It's Easy to Say Gomen Nasai

[Samurai_Jerk]

Can't appoint Taiwan. It's not a country.

[FG Lurker]

Anyway, another reason why I don't think Japan should have veto power at the UNSC is that since it depends on the US for it's own security in the region it lacks the required independance on international issues.

As opposed to South Korea and Taiwan?

Remove the US influence from Asia and Taiwan would be part of China now and the area of South Korea would be ruled by a short guy with big hair.

I do think that Japan should adjust its constitution though.

[altar]

I'm saying that- apart from the question of it's UNSC bid- I find it sad that Japan still seems unable to come to terms in a mature fashion with it's past. France for instance also had quite recently some difficulty debating some issues from that period. But for one thing many major figures of the collaboration were simply executed at the liberation, and the extreme right-wing has been on the political stage clearly ostracized (wich is why from time to time French voters find it fun to vote for them to manifest their displeasure with the main parties)
The Japanese are definitely a peaceful people and have a lot to offer the world. But it's a pity that because the average Ken has absolutely no interest in politics, the nationalist ideology has made it's way to the top of Japan's administration. The extremists also have succeeded in making the public believe that their role in WW2 was exagerated by those who have won the war and written history, that they were demonized for just trying to become a colonial power like the West was, so that it's unfair, ect.
Germany has not only accepted it's reponsability but has tought the facts to it's youth. There are some neo-nazis but then there are always crazy people in all countries and they don't have any political support or influence in Germany.
Japan simply hasn't learnt the lessons from it's past, it's a common view that it was attacked (or "forced to anticipate the attack") by the Alliance which was going to thwart it's "at the time legitimate attempt" to become a colonial power and that if Japan had won, History would be saying that the others were the bad guys. I saw when I attended Kokushikan university how young people know nearly nothing about Japan's role during WW2 apart from the fact they were bombed.
Japan's my favorite country in Asia and I would like to see it rise above such crap. It shows that the fact Asian political systems rely more on clan-like groups rather than on western-style parties does not serve debate and democracy. The individuals and scholars who try to expose the lies of the right wing are accused of being unfaithful to their country and criticised on all sides because in Japan you simply don't critize the mother land/government/powerful people.
The Chinese nationalism which is succesfully replacing communism is pathetic. China is already an international bully and it's only going to get worse before something terrible happens. If living in Korea has influenced anything in my views, it's the fact that China is maintaining North Korea to avoid having pro-american forces at it's border, spook all of Asia and pose as a moderating factor and the key to Asian stability.
South Korea has a strong nationalist component, I have endured racism here for the first time in my life. But it's nationalism is bent mainly on the protection of it's culture and integrity and has no foreign ambitions. Unlike obviously China, but also Japan which clearly wants to level it's global political and military influence with the size of it's economy. But the harder they try, the less it's going to happen.
South Korea was still a military dictatorship just 20 years ago and also cultivates the myth of being a small country bullied by foreign powers throughout history.
But hell, they were under brutal Japanese occupation for 40 years. There are at Yasukuni the remains of some Koreans who were forced into the imperial army, like imprisoned even after death.
I think objectively that Korea had been very pragmatic with it's relation with Japan. The ties had become quite close, Japan's image here was positive and most Koreans were saying that the past is past. But then the double language regularily held by Japanese officials, Yasukuni visits, partial textbooks, and claiming sovereinty over islands seized unilaterally to a country under occupation, what the hell's that all about? Of course nationalists on all sides are going to feast over that. But what does it say about the Japanese government? That it's irresponsible and incapable of reining in the nationalist scum that has put these guys where they are.

About the UNSC, I can't imagine anything happening really. Actual members might agree to offer Japan a permanent seat but without veto power just throw a bone to Koizumi so that he can avoid loosing face, but that's it. Everybody's licking China's ass right now so no one wants to get in an argument with them.
As to whom I think would deserve a seat, (and since we can't kick China out..) well I think Germany would, but the US will never let them in because they tend to team with the French on many issues, India probably would too, it has the same attributes as China but it's people don't feel they're superior to the rest of the world, they have fewer territorial disputes and no real wish for global military clout. I also think that a country representing the views of poorer countries wouldn't do harm, I find Brasil's bid interesting but there is maybe a stability issue. If the UNSC is to have new members with veto power, I'd rather see countries with the least possible nationalist or religious sentiment.
However, since the basic rule of diplomacy is to never let go of anything without getting something much bigger in return, I can't see anything happening. It's like a Eurovision song contest in which all the judges would have to agree unanimously...

