Japanese minister visits shrine to war dead, angering China, South Korea

Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has visited a shrine paying tribute to the country’s war dead, drawing rebukes from China and South Korea.

Koizumi paid his respects at Yasukuni Shrine on Saturday, on the 81st anniversary of Japan’s surrender in the second world war.

The Yasukuni Shrine is dedicated to 2.5 million war dead, mostly Japanese, including convicted war criminals involved in Imperial Japan’s invasion and occupation of parts of Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.

Japan’s neighbours have long seen the site and the regular visits by senior politicians as symbolic of the country’s failure to atone for the atrocities its forces committed.

Koizumi, who has long been a regular visitor to Yasukuni, left the shrine without responding to reporters’ questions. He later said on Instagram that he visited to “offer his sincere condolences to the heroic spirits who sacrificed their precious lives for the nation”.

“Along with our vow to renounce war, I reaffirmed our determination to continue fulfilling our responsibility to uphold Japan’s postwar path as a peaceful nation,” he added.

There had been some speculation that Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, also a regular visitor before becoming prime minister in October, might attend the shrine, but she did not make the visit. Local media reported that Takaichi had sent an offering to the shrine, as previous prime ministers have done.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the nation “strongly condemns” Takaichi’s offering and the minister’s visit to the shrine.