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Tomomi Inada, policy chief of Japan ' s ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP), on Tuesday provocatively paid homage to the war-linked notorious Yasukuni Shrine ahead Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's summit with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington later in the day.
Inada, who denies Japan's responsibilities for waging World War II and challenges the legitimacy of the trials by the International Military Tribunal of the Far East, said after her worship that she appreciates those who enshrined in the Yasukuni that fought for the country.
About 2.5 million Japanese war dead are enshrined in the Yasukuni that also honors 14 Class-A Japanese war criminals. The shrine is considered as the symbol of the past Japanese militarism and visits to the infamous shrine by Japanese ministers and lawmakers are a major reason for frayed ties between Japan and its neighbors including China and South Korea.
The United States also expressed its disappointment after Abe visited the shrine in late 2013 as the move would further exacerbate tensions in the East Asian region and Japan's key ally also urged the country to properly address historical issues with its neighbors.
Abe said Monday in Boston that Japan would redouble its efforts to improve relations with China and South Korea, but the policy chief of his LDP, Inada, unveiling Abe's true feelings toward the shrine visit, said that visiting Yasukuni is the right of the country as a sovereign country, apparently in efforts to justify the wrongdoing.
The Japanese prime minister, a well known historical revisionist, also visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and said the tragedy should be remembered.However, the Abe's administration is reluctant to admit the occurrence of the Nanjing Massacre in which about 300,000 Chinese, including a great number of civilians, were killed by the Japanese troops in 1937.
Inada, a close political ally of Abe, also denies the Nanjing Massacre. While the crime culprit of the mass killings in Nanjing, Iwane Matsui, is enshrined in the Yasukuni.
The prime minister made an offering to the notorious shrine ahead his visit to the United States and three of his cabinet ministers visited the shrine immediately after Abe's meeting in Indonesia last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping who told Abe that historical issues are a major matter of principle concerning the political basis of the China-Japan relations.
Abe is about to issue a statement to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II this summer and the hawkish leader said there is no need to repeat words like "heartfelt apology"and" aggression and colonial rule"that were used in previous statements by prime ministers in the 50th and 60th anniversary, triggering grave concerns from neighboring China and South Korea.
