Large groups of lawmakers from Japan have infuriated the governments of China and Korea by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in the past week; the visits to the shrine are seen by the foreign governments as paying tribute to the violent military past of Imperial Japan, according to CNN.
During an autumn festival dignitaries, including the younger brother of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and over 150 members of the Japan's legislature have visited the controversial shrine. The shrine is dedicated to honor 2.5 million Japanese who have died in war. The reason it stirs controversy is that 14 convicted war criminals are included in that number, according to Yahoo.
"It is a duty for parliamentarians... to extend his or her heartfelt condolences to those who devoted their life to their own country and to solemnly renew the vows for eternal peace," Keiji Furuya, a minister in charge of issues related to North Korea, said in a statement. "I have no intention to provoke our neighboring countries in the first place. Moreover, how a nation pays its respects to the souls of the war dead who devoted his or her life to their country is purely a domestic matter which its citizens should address."
Millions of Chinese and hundreds of thousands of Koreans were killed during World War II at the hands of the Japanese and they tend to see the visits to the shrines as a celebration of Japanese war victories, according to CNN.
"Chinese and Koreans will never accept the Yasukuni Shrine, whether it is a matter of rationality or sensibility," an editorial in Global Times, a state-run Chinese newspaper, said. "No matter how much trade with Japan grows, or how independent their economies are, the positive elements are flushed away once the Japanese politicians stage a group show at the shrine."
Jeffery Kingston, the director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, told CNN that visits to the shrine are calculated political moves.
"To say that they're going there only to venerate the war dead is disingenuous on their part," Kingston said. "On the conservative side, they cheer them on, because they represent a voice that finds Japan's war crimes justifiable. On the left, the newspapers like Asahi or Mainichi are quite critical of these visits, precisely because of the political mischief intended."
An aide to Prime Minister Abe said that it is likely that the prime minister will visit the shrine before the end of the year. Abe has made ritual offerings to the shrine but has yet to visit in person in order to not upset officials in China and South Korea, according to Japan Today.
