politics

Abe to avoid visit to Yasukuni Shrine on 75th anniversary of war's end: report

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He can do what he likes. I'm past caring which face he puts on everyday.

14 ( +18 / -4 )

oldman_13Today  09:05 am JST

Japanese have every right to worship their war dead as any other country.

Same old blanket generalisation that totally misses the point that private citizens in Japan can do whatever they like while politicians are not allowed to participate in religious activities in their official capacity. Abe can do as he pleases as a private citizen, as a politician he should keep his religious practices strictly to himself.

14 ( +17 / -3 )

But who or what will go in his stead is always the issue.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

12 ( +15 / -3 )

Meanwhile, Tokyo Governor and Nippon Kaigi member Yuriko Koike has again refused to attend the traditional memorial service for the 6,000 Koreans murdered by mobs in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.

Even though the mass murder is officially recognized by the Japanese government and previous governors attended, she has boycotted the event for the past two years.

https://twitter.com/writerofscratch/status/1291814045784383489

Whether the likes of Abe or Koike attend or not, everyone is aware of what they believe: historical revisionism, the downplaying of and even outright lies about Japan's past.

12 ( +26 / -14 )

And hours after he sends his offering, a pack of LDP lawmakers will arrive en masse at the shrine to worship the war criminals there and win brownie points from their right-wing nationalist base of oyajis.

11 ( +23 / -12 )

Abe just got "tired of winning". With every passing year and the gradual extinction of the war generation and their offspring Yasukuni slowly sinks into irrelevance on its downward slide into the oubliette of history.

9 ( +13 / -4 )

>The shrine has also honored leaders convicted as "Class A" war criminals

 Yousuke Matsuoka

Japan was allied with Germany, but Japan was against antisemitism.

Yousuke Matsuoka, helped Jewish people to move/live in Manchuria under Japanese rule, and promised them Japan would not let Nazi harm Jewish people.

Matsuoka was arrested after a war as a Class A criminal, and after his death he was honored in Yasukuni.

See Book, "Under the shadow of rising sun", page 59, Meron Medzini,

(Japan and the Jews of Manchiria Beginning in 1931)

Try and search keyword,

Fugu plan

Yasukuni shrine also honored Koreans who died in Atomic bomb.

Korean price,Yi U, 李鍝

His grand father is Korean Emperor Gojong. He was killed with A-bomb in Hiroshima.

He was well respected by Japanese people and his guard Hiroshi (吉成 弘) committed suicide on account of not being able to save Prince. Prince funeral was held even at the time Japan was in chaos losing a war.

9 ( +15 / -6 )

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana

The Life of Reason

1905

9 ( +10 / -1 )

let me guess... doesn't "visit" but send message or offering or his wife.

8 ( +19 / -11 )

OssanAmericaToday  11:32 am JST

The following people have visited the shrine even after the addition of the 14 class-A war criminals. Would they have done so if the shrine was indeed a place that "glorifies war" as some claim?

Yet no reigning Emperor of Japan has. You might as well face it - those priests back in the 70s with family connections to wartime military leaders tainted the place with their murky political agendas. So do the politicians who turn up there en masse every few months, pretending to be pious when all they really care about is votes and cash.

7 ( +15 / -8 )

Smart Move.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

What a politician does doesn’t symbolize the nation or its people.

6 ( +13 / -7 )

Take a look at the yasukuni website someday (if you can read Japanese). The perspective is that Japan was a victim in ww2 and not responsible for the war. Basically the same political views as our right wing friends.

6 ( +15 / -9 )

MarkToday  07:17 am JST

Smart Move.

I'm not so sure. To me it looks like a shabby compromise that isn't going to please anyone.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

I feel every American should visit the Yasukuni war shrine museum if they're in Tokyo. The museum clearly articulates that Japan views itself as the victim in WWII with the nasty western nations forcing it to go to war. All about 'poor little japan'. Explains a lot. Blanket denial of any culpability.

4 ( +19 / -15 )

I’m a foreigner and when I went there I was physically removed for taking a photo. I got the impression that Europeans are not really welcome there.

I don't think you were removed because you are a foreigner and a European.

You were removed because you attempted to take a photo per your admission. Many (not all) shrines and temples forbid photo taking. What's wrong with respectfully complying with the posted rules out of courtesy?

3 ( +11 / -8 )

"My Japanese isn't good enough for this but at the Shrine itselvese there are actually translated texts saying something different ."

If "My Japanese isn't good enough for this but at the Shrine itselvese", then how do you know the translation is saying something different?

Don't yer worry though; ask a certain gaijin who has a better Nihongo accent than the locals to go there with you and help clarify it; he is a regular around here.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Japanese politicians rely on donations to run their political business, the most convenient way to get access to these easy money is goto the Yasukuni Shrine bowing and praying! That reflected Japan is run by those rightist coporations and the people were naïve about that! And those politicans who took money through praying in Yasukuni shrine has no basic moral! Maybe they have relatives or grandfather killed in WW2 but this is not the time to discuss moral, no money no donations!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Can't they 'disinter' the war criminals and stick them in exile in a shrine out on Sado Island or something?

