South Korea protests Japanese leaders' offerings to Yasukuni shrine

Just don’t report it anymore. We are all tired of it.

The shrine is seen by Beijing and Seoul as a symbol of Japan's past military aggression because it includes 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal among the 2.5 million war dead honored there.

Yes, and it also includes 21,000 Koreans.

Just don’t report it anymore. We are all tired of it.

Report or not, this is not the problem. Leave the past in the past and look to the futur.

@ Wasabi

Yes, but it is the Japanese that will not leave the past in the past.

Colonize much?

Yes, and it also includes 21,000 Koreans.

OssanAmerica

Today 10:21 am JST

"The shrine is seen by Beijing and Seoul as a symbol of Japan's past military aggression because it includes 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal among the 2.5 million war dead honored there."

Yes, and it also includes 21,000 Koreans.

They all opted to be enshrined there, did they?

＠Simon

No, in fact when one Korean family asked for their relative to be removed, they were refused.

When asked why she visited Yasukuni Shrine, Sanae Takaichi. who led a group of LDP lawmakers to visit the shrine, answered, "It's natural for Japanese to pay tribute to the war dead who had lost their lives for the sake of the nation."

The catch, however, is that enshrined there are not only the war dead, souls of unknown soldiers, but also Tokyo tribunal class A war criminals spearheaded by Gen. Hideki Tojo. (Of course, you can’t discuss Tojo and Hitler on the same plain.）　

 Suppose the German people erected a war memorial honoring Nazi leaders, such as Hitler and the cabal, could she say it'd be natural for the Germans to pay respect to the war dead?

"The government expresses deep disappointment and regret that Japanese leaders again sent offerings to or visited the Yasukuni shrine which glorifies Japan's war of aggression and enshrines war criminals," South Korea's foreign ministry said.

The comment was mostly directed towards SK's domestic audience.

Suppose the German people erected a war memorial honoring Nazi leaders, such as Hitler and the cabal, could she say it'd be natural for the Germans to pay respect to the war dead?

Apples and oranges argument, purely based upon the differences in how Japan and Germany were treated following the war.

What would have happened if the Emperor was held directly responsible for the war, as the leader of Japan? What or how would have things been different?

See, I can make meaningless comparisons or what if's too!

Suppose some Ukrainian people erected a war memorial honoring Nazi leaders, such as Stephan Bandera and the cabal, could she say it'd be natural for the Ukrainians to pay respect to the war dead?

Well apparently that is just dandy.

Class A is "crimes against peace", i.e., politicians who started the war. What people usually think of as war crimes, atrocities like mass shooting of civilians and POWs, is Class B.

The reason I am saying this is that even if a Japanese politician is guilty for starting WWII as measured from Manchuria or from Pearl Harbor, that does not mark the start of exploitation of Korea by Japan. That happened a generation earlier (the annexation itself was 1910). Korea did suffer badly during WWII, but it was in the form of heightened exploitation. It was not conquest in a "war" started by the same politicians as Manchuria or Pearl Harbor. For this reason, I do not see why Korea in particular should have a special problem with "Class A war criminals" at Yasukuni. Such criminals' crimes against peace involved Japan attacking countries not called Korea. If Korea has a problem with Japanese militarism, I can fully understand that, but not why the focus always seems to be on "Class A war criminals". My own guess is that it plays on an ignorant assumption of Class A automatically being worse than Class B.

If Iraq was an illegal war, the casus belli of WMD was completely false, then Bush and Blair too are Class A war criminals. Unless of course, its one rule for "us" and one rule for "them", whoever that them might be.

Simon FostonToday  01:41 pm JST

OssanAmerica

Today 10:21 am JST

"The shrine is seen by Beijing and Seoul as a symbol of Japan's past military aggression because it includes 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal among the 2.5 million war dead honored there."

Yes, and it also includes 21,000 Koreans.

They all opted to be enshrined there, did they?

Maybe some did and some didn't. But until 1945 (actually the 1990s) Koreans didn't care since Korea was psart of Japan, they had Japanese citizenship and served in the Japanese military.

Hello Kitty 321Today  05:15 pm JST

No, in fact when one Korean family asked for their relative to be removed, they were refused.

21,000 Koreans enshrined there. And only 27 people sued for their removal.

Do Koreans still believe that there are remains at Yasukuni Shrine?

Just keep the article for next year!! Wash and rinse and repeat!

At that time, Koreans were happy that Japan was the only permanent member of the League of Nations, right? As a Japanese citizen.

It seems that visiting the shrine was forced. The original name was changed because there were many anonymous people on the Korean Peninsula at that time.

During the Japanese colonial period, Korea's population doubled.

It must have been a harsh government?

She was supposed to have been oppressed and lived a miserable life?

All young women were supposed to be taken away as prostitutes?

Why? Unfortunately, you can't hide the demographic statistics, can you?

At the Yasukuni Shrine, only names are commemorated and not the millions of body remains that are located elsewhere.