[Mulboyne]

FT Letters: Japan maintains deep remorse for past aggression

From Mr. Futao Motai, Counsellor and Director, Japan Information and Cultural Centre, Embassy of Japan, London
Sir, I wish to refer to your editorial "Japan's burden" (April 8th). In particular, you mention "Tokyo's approval of school textbooks that have become steadily less honest over the years about Japan's violent record in Asia before and during the second world war" and state that "the school books in question gloss over the coercion of labourers and 'comfort women' for Japanese imperial troops and the massacre of tens of thousands of civilians in Nanjing".

In Japan, unlike some other countries, the government does not offer one particular view of history via school textbooks. On the contrary, the writing and editing of textbooks is left to the initiative of private publishers in order to encourage academic originality and flair. The government authorises these books as textbooks when they meet such criteria.

In a statement in 1995, then prime minister Tomiichi Murayama clearly stated: "Japan, . . . through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology." Moreover, in the years since that statement was made, the government of Japan has consistently endorsed Mr Murayama's remarks and strictly maintains this position today.

In the last paragraph, you state that "Japan now has active territorial disputes with China, South Korea and Russia". This gives the misleading impression that China has a legitimate territorial grievance towards Japan. The Senkaku Islands have continuously remained outside the territory that Japan renounced under Article 11 of the San Francisco peace treaty. It was not until the latter half of 1970, when the question of the development of petroleum resources on the continental shelf of the East China Sea came to the fore, that the Chinese government began to raise questions regarding the Senkaku Islands.

I would very much appreciate your understanding of these points, which I trust will be reflected in any future articles on the subject.

[Mulboyne]

FT.com: China's persistent Japan syndrome By IAN BURUMA
Link will likely expire so full text below:

What if the Japanese government apologised profusely and unconditionally for all the terrible things Japan did to China during the war? What if all Japanese textbooks described those wartime atrocities - the Nanking massacre, comfort women and so on - in full? What if Japan were to build lots of museums and memorials about Japanese war crimes committed in China, Korea, and south-east Asia? And what if Japan renounced all claims to disputed islands in the China Sea? Would this stop the Chinese from throwing stones at the Japanese embassy, or molesting Japanese students, or demonstrating against Japan's bid for United Nations Security Council membership? Probably not. These outbursts of emotional and sometimes violent nationalism in China take place partly because they are the only expression of public protest the government allows.

Similar things can happen in a democracy too, of course, as they do in South Korea. When they occur, more or less spontaneously, neither the South Korean nor the Chinese government can afford to ignore them or stop them too forcefully. Hence the odd passivity of Chinese policemen when demonstrators smashed Japanese property in Beijing.

Sometimes, however, the Chinese and, to a lesser extent, the South Korean authorities deliberately inflame anti-Japanese passions to deflect attention from their own shortcomings. Nationalism, along with capitalist development, has become the only justification for the Chinese Communist Party's monopoly on power, and when capitalism falters nationalism must be cranked up. Ever since Deng Xiaoping opened China's door to foreign, especially Japanese, investment, and Marxist ideology faded into insignificance, "patriotic museums" have sprouted all over China - most of them dedicated to past Japanese atrocities.

Japan's record in the second world war is bad enough to stir up popular passions whenever they are needed. But the manipulation of xenophobia by Chinese rulers began long before the Nanking Massacre. When the Boxers, a revolutionary sect, went on a violent rampage against foreigners and westernised Chinese in 1900, they were encouraged by the Empress Dowager Zu Xi. She had to do this, because the discontent directed at foreigners was really about harsh economic conditions, for which the Chinese authorities were responsible. The Boxers hated all authority. So when foreign troops, including Japanese, put down the Boxer Rebellion, the Empress turned round and backed the foreigners.

