China ‘seriously concerned’ after Japan PM sends offering to Yasukuni Shrine

9 years ago | Posted in: Latest Politics News | 609 Views

China’s foreign ministry expressed serious concern on Friday after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine.

“China is seriously concerned about and resolutely opposed to the negative tendencies which have appeared in Japan regarding the Yasukuni Shrine,” the ministry said in a statement.

Abe’s move risked complicating his push for a meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping to improve frayed ties between the world’s second- and third-biggest economies.

A group of other Japanese lawmakers paid their respects at the shrine – seen by critics at home and abroad as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism – on Friday, the start of the country’s autumn festival, a witness said.

There was no sign of cabinet ministers at the shrine, although NHK public television said Health Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki also sent an offering. A ruling party lawmaker tweeted that three ministers planned to visit on Saturday.

Expectations have been growing in Japan that Abe, who outraged Beijing and Seoul by visiting Yasukuni in person in December last year, will be able to meet Xi for ice-breaking talks next month at an Asia-Pacific leaders summit in Beijing.

Signs of a thaw have been growing, a reflection of the recognition on both sides that the chill was bad for business as well as raising the risk of an unintended clash that could escalate militarily.

Prospects for a leaders’ chat, however, are clouded by China’s demand for a signal that Abe will not make another pilgrimage to the shrine, where Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal are honoured along with millions of war dead. On Friday, Abe sent an offering of a small masakaki tree.

A public promise not to pay his respects at Yasukuni again would be impossible for Abe, whose conservative agenda includes recasting Japan’s wartime history in a less apologetic tone… see more

source: scmp

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