonthly magazine.
The U.S. presidents visit the cemetery but nobody takes issue with it, he added.
Some top conservative Japanese politicians have recently visited the shrine, which also honors 13 Class A war criminals, infuriating the people of South Korea, China and other nations that still suffer from the memories of the atrocities committed by Japan during World War II.
Many argue that the visits are a sign that Japan's leadership has not fully atoned for its past wrongdoings and it is nostalgia for its imperialistic past.
"After the Yasukuni enshrined the souls of the Class A criminals, China and South Korea did not make any claims about visits there for some years. Then suddenly, they started opposing the visits. So I will not say whether I will visit or refrain from visiting the shrine," Abe said.
Abe has not paid tribute to the shrine since taking office in December, although Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and some other top government officials have.
Abe cited North Korea's military threats as a reason for his push to revise Article 9 of the Constitution, which restricts Tokyo's use of the right to collective self-defense.
"Yet, the fact remains that Japan is the only country in the world that does not call its defense organizations a military," he said.
Currently only 30 percent of Japanese support the move to reactivate the right to use force for collective self-defense, polls show.
"But when we present a specific case involving, for instance, a missile launch by North Korea, and we explain to the public that Japan could shoot down missiles targeting Japan, but not missiles targeting the U.S. island of Guam, even though Japan has the ability to do so, then more than 60 percent of the public acknowledges that this is not right," Abe claimed.
Lifting the ban on the exercise of the right to collective self-defense would allow Japan to launch a counterattack if an ally is attacked by a foreign nation.