That pattern has persisted to this day. And so has the explosive mixture in Chinese rebellions of xenophobia and anti-government protest. The Chinese resentment of Japan, too, stretches back at least as far as 1895, when the Japanese upstarts defeated the armies of the great Middle Kingdom. Even as Japan grew quickly into a world power, China lagged behind in economic development and saw its port cities come under foreign jurisdiction, while much of the country fell prey to violent warlords, and then to Japanese invaders.

One of the most famous and influential Chinese rebellions happened in May 1919, when students in Beijing demonstrated against the handover of German concessions in China to Japan. Ostensibly the so-called May 4 Movement started as an anti-Japanese demonstration. In fact, it was directed against the weak, backward and undemocratic Chinese government. The movement could have had many results. In the end, it turned out to be Mao Zedong's revolution.

So the present government cannot but be aware of the potential dangers of allowing anti-Japanese protests to spiral out of control. It is often forgotten that student protests in China in the 1980s, culminating in Tiananmen Square in 1989, also began with riots against foreign students and "Japanese militarism". Even as the latest anti-

Japanese demonstrations erupted in Beijing and Shanghai, tens of thousands of villagers began rioting in Zhejiang province, protesting against miserable economic and environmental conditions. Anti-Japanese demonstrations spilled over to Hong Kong this week and many more are being planned for this weekend in at least 10 Chinese cities. Chinese websites are buzzing with angry rhetoric. And the anniversary of the May 4 Movement is looming.

There is no evidence of a direct link between the rural Zhejiang protests and the anti-Japanese demonstrations elsewhere, but the very thought that such links might be possible would fill any Chinese government official who knows anything about history with dread. That is why the authorities will no doubt try to stop the demonstrations from going much further. But there is equally little doubt they will recur, no matter what the Japanese do.

[Mulboyne]

Lewis Black on "The Daily Show"

[GuyJean]

What Chinese Textbooks Don't Say
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/13/china.japan.ap/index.html

Some things you won't find in Chinese history textbooks: the 1989 democracy movement, the millions who died in a famine caused by misguided communist policies or China's military attacks on India and Vietnam.

As China criticizes Japan for new textbooks that critics say minimize wartime abuses like the Japanese military forcing Asian women into sexual slavery, Beijing's own schoolbooks have significant omissions about the communist system's own history and relations with its neighbors.

"With rising Chinese nationalism, the efforts to rewrite history, to reinterpret history according to the demands of nationalism have become a major national pastime," said Maochun Yu, a history professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Experts say China's textbooks are written to heighten a sense of national victimhood and glorify the Communist Party that seized power in a 1949 revolution and lashes out at any threat to its rule.........

Omissions of major events appear aimed at shoring up China's image of itself as a non-aggressor, especially since the 1949 revolution.

The books don't mention the brief but bloody 1962 border war with India that broke out when Chinese troops attacked Indian positions to enforce territorial claims.

There is nothing on the 1979 war when Chinese troops attacked Vietnam. The assault was ordered to punish Hanoi for ousting the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which was an ally of Beijing.

Also missing:

The 1989 crackdown on democracy demonstrations, when Chinese troops killed hundreds and possibly thousands of unarmed protesters.

The estimated 30 million Chinese who starved to death during the 1958-61 "Great Leap Forward," revolutionary leader Mao Zedong's attempt to speed up China's farm and factory output through mass collectivization.

Textbooks gloss over ally North Korea's invasion of South Korea at the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, a conflict that drew in troops from the United States and other countries on the side of the South and China's army in support of the North.

The texts say only that "civil war broke out," without mentioning how it started. America is portrayed as an invader that forced Beijing to intervene by threatening Chinese territory.

A seventh-grade text also accuses the U.S. military of using biological weapons during the Korean War, repeating a claim made by China, North Korea and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War but never proven.

China is a great leader... of killing it's own people.

I guess that's better than killing other nationalities?...

GJ

[Mulboyne]

Bloomberg: Ito-Yokado Opens 7th China Store 2 Weeks After Outlet Attacked
Ito-Yokado Co., Japan's second-largest retailer, opened its seventh department store in China today, less than two weeks after anti-Japanese protesters attacked one of its outlets in another part of the country. Ito-Yokado Chairman Toshifumi Suzuki this week canceled a trip to officiate at the opening of the 18,700-square-meter store in Beijing's Xizhimen district amid rising tensions between Japan and China. Still, today's opening passed without incident
...more...

