China hits out at Japan over ministers’ Yasukuni Shrine visits
- Beijing says the cabinet members’ actions reflect Tokyo’s ‘wrong attitude’ to its history of aggression
- Prime minister and emperor take a more low-key approach to mark 76th anniversary of Japan’s World War II defeat
In a statement on Sunday, China’s foreign ministry said Beijing expressed “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” over what it called “the desecration of historical justice” by the Japanese officials.
“It also seriously harms the feelings of people of affected Asian countries, including China, and once again reflects Japan’s wrong attitude towards its own history of aggression,” ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.
A number of Japanese cabinet members, including Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and Education Minister Koichi Hagiuda, as well as former prime minister Shinzo Abe, paid what they said were personal respects at the shrine on Sunday, the 76th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II.
Two days earlier, two senior ministers in Suga’s cabinet, Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi and Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, made separate visits to Yasukuni, prompting criticism from the Chinese defence ministry.
The shrine commemorates 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 Class A war criminals from
World War II, and is considered by wartime victims as a symbol of militarism.