Korea and China Upset that Japanese PM Made Offering to Yasukuni Shrine
The yearly Yasukuni Shrine issue has reared its head again:
A wooden plaque, left, bearing the name of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is seen beside a tree that she sent as an offering to Yasukuni Shrine on the first day of the Autumn Festival in Tokyo, Saturday. AFP-Yonhap
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made an offering at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Saturday, bringing to the fore a decades-old sore point with neighboring Korea and China, both of which suffered heavily from Japanese imperial aggression in the first half of the 20th century.
The offering came as the shrine’s three-day autumn festival began. Japanese media reported that Takaichi plans to hold off on visiting the shrine personally, a move interpreted as an effort to avoid further diplomatic friction.
The shrine honors about 2.46 million people who died in domestic conflicts associated with the 1868 Meiji Restoration and in the subsequent military campaigns launched by imperial Japan. Nearly 90 percent are linked to the Pacific War, Japan’s 1941-45 conflict with the United States and its allies as part of World War II. The religious site also enshrines several Class A war criminals, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who was executed in 1948.
You can read more at the link, but you have to visit to see how stupid this issue is. First of all the media never points out this shrine is privately owned and not government funded. The private religious corporation who runs it decided that everyone who died in service to Japan would be enshrined, not the government.
Secondly the shrine is not that big or impressive. With all the controversy the first time I went there I expected to see statues of war criminals and instead there is nothing. There is no names or anything else to see except a small temple. The soldiers enshrined at Yasukuni are simply names written in a ledger kept in a different building. I found visiting Yasukuni is be totally anticlimactic.
With that said next to the shrine is a military history museum that is far more interesting. The museum has various displays about the history of Japanese wars. The history of World War II section did have some controversial takes. The descriptions in the museum 20 years ago was far more controversial with translations today a little better balanced, but still has a few eye raisers.
You would think the shrine’s critics would criticize the museum instead of the shrine. However, this shows the loudest critics have never even been there before or even know much of what it is about.
