ANALYSIS Why Japan's Yasukuni Shrine remains flashpoint for Korea, China
A wooden plaque, left, bearing the name of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is seen beside a tree that she sent as an offering to Yasukuni Shrine on the first day of the Autumn Festival in Tokyo, Saturday. AFP-Yonhap
Japanese prime ministers' Yasukuni Shrine visits remain sensitive issue in East Asian diplomacy
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made an offering at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Saturday, bringing to the fore a decades-old sore point with neighboring Korea and China, both of which suffered heavily from Japanese imperial aggression in the first half of the 20th century.
The offering came as the shrine’s three-day autumn festival began. Japanese media reported that Takaichi plans to hold off on visiting the shrine personally, a move interpreted as an effort to avoid further diplomatic friction.
The shrine honors about 2.46 million people who died in domestic conflicts associated with the 1868 Meiji Restoration and in the subsequent military campaigns launched by imperial Japan. Nearly 90 percent are linked to the Pacific War, Japan’s 1941-45 conflict with the United States and its allies as part of World War II. The religious site also enshrines several Class A war criminals, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who was executed in 1948.
Korea and China have long protested when Japanese politicians send offerings or visit the shrine, which they see as representing a failure to atone for the suffering Japan inflicted on both countries.
Korea endured widespread exploitation and oppression under Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule, including forced labor and military mobilization. Many Korean women were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during the Pacific War.
China suffered an estimated 21 million deaths in the 1937-45 Sino-Japanese War, including some 300,000 people killed in the Nanjing Massacre.
Seoul and Beijing immediately protested Takaichi’s offering Saturday.
“We express deep disappointment and regret that Japan’s responsible leaders have again made offerings to or visited Yasukuni Shrine, which glorifies Japan’s past war of aggression and enshrines war criminals,” Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said.
MOFA also urged Japan’s leaders to face history squarely and show sincere remorse through action, calling this a key foundation for future-oriented Korea-Japan relations built on mutual trust.
The Chinese Embassy in Japan also strongly condemned the offering, saying the move insults historical justice, challenges the bottom line of civilization and provokes the postwar international order.
Japanese prime ministers' engagement with Yasukuni Shrine has been a constant source of tension in East Asian diplomacy, especially since the 2000s, with Korea and China protesting each time a visit or offering was made.
Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone made the first official visit as prime minister in 1985, but strong protests from the two neighbors led most later prime ministers to refrain from official visits.
The issue came to the fore again in 2001 under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who visited the shrine every year during his five and a half years in office. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also visited the shrine in 2013, a year after taking office. Since then, prime ministers including Yoshihide Suga, Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba have sent offerings rather than visiting while in office.
The enshrinement of Koreans — most of whom were forcibly conscripted into the Japanese military — is another point of contention, with about 20,000 known to be named at the shrine. The Japanese government and the shrine added them in 1959 on the grounds that they were colonial subjects at the time, without asking or notifying their families.
Civic groups and bereaved families have repeatedly sued since 2001 to have the enshrinements revoked, but Japanese courts have not sided with them. In June, an ethnic Korean resident in Japan became a plaintiff for the first time.