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© KYODOAnother cabinet minister, 100 cross-party lawmakers visit Yasukuni shrine
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Chip Star
Nobody is arguing this. We are arguing about how it is done. Go to the national cemetery to pay your respects.
You clearly don't understand the right to free speech.
CrazyJoe
The late Emperor Hirohito stopped visiting after 1978, and the Akihito Emperor has maintained the boycott. Ask yourself why.
IloveCoffee
I often wonder why hasn't the US media picked on this yet. A lot of Americans would be upset to know that the Japanese worship the war criminals that started the war and attacked America. For the Japanese, including the Japanese government, knowing that their image in America is being tarnished matters more than antagonizing the Koreans and the Chinese.
Chip Star
No it isn't your right; you'd be trespassing on your neighbors property.
Cricky
Yasukuni shrine if you can call it that is a perverse place that makes historical facts twisted. Japan lost, due mostly to its inability to supply or arm it's youth in any meaniful way. It was hardly a beacon of freedom. The Korean girl sitting on the chair has more relevance although she should be bound in rope to be historically accurate. And yet politicians seem to glow in their shuffling through their stunts for constituents.
ken1911jp
Those who affirm the visit to Yasukuni probably have the same opinion as Judge Radhabinod Pal regarding the Tokyo trial. Is that bad?
Simon Foston
oldman_13Today 06:32 am JST
This is just a political stunt to get votes and cash from right-wing nationalist dupes.
Chip Star
Because it's the correct thing to do as it won't be controversial so the focus will be on the war dead and night right wing nutcases
Too bad for you that is foreigners have the right to criticize these acts. It's enshrined in the constitution the US bestowed upon you after we bombed you into a democratic, peace loving country.
Yrral
Lots of people in Japan wonder, why China and Korea have advanced economically,and Japan had been, living in Zombie economy for decades
TheLongTermer
Ive never understood why the politicians even visit the shrine. I guess it was there before WW2, but its not even a state property. is it an old tradition?
OssanAmerica
"Modern Japan" is only 150 years old. The first dead honored at Yasukuni goes back to the Boshin War which ended in 1869. "War dead" prior to that were those who died fighting for their respective clans or for the shogunate, rather than"for the nation of Japan" and are honored in their respective regions. Those honored at Yasukuni died in war for the modern post 1860s Japan. The vast majority of those enshrined there have nothing to do with WWII.
Simon Foston
MkoreaMwafrikaOct. 21 02:34 pm JST
Fine, if they go as private citizens and not to get votes and cash from geriatric fascists.
Westminster Abbey is a very different sort of establishment from Yasukuni Shrine. The Christianity practiced by the Church of England is an established as a state religion, Shinto is not. Westminster Abbey is therefore property of the nation, Yasukuni is a private establishment so Japanese politicians cannot claim that going there is one of their official duties.
Chip Star
Repugnant. Go to the national cemetery to pay your respects.
oldman_13
Their right to honor their war dead.
Heckleberry
Imagine her surprise when the reporter just happened to be there.
Chip Star
It's our right to criticize it, but that won't stop you from whining about us so doing.
alwaysspeakingwisdom
"We are arguing about how it is done. Go to the national cemetery to pay your respects."
Why should we? Japan has the right to pay its respects to its war dead; anyway, anywhere, anytime, the Japanese people want. If foreigners don't like it. Too bad.
Simon Foston
alwaysspeakingwisdomToday 08:40 am JST
Anyone who thinks that's what these politicians are doing is either naive or deluded. Their brazen vote-gathering activities insult the war dead.
Chip Star
I have known this for over 20 years. Nobody is saying destroy Yasukuni, so this argument is moot.
showchinmono
As if their last notes were counterfeited by such system
showchinmono
Yasukuni had been there already and they all knew and thought it as the very home to meet their families and comrades. Those who like focusing on it as if the world war history had just started from WW2 better just shut their mouth up and reconsider how entire Asia were like those days.
Chip Star
Lmao! Zichi in again with more cold, hard facts and logic. It's always a pleasure to watch you work, Zichi.
showchinmono
So? What did I write? Yasukuni had been there before WW2. I know you know those 2466 thousands spirits
enshrined are not just from WW2. not just the soldiers dead on the battlefields, Yasukuni is deeper than just that or than what the western winners unilaterally created as war criminals in ex-post fact law.
smithinjapan
Get ready for the defenders to ask, tomorrow, why other countries are upset over this, while the morons who visit white-wash history, deny atrocities, and generally spit on their Asian neighbours.
showchinmono
So what kind of message does your personal interest in how or if the war dead were honored before 1869 possibly have? NOTHING.
So? I say, Let the Japanese or the ones who actually visit there decide what and how to do it. Aren't you the one who have stressed on the freedom of [ insert as you like] in the other thread?
showchinmono
Those families ( if they really do exist unless they are brainwashed communists or Koreans or Taiwanese) would not visit there. As you know, Yasukuni is private and has got nothing to do with government orders. Either you visit and mourn or not, it is your choice. Their sons left the notes coming back home to Yasukuni to meet their families visiting there. There's no room for those cheep claimers obsessed with ATROCITIES or with war-criminal-labeling to step-in with their shoes on.
MkoreaMwafrika
Poor Koreans, your economy is in shambles; your youth are in penury for lack of jobs; Chinese companies are taking over market share from you low-tech Korean companies!