[Mulboyne]

Newsday: Rarely-Read Book Inspires Japan-China Rift
TOKYO -- A nationalist textbook newly approved by the Tokyo government is driving the deepest wedge in Japan-China relations in decades, but few of the country's students have ever read it. Though given away for free, the book titled "New History Textbook" is used by only 18 of 11,102 junior high schools in Japan, reflecting many teachers' concerns over its content. It has been denounced by the leading teachers' union, and is well to the right wing of mainstream public opinion...more...

[Mulboyne]

Xinhua: No Chinese students killed in Japan

BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhuanet) -- China denied Thursday that two Chinese students have been killed in Japan. A short news release issued by Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Japanese media reports that two Chinese students had been killed in Japan were untrue. "We have carefully checked the facts, and the story is false," Qin said, without revealing details.

[AssKissinger]

The Chinese need to chill the fuck out.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/china_japan

SHANGHAI, China - About 20,000 anti-Japanese protesters — some shouting "kill the Japanese" — rampaged through Shanghai on Saturday, stoning Japan's consulate and smashing cars and shops in protest over Tokyo's bid for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat and perceived whitewashing of wartime atrocities.

Thousands of police watched the rioting but did little to restrain the crowd, and Japan filed an official protest, complaining that Chinese authorities failed to stop anti-Japanese violence for a third weekend in a row.

I'm not saying they don't have some valid points but that's way over the top.

BTW, there's several threads relating to this. I think a few of them should be merged.

[Crambo]

Conveniently the two Ts, Taiwan and Tibet, are meaningless to these Chinese who, "I hate-a-Japan-a!"

This is absurd, they have no requests. Obviously the Communist Party has decided to stop production of PMS treatment.

[Mulboyne]

The Spoof: China and Japan settle their differences merge into Chipan mega-state
Tokyo and Beijing After several weeks of diplomatic sparring, the governments of China and Japan have stunned the world by announcing that the two countries will merge into a single East Asian super state called Chipan. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao seemed unmoved by the apparent world opinion opposing this unprecedented move...Chipan instantly becomes a force to be reckoned with..." Nanking, Chung King, Don King - these are all immaterial. All that matters now", said Koizumi, "is that the world recognize that Chipan is the most powerful force on the planet and behave accordingly"...In an equally unexpected move, the two men announced that they had just returned from Boston, Massachusetts, where they had secretly traveled to be married. (Massachusetts is the only state in the United States that permits homosexual couples to legally marry.)

[dimwit]

[...Chipan

Wouldn't Chikkan be a better name? :P

[L S]

Haven't seen many articles bringing up this obvious double standard in this situation. This is the first I have seen...although a little light...no mention of Tibet, etc.

China suffers memory lapses too (more here)

By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
BBC correspondent, Beijing


"...........But as I watched the stream of young people marching down the streets shouting their anti-Japanese slogans, I couldn't help feeling this wasn't about history, it was something much more visceral. Much of the rhetoric was overtly hateful, even racist.

"Japanese dwarfs," one banner read, "Japanese devils," another.

The crowd turned its rage on anything Japanese they could lay their hands on..............

..............China's own history has been relentlessly rewritten to erase the episodes the Communist Party would rather forget. Ask any young Chinese about Mao's disastrous "great leap forward" campaign in which more than 20 million people starved to death, and you will get a blank stare.

Ask about China's unprovoked invasion of Vietnam in 1979 in which tens of thousands of Vietnamese were killed. Again, nothing.

Last week China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao declared that:

"Only a country that respects history, and takes responsibility for history, can take greater responsibilities in the international community."

He was talking about Japan, but he could just as well have been talking about China."

[GuyJean]

Haven't seen many articles bringing up this obvious double standard in this situation.

CNN had an article about China's own 'missing' history in it's textbooks I posted here: [url]http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?p=90541#post90541&highlight=#91110[/url]

The books don't mention the brief but bloody 1962 border war with India that broke out when Chinese troops attacked Indian positions to enforce territorial claims.

