Koizumi shrine visit blasted as leaders meet
(AFP/Kyodo)
Updated: 2005-12-11 09:23

Japanese ex-envoy to U.S. urges Koizumi to stop Yasukuni visits

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Tokyo's war-related Yasukuni Shrine should end, a former Japanese ambassador to the United States said in a recent article.

Takakazu Kuriyama, now an adviser with the Foreign Ministry, wrote in the latest issue of the monthly diplomacy journal "Gaiko Forum" that continuing the visits may give the impression Tokyo endorses the shrine's controversial view of World War II.

Kuriyama wrote that the way the Shinto shrine refers to the war in its exhibitions and publications as the "Greater East Asian War" reflect attempts to justify the war and contravenes the government's stance.

Such opposition, voiced by a prominent former diplomat, is likely to deal a blow to the Foreign Ministry. That is because the ministry tries to convince other countries -- especially China and South Korea, which are the most critical of the visits -- that the trips are justified as Koizumi goes to the shrine to pay tribute to the war dead and vow not to wage war.

Koizumi has paid his respects at Yasukuni Shrine once a year since taking office in April 2001 -- the fifth and latest time on Oct. 17 -- amid virulent protest from China, South Korea and other Asian countries Japan invaded and occupied before and during World War II.

The Shinto shrine honors convicted Japanese war criminals along with the war dead. Other Asian countries view Yasukuni as symbolic of unrepentant Japanese militarism and regard Koizumi's repeated visits to it as insensitive and insulting.

"Visits by the prime minister and other government officials with responsible positions may give the impression that (they) share the shrine's historical view that endorses the 'Greater East Asian War.' They should refrain (from making the visits)," Kuriyama said in the article.

Kuriyama said he supports as "epoch making" the 1995 statement by then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, which expressed sincere repentance for Japan's colonization and invasions, and one Koizumi delivered Aug. 15 along similar lines.

But he said, "The historical view of Yasukuni Shrine contradicts the government's interpretation as shown in the two statements by the premiers."

Koizumi said in a news conference in November that he does not endorse the interpretation of history presented at the shrine's museum, which critics say glorifies Japan's wartime aggression and whitewashes its atrocities.

The term "Greater East Asian War" was used in wartime Japan under its war drive to create a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." This was aimed at expanding Japan's power in the region and at securing resources and markets, under the excuse of "freeing" other Asian countries from Western colonialism.