Seems silly that Japan can't honor their fallen over those clowns.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

doggarToday 01:10 pm JST

Take a look at the yasukuni website someday (if you can read Japanese). The perspective is that Japan was a victim in ww2 and not responsible for the war. Basically the same political views as our right wing friends.

My Japanese isn't good enough for this but at the Shrine itselvese there are actually translated texts saying something different ... well they don't say that the war was their fault but the main thing is that they are "praying" for ALL the people who have fallen and by far not only their own.

2 ( +8 / -6 )

doggarToday  01:10 pm JST

Take a look at the yasukuni website someday (if you can read Japanese). The perspective is that Japan was a victim in ww2 and not responsible for the war. Basically the same political views as our right wing friends.

Really? Please tell is where it says anything about being a victim.

https://www.yasukuni.or.jp/yusyukan/

2 ( +9 / -7 )

How dare you

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Can’t afford to lose any more points.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

A bad move is worse than a null move.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

CaptDingleheimerToday  12:06 pm JST

Can't they 'disinter' the war criminals and stick them in exile in a shrine out on Sado Island or something?

Sounds sensible but apparently not. Once a soul was enshrined all sins were forgiven and it became part of a sort of hive deity. So I suppose disinterring a war criminal's soul when it is no more or less pure than any of the other ones there would be like discrimination against war criminals, or some nonsense like that.

Seems silly that Japan can't honor their fallen over those clowns.

Blame those Yasukuni Shrine priests and their covert political agenda for that.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Oh look - I was right.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I feel every American should visit the Yasukuni war shrine museum if they're in Tokyo.

I’m a foreigner and when I went there I was physically removed for taking a photo. I got the impression that Europeans are not really welcome there.

-1 ( +10 / -11 )

Very sad !

He should not give in to those brainless people criticising this visit every year.

-2 ( +9 / -11 )

Abe has been gutless throughout his tenure. He refrained from visiting the shrine first by succumbing to US pressure and now just to please big Japanese corporations doing business in China.

-3 ( +9 / -12 )

Every American should go visit the Yushukan museum next to the Yasukuni Shrine, especially those who are military buffs. Make no mistake it is a museum of military exhibits, nothing more. Visitors should make make a decision for themselves instead of blindly believing the anti-JP propaganda touted on this site. The only specific reference I saw was a claim that Japan felt the need to militarily strengethen itself after seeing the results of the Opium War. References to European colonization of Asia was limited to England.

Many use the Museum to denounce the Yasukuni Shrine itself as a place to "worship war criminals". The following people have visited the shrine even after the addition of the 14 class-A war criminals. Would they have done so if the shrine was indeed a place that "glorifies war" as some claim?

Minister of Religious Affairs Alamsyah Ratu Perwiranegara visited on June 22, 1981.

The 14th Dalai Lama visited on November 1, 1981.[29]

Prime Minister of Lithuania Adolfas Šleževičius visited on September 21, 1993.[29]

Prashanto Pal, the son of Justice Radhabinod Pal visited on April 26, 1995.[29]

United States Marine Corps Lieutenant General Wallace Gregson (the 3rd Marine Division's commanding general) visited on April 26, 2001.

Former Minister of Finance of Indonesia Rizal Ramli visited in 2002.[30]

Former President of Peru Alberto Fujimori visited on April 10, 2002.[29]

Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands Allan Kemakeza visited on July 10, 2005.[31]

Former President of the Republic of China Lee Teng-hui visited on October 27, 2007.[32]

French National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen[33] and British National Party deputy leader Adam Walker[34] visited on August 14, 2010.

World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer visited on May 14, 2012.[35]

-3 ( +13 / -16 )

With what's going on in the world everywhere right now, I couldn't care less whether he goes or doesn't go. The media of course have to make "a story" out of nothing and everything.

-4 ( +12 / -16 )

Abe's last visit to the shrine, shortly after he took office in December 2013, caused outrage in China and South Korea, who see the visits as a sign that Japan has not repented for its militarist past and war atrocities.

Abe has since stopped visiting the Yasukini while China and Korea have never stopped weaponising wartime history issues for own political gains. Ironically the present day communist China is behaving like the wartime Imperial Japan.

-4 ( +10 / -14 )

The day China repents for its past wrongdoings, is the day they can spout off about how other nations conduct their affairs. Japanese have every right to worship their war dead as any other country. I wonder how many war criminals and evil people are buried in China and Korea's cemeteries.

-7 ( +18 / -25 )

China and South Korea needs to understand .

Yasukuni Shrine is the last stronghold and vanguard vs the virtual colonization of today’s Japan.

-8 ( +4 / -12 )

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