Three nationalist ministers in Japan’s cabinet paid homage at a war shrine hated by China Saturday, despite tentative signs of a thaw in Tokyo’s long-frozen relationship with Beijing.<\/p>\n
The visits to Yasukuni by three of the five women in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet came as a fourth — the moderate daughter of a former premier — reportedly mulled resignation over a cash scandal.<\/p>\n
They also come after what appeared to be a breakthrough in Sino-Japanese ties, with a handshake between Abe and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang on the sidelines of an international gathering in Italy.<\/p>\n
Abe has set his sights on a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping — his first — when Beijing hosts a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation bloc (APEC) next month, and had been talking up the head-to-head in the hope of bouncing China into the meeting.<\/p>\n
But a mass visit to Yasukuni on Friday by 110 lawmakers provoked a rebuke from Beijing.<\/p>\n
Then in what has become a standard way for China to signal its annoyance with Japan, official Chinese ships were Saturday sent into waters around islands at the centre of a long-running territorial dispute between the two.<\/p>\n
The pilgrimage to Yasukuni by three of Abe’s ministers — all well-known for their strident nationalist views — will likely do little to curry favour abroad, including in key ally the United States, but will play well with a core group of right wing supporters at home.<\/p>\n
Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi, who was first to the shrine on Saturday morning, made international headlines last month when a picture emerged of her standing alongside the leader of a domestic neo-Nazi party.<\/p>\n
National Public Safety Commission chief Eriko Yamatani, who has also been pictured with fringe right-wingers, and Haruko Arimura, the state minister in charge of female empowerment, also paid homage.<\/p>\n
The 145-year-old Shinto shrine is the supposed repository of the souls of some 2.5 million citizens and soldiers who died in World War II and other conflicts.<\/p>\n
It is controversial because they include senior figures in the WWII administration, such as General Hideki Tojo, who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n
It is seen as a symbol of Japan’s militarist past, and the continued observance of festivals there by public officials is taken as proof in neighbouring countries of Japan’s lack of repentance for its warring.<\/p>\n
China lashed out Friday after the mass lawmakers’ visit, saying it was “gravely concerned” by the activity.<\/p>\n
“China would like to reiterate that Sino-Japan relations can only realise healthy and stable development when Japan seriously faces up to and repents of its aggressive past and disassociates itself with militarism,” a statement said.<\/p>\n
While China gets publicly annoyed by politicians’ visits to the shrine, it would likely react very strongly to the prime minister going to Yasukuni.<\/p>\n
Since a trip in December 2013, Abe has stayed away, although he made offerings for the spring festival, on the war anniversary on August 15 and again on Friday.<\/p>\n
He is thought unlikely to visit the shrine after he returns home Saturday from Italy.<\/p>\n
Instead, he is likely to turn his attention to damage limitation in the wake of the cash-scandal that has erupted around one of his most popular ministers.<\/p>\n
The loss of Yuko Obuchi, a telegenic mother-of-two who is in charge of Japan’s energy sector, would be a blow to his bid to convince Fukushima-scarred voters the country’s shuttered nuclear reactors are safe to turn back on.<\/p>\n
Obuchi has told sources close to Abe that she intends to resign when the prime minister gets home, the Nikkei business daily reported.<\/p>\n
That follows reports that her political funds have been misspent, including on make-up, theatre tickets for supporters and accessories.<\/p>\n
However, after a feverish morning of speculation and rumour in Tokyo’s political world, Obuchi appeared to be rowing away from an immediate resignation.<\/p>\n
“What I must do now is thoroughly investigate my own political fund,” she told reporters.<\/p>\n
“I have no plans” to meet Abe, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three nationalist ministers in Japan’s cabinet paid homage at a war shrine hated by China Saturday, despite tentative signs of a thaw in Tokyo’s long-frozen relationship with Beijing. The visits to Yasukuni by three of the five women in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet came as a fourth — the moderate daughter of a former … Continue reading “Ministerial visits to Japanese nationalist shrine provoke Chinese ire”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[144,10319,10321,10320,2337,10317,10318,10316],"class_list":["post-16471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-eriko-yamatani","tag-general-hideki-tojo","tag-haruko-arimura","tag-japan","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-shinzo-abe","tag-yasukuni"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16472,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16471\/revisions\/16472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}