Now, at a time when Japan may have become a heartfelt neighbor, or at least not an enemy, to South Korea, its leadership decided to add fuel to the flames of its bereft next-door neighbor by visiting the war-linked Yasukuni shrine.
The chief of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)'s coalition ally on Tuesday admonished the visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine by Cabinet ministers and throngs of lawmakers on Tuesday.
Kazuhiko Togo, director of the Institute for World Affairs at Kyoto Sangyo University, has long called for a moratorium on Yasukuni Shrine visits by serving prime ministers.
Just two days before US President Barack Obama's visit to Japan on his four-nation tour of Asia, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japan's militarist past which honors 14 Class-A war criminals. On Tuesday, 146 Japanese lawmakers visited the shrine again. A couple of days before that, Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera attended a ceremony to begin construction of a radar base on Yonaguni Island, just 150 km from China's Diaoyu Islands.
A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Japanese lawmakers' mass visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine earlier in the day fuelled controversy over the shrine after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent offering there.
About 150 Japanese lawmakers pay respects at the controversial war shrine which honors Japanese soldiers, including dozens of convicted criminals.
Nearby national cemetery is a respectful place to remember nation's war dead
A group of roughly 150 Japanese lawmakers pays respects at the controversial war shrine for deceased Japanese soldiers.
China's seizure of a Japanese ship was solely for delayed rent and losses owed to a Chinese firm and was unrelated to wartime compensation, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said on Monday.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman says Beijing has lodged representations over the offering made Monday by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine.
A Japanese civil group on Monday sued with the Tokyo District Court over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to war-linked Yasukuni Shrine, stating Abe's move was unconstitutional.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Monday made an offering to the notorious war-linked Yasukuni Shrine on the first day of its three-day spring festival which began Monday.
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