There is nothing on the 1979 war when Chinese troops attacked Vietnam. The assault was ordered to punish Hanoi for ousting the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which was an ally of Beijing.

Also missing:

The 1989 crackdown on democracy demonstrations, when Chinese troops killed hundreds and possibly thousands of unarmed protesters.

The estimated 30 million Chinese who starved to death during the 1958-61 "Great Leap Forward," revolutionary leader Mao Zedong's attempt to speed up China's farm and factory output through mass collectivization.

Textbooks gloss over ally North Korea's invasion of South Korea at the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, a conflict that drew in troops from the United States and other countries on the side of the South and China's army in support of the North.

The texts say only that "civil war broke out," without mentioning how it started. America is portrayed as an invader that forced Beijing to intervene by threatening Chinese territory.

A seventh-grade text also accuses the U.S. military of using biological weapons during the Korean War, repeating a claim made by China, North Korea and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War but never proven.

I just wish American media would also start exposing some homegrown bullshit.. But why would they? Sheeple are good consumers.. Has the 'wa' invaded the US?

GJ

[bunchoffuckinggoofs]

I have often thought that Yanks and Japanese folks are becoming more and more alike. They both seem to think that they are "special" in some way. Perhaps they are. The Chinese sure are good at theatre, yet still suck at diplomacy.

[altar]

suck at diplomacy? The entire world is licking their ass right now and would let them get away with anything (occupying Tibet, threatening Taiwan, eliminating the Uighur people, just being a filthy dictatorship...)
When you're the world's largest prospective market, that's your diplomacy, and it looks like it works better than any other.

[devicenull]

[bunchoffuckinggoofs]

suck at diplomacy? The entire world is licking their ass right now and would let them get away with anything (occupying Tibet, threatening Taiwan, eliminating the Uighur people, just being a filthy dictatorship...)
When you're the world's largest prospective market, that's your diplomacy, and it looks like it works better than any other.

China has been inolved in Tibet for centuries. It is nothing new, really. Taiwan is, I think, pushing the envelope as of late. The U.S. has also been positioning itself accordingly. Hence, Japan's recent pubic support of Taiwan that is pissing off China.
China has a long history of eliminating groups of people within its boundaries and fighting wars with those outside its boundaries. That's why I suggest they suck at diplomacy.

[Mulboyne]

NCM: The Japanese Prime Minister's Apology to China is His Apology, Not Japan's

In order for a democratic country to express its true remorse, an apology must minimally contain the following four points:

(1)the apology must be based on a law duly enacted by the Japanese the Diet, authorizing its Prime Minister and Emperor to make a public apology to all the aggrieved nations;
(2)the same law enacted must include an authorization for the government to compensate the victims of Japanese aggression and atrocities and a mechanism for determining the just compensation for the victims;
(3) the law must also mandate a faithful collection, documentation, preservation, and distribution of the truths about Japanese aggression in the Pacific War, 1937-1945; and
(4) it must also include a mandate that the textbooks in Japan reflect this history in perpetuity.

These points, by the way, were the foundation of the Civil Liberties Act, enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1988, authorizing President Ronald Reagan to apologize for the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans during World War II and to compensate each living internee a sum of $20,000. Along a similar line, the government of Germany has been doing the same every year for the Jewish victims of Nazism and the state of Israel.

Any apology without these four minimal points is therefore phony and devoid of any substance. It is simply an empty gesture, even if it is delivered personally by the prime minister with the profoundest sense of remorse and humility.

Accordingly, it should be rejected by all of Japan's Asian neighbors and none of them should rest in peace until the Japanese Diet has enacted such a legislation. To date, the Diet has taken no such an action.

Prime Minister Koizumi made a point of replicating the apology statement issued by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995, a statement considered strongest among all statements made since the end of the WW II. The world should know that Prime Minister Murayama made the personal apology only after he failed to persuade the Diet to enact an apology into law.

[Mulboyne]

[AssKissinger]

Yahoo News Link

The book does not bring up the wartime brothels, and mention of the killings in Nanking is relegated to a footnote.

I have a question. For all the compulsory education, is that the only text that deals with those subjects?