And all you can do is perennially whine and moan about Yasukuni?!
Sorry, Hanguk folks, don't you have l'affaire Cho Kuk to take care of?
And also resuscitating your tanking economy? Why not use your energy more productively?
Actually, I, as a foreigner, am planning on visiting Yasukuni next year!
GW
Every year time it seems many get confused about what is going on at yasukuni, here, let me clarify for all once again!
Politicians going to yasukuni are NOT repeat NOT going there to worship Japan's war dead!!
Politicians GO to yaskuni to WORSHIP, WAR CRIMINALS, PERIOD!!
If war criminals were removed the politicians would dry up pretty fast at yasukuni.
It really IS that SIMPLE! What it also sadly illustrates is just how little many were supposed to have learned from WWII!!!
showchinmono
Modern days. Too many sick people. But if they are the ones of your own, deal with them but if they are not, send them back and let them deal with them
Norman Goodman
Even though that would certainly be appropriate there are two reasons why they don't 1) they don't actually respect China enough to expect them to listen and 2) they are not trying to build a close friendly relationship with China. They are with Japan but Japan keeps acting like the big brother who, every time guests come, tell them the story of the time they put dog poop in your mouth while you were sleeping.
Heckleberry
Yasukuni is a symbol of far-right revisionism, whether pro-Japanese posters like it or not.
And no, it's not just Koreans who share this view:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/british-rugby-team-apologizes-visiting-controversial-military-shrine/story?id=65748197
Ganbare Japan!
Every nation has the right to pay respects to all her war victims. No one has the right to criticize.
Brilliantly argued by Takaichi-san. Good for her.
MkoreaMwafrika
Actually, Japanese politicos should continue visiting Yasukuni if they so wish; it's part of honoring their history.
I, as, an African , Kenyan born, have absolutely no problem with a British politician, say, visiting Westminter Abbey or such like place that honor British explorers, adventurers and colonialists, and war dead of yore. It's part of their history. So what?!
Why don't you ask the Chinese to stop visiting Tiananmen and Mao's mausoleum? After all, Mao not only caused the deaths of 20,000,000+ innocent Chinese!
The megalomaniac Mao, like a rabid hyena, then crossed over the Yalu River and slaughtered 3,500,000 more Koreans!
showchinmono
smithinjapanToday 01:40 pm JST
Here we go again. a Korean obsessed with ATROCITIES. I wish this Korean could explain how visiting Yasukuni could be equalized to spitting on their Asian neighbors
Akie
Selfish and foolish is very dangerous mix.
Akie
Theoretically speaking, Japan was forgiven by the neighbours for the past crimes, and there is no need to constantly provoke neighbours using the unfortunate past.
It is your right to smoke pork ribs at your neighbours front doors, but at the same time it is really annoying and uncivil, and considered to be a bad manner.
Heckleberry
@zichi - source? Or is this simply your opinion?
True.
Cricky
Tens of thousands of Koreans volunteered to join the army.
well there are things called books of a historical nature and the use of volunteers bit of a streach.
I'd volunteer too with a gun at the back of my head.
Cricky
The term voluntary be it "comfort" women (aka sex slaves) or given a uniform and encouraged to act out depraved behavior against people's who never asked for Japan's version of freedom. To have leaders honouring these press gang flotsam is not just offecive on every level but so out of place at any time.
showchinmono
Yes. And you guys don't even know those young kids believed their souls at least could safely return home at YASUKUNI and promised meeting each other at YASUKUNI not Chidorigafuji, at dawn when they took off
showchinmono
Except almost all of them did not go to the actual battlefields as the war got over before those last-group officially conscripted finished their military training programs. You might want to know more of the truths.
Akie
zichi, we all know that, but they were forgiven because they were forced.
Akie
zichi, OMG, another "volunteered" ?
Heckleberry
@GW - Absolutely true.
It's the reason why these same attention seeking RWNJ pollies don't visit Chidorigafuchi to pay their respects.
Heckleberry
It's never easy, but free speech should be a right. So should the right to speak out against those who use free speech in an attempt at revisionism. So far both parties are exercising their rights.
Neither is denying any of the war crimes took place. In Germany it is illegal but in Japan it seems to win you a seat in government. To me Japan missed an opportunity here. It is 2019 and Japan is still seen by many as a country that has not come to terms with its past. The undertones of revisionism, a desire to view Japan's past in a new, more positive light, is prevalent in Japanese politics.
I doubt they were even looking to see what crimes were committed against Koreans.
If you follow the reasoning of some of the pro-Japan posters on JT, the 'Korean war criminals' were actually Japanese. That's not my position however.
Agreed. You could say it's really just a superstition. But it is also a symbol, just as a mausoleum is nothing more than a pile of bricks, but its symbolism makes it much greater.
Akie
Reckless politician are fools. The barriers between japan and neighbours are almost none, people get along very well, millions visit each other every year, there is no need to show your guts. What is it good if you have a lot of guts but no hearts ?
Heckleberry
@Cricky - if you believe Japanese revisionists including the mayor of Nagoya, all 'comfort women' were willing volunteers too.
Heckleberry
That is interesting, I didn't know. Thank you.
So around 1944 it became involuntary.
Yrral
Abe will be having Bedbugs and Breakfast at the G7 Google Doral Bedbugs