TOKYO, Aug 15, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Two Japanese cabinet ministers paid their
respects on Saturday at a war shrine seen by neighbouring countries as a
symbol of Tokyo’s past militarism, in the first such visit since 2016.
Nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual cash offering to the
Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo to mark Saturday’s 75th anniversary of
Japan’s surrender in World War II but was not expected to visit in person,
local media said.
Yasukuni honours 2.5 million war dead, mostly Japanese, who perished in
the country’s wars since the late 19th century.
But it also enshrines senior military and political figures convicted of
war crimes by an international tribunal after the war.
Education Minister Koichi Hagiuda, one of the two ministers to visit the
shrine along with Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, said he did so to
pay tribute to the war dead.
“I paid respects… to the souls of those who nobly sacrificed themselves
during the war,” Hagiuda told reporters.
Abe last visited the shrine in December 2013 to mark his first year in
power, sparking fury in Beijing and Seoul and earning a rare diplomatic
rebuke from close ally the United States.