If so, that is really shameful.

[dimwit]

Nobukatsu Fujioka and Hidetsugu Yagi, members of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, said their book is meant to correct exaggerated accounts of Japanese atrocities in other books

It is funny how Holocaust Deniers use the exact same rationalization.

[FG Lurker]

Most in Japan want China apology for protests-poll
reuters.com, May 18, 2005

TOKYO (Reuters) - The vast majority of Japanese want China to apologize and pay for damage caused by anti-Japan protests last month, a poll published on Wednesday showed.

But voters were almost evenly split over whether Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should keep visiting a shrine seen by China as a symbol Japan's past militarism.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi is in Japan for a week-long visit and will meet Koizumi as both sides seek to improve relations strained by several feuds, many linked to Japan's wartime past.

These include Chinese anger at Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted war criminals are honored along with Japan's 2.5 million war dead.

Eighty-five percent of respondents to the poll sponsored by the conservative Yomiuri newspaper said Koizumi should demand an apology and compensation, and 92 percent rejected Beijing's argument that Japan's failure to own up to wartime atrocities was to blame for the demonstrations.

(Full Story)

A quote about "pigs flying" comes to mind...

[FG Lurker]

Photographer seeks Japan's war crime evidence
China View, May 16, 2005

"Though I was prepared, I'm still shocked at the sight of the skeletons," said 69-year-old Japanese photographer Jin Takaiwa when visiting the Pingdingshan Tragedy Memorial Hall in Fushun City, northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Jin came to China to seek evidence to prove Japan's intrusion of China during 1930s and 1940s, and Fushun is an important leg of Jin's tour in China.

Jin said, "I'll show the historical truth to today's Japanese youth and let them know the historical facts beyond their textbooks."

With a dignified look and seldom speaking when shooting exhibits at the memorial hall and when he finished his work, Jin wrote down: The massacre would not happen again, and he will look for historical facts and let the Japanese know. He went on to write, "Long live the friendship between Japan and China."

(Full Story)

Interesting story -- well, the start of it is anyway.

[FG Lurker]

Beijing tries to mend business ties with Japan
Taipei Times, May 19, 2005

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi was seeing business leaders yesterday at the start of a trip to Japan where she plans to take forward relations that have seen major strains.

After arriving Tuesday evening she held a private dinner with the Expo's chief Shoichiro Toyoda, who is the honorary chairman of Japan's largest company Toyota Motor, a major investor in China.

[...]

Wu met yesterday with local business leaders in Nagoya and talked about the importance of urban renewal. She was due to head today for China's national day in the six-month Expo.

Beijing decided to send Wu, an veteran negotiator and Politburo member, instead of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao who was invited by Koizumi to the Expo.

Analysts viewed the move as a sign that China wanted to send an official for serious talks with Japan but without the symbolism of such a high-ranking visit.

(Full Story)

[FG Lurker]

So much for the apology...
asahi.com, May 19, 2005

Quoting Confucius, a defiant Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday defended his annual visits to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine, shrugging off the uproar they inevitably cause in Asia.

Referring to wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, one of 14 Class-A war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni, Koizumi told the Lower House Budget Committee: ``They cite Tojo (as a reason to stop the visits). But Confucius says, `Condemn the offense, but pity the offender.'''

In a clear reference to outbursts over the visits from China and South Korea, Koizumi said: ``Other countries should not meddle in how we think it is best to pay tribute (to Japan's war dead).

(Full Story)

Oh shit, here we go again.....

[Kuang_Grade]

[FG Lurker]

LDP ally urges PM to stop shrine visits
Reuters, May 31, 2005

A senior official in Japan's ruling coalition said on Tuesday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should stop his annual visits to a shrine for war dead that is seen by China and other neighbours as a symbol of wartime militarism.

Akihiro Ohta, acting secretary-general of the New Komeito party, said the government should instead build a national war memorial where Japanese leaders could visit without upsetting Asian neighbours who were victims of Japan's past militarism.

"We think the prime minister should refrain from making official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine," Ohta told Reuters in an interview, referring to the Tokyo shrine where some war criminals are honoured along with Japan's 2.5 million war dead.

(Full Story)