Seoul on Friday strongly condemned Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ritual donation and a visit by more than 110 lawmakers to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, saying the moves defy its postwar peace pledges and international norms.
Marking an autumn festival, Environment State Minister, Yasuhiro Ozato, Abe’s special aide Seiichi Eto and other Cabinet members and parliamentarians paid tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine. The premier, whose trip in December 2013 riled Korea and China, sent flowers.
The temple venerates some 2.5 million Japanese war dead including 14 “Class A” World War II criminals including Gen. Hideki Tojo, who orchestrated the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
“We cannot help deploring that Abe once again ignored concerns and critical voices of neighbors and the international community and sent an offering to the Yasukuni Shrine, which beautifies Japan’s past war of aggression and colonization and seizing of the Korean Peninsula, and that some lawmakers also pressed ahead with the worship,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Noh Kwang-il said in a statement.
“Japan’s political leaders have to bear clearly in mind that (the moves) represent their denial of the premises for its postwar return to the international community, and the world order.”
The criticism was echoed by Beijing, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei expressing “grave concern and firm opposition to the negative activities.”
“Sino-Japan relations can realize healthy and stable development only when Japan seriously faces up to and repents of its aggressive past and disassociates itself with militarism,” he said in a statement.
“We urge the Japanese side to deal with relevant issues in a responsible manner, stand behind the positions and commitments it has made so far over historical issues, and win the trust from its Asian neighbors and international community with concrete actions.”
Japanese nationalist politicians’ trips to the shrine, coupled with the country’s unrepentant attitude toward its wartime enslavement of Korean women and claim to Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo, have long been a perennial thorn in relations between Seoul and Tokyo.
Mindful of a long-cherished summit with China later this year, Abe is not expected to go to the shrine this time, but many of his confidants see future visits as highly likely.
During his first premiership in 2006-07, the hawkish premier refrained from worshipping at the shrine in consideration of ties with neighbors, but he called this a “mistake” after retaking power in late 2012.
By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)
