Hashimoto's shrine visit gets new rap

Hashimoto's shrine visit gets new rap

TOKYO (Reuter): North Korea yesterday joined the chorus of protests from Asian nations against Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's visit this week to a controversial war shrine.

"This is an unbearable insult to the people of Korea and other countries in Asia," the official Korea Central News Agency said.

Hashimoto on Monday broke a decade-long taboo on prime ministerial visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, saying it was time for Japan to stop apologizing for honoring its fallen soldiers.

Hashimoto was the first Japanese prime minister since 1985 to visit the shrine, where 2.6 million Japanese who died in wars since the 19th century are honored and where the remains of war criminals executed after World War Two are enshrined.

Official visits to the Shinto place of worship have long been a sensitive issue for Japan's neighbors and wartime adversaries, ever watchful for signs of a return by Tokyo to the militarism that once led it to war with much of Asia.

The shrine honors some 2.6 million Japanese who died in wars since the 19th century. The remains of war criminals executed after World War II are also enshrined there.

In a dispatch monitored in Tokyo, KCNA said "the vicious political attempt of the Japanese reactionaries to realize the wild ambition for re-invasion by restoring the departed spirit of militarism can never be concealed".

China's state media on Wednesday denounced a controversial shrine visit by Hashimoto, accusing him of playing a dangerous game that could lead to isolation and resurgent militarism.

"Japan has again hurt the feelings of the Asian people," said the People's Daily, China's Communist Party newspaper, in a signed editorial.

"(Hashimoto) is playing a dangerous game by visiting Yasukuni Shrine, one that could lead Japan to isolation in Asia," said the official China Daily.

"With him setting a bad example, we can expect the resurgence of militarism," the newspaper said.

A decision by Japanese leaders on whether to pay their respects at the shrine had become a critical test of the government's attitude to World War Two, the People's Daily said.

Hashimoto's visit came after the right-wing prime minister signalled he would not be paying his respects there on August 15, the anniversary of Tokyo's 1945 surrender and one of the most sensitive days in the Sino-Japanese diplomatic calendar.

"But he then shifted the visit to Yasukuni Shrine to an earlier date...this really is surprising, regretful and infuriating," the People's Daily said.

If Japan were unable to go back and learn from history by itself, others would have to force it to do so, the newspaper said without elaborating.

The Yasukuni visit was not the first time the prime minister, who won his job after tough trade talks with the United States, has flirted with controversy over Japan's World War II legacy.

In October 1994, he set off a furor by saying in parliament that Tokyo's fight had not been against Asian nations but against the United States, Britain and others.

The China Daily said Japan's leaders were one by one sanctifying the crimes committed during the war.

"Cabinet members, and now the prime minister...are stealing in and out of Yasukuni Shrine, worshipping the dead souls of war criminals," it said. "Militarism is far from dead in Japan."