Japan PM reignites militarism row at religious shrine
-17/10/05
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has reignited a row in East Asia after paying homage earlier today at a Shinto shrine for war dead seen by critics, including some in the churches, as an unacceptable symbol of Japan’s past militarism.
Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbours have already chilled significantly because of Koizumi’s annual visits to Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, where war criminals convicted by a 1948 tribunal are honoured along with the nation’s 2.5 million dead from the Second World War.
Recently the nationís high court in Osaka ruled that the PMís visits to the shrine constituted an official state endorsement and were unconstitutional, breaching the separation of religion and state.
As reported recently by Ekklesia, the high courtís move was specifically welcomed by the Rev Hitoshi Taira, chair of the Japan Baptist Convention, and by some other leaders among the Christian minority.
But Mr Koizumi, whose new visit to the shrine is his fifth, has repeatedly claimed that he visits Yasukuni as a personal act to pray for peace and to honour the war dead, not to glorify militarism.
Both South Korea and China made official protests to the Japanese government today. Japan and China are trying to arrange talks in Beijing between Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and his Chinese counterpart to discuss a possible leadersí summit later this year. It is feared that the new row will imperil this venture.
Opponents of the prime minister visiting the shrine note it as a former centre of the war-making ideology, derived from the Shinto religion during the war era. This was a time when the Japanese Emperor was worshipped as a living god.
Japan PM reignites militarism row at religious shrine
-17/10/05
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has reignited a row in East Asia after paying homage earlier today at a Shinto shrine for war dead seen by critics, including some in the churches, as an unacceptable symbol of Japan’s past militarism.
Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbours have already chilled significantly because of Koizumi’s annual visits to Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, where war criminals convicted by a 1948 tribunal are honoured along with the nation’s 2.5 million dead from the Second World War.
Recently the nation’s high court in Osaka ruled that the PM’s visits to the shrine constituted an official state endorsement and were unconstitutional, breaching the separation of religion and state.
As reported recently by Ekklesia, the high court’s move was specifically welcomed by the Rev Hitoshi Taira, chair of the Japan Baptist Convention, and by some other leaders among the Christian minority.
But Mr Koizumi, whose new visit to the shrine is his fifth, has repeatedly claimed that he visits Yasukuni as a personal act to pray for peace and to honour the war dead, not to glorify militarism.
Both South Korea and China made official protests to the Japanese government today. Japan and China are trying to arrange talks in Beijing between Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and his Chinese counterpart to discuss a possible leaders’ summit later this year. It is feared that the new row will imperil this venture.
Opponents of the prime minister visiting the shrine note it as a former centre of the war-making ideology, derived from the Shinto religion during the war era. This was a time when the Japanese Emperor was worshipped as a living god.