JAPAN/CHINA: Beijing urges Tokyo to handle the Yasukuni shrine issue with caution after Japanese PM sends offering

Record ID: 464880

  • Title: JAPAN/CHINA: Beijing urges Tokyo to handle the Yasukuni shrine issue with caution after Japanese PM sends offering
  • Date: 22nd April 2009
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (FILE) (REUTERS) YASUKUNI SHRINE GATES INTERIOR OF YASUKUNI SHRINE MORE OF YASUKUNI SHRINE JAPANESE PRAYING AT YASUKUNI SHRINE
  • Embargoed: 7th May 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVABPWYXKSK2MSUTVFZACQ4CCSSL
  • Story Text: China on Tuesday (April 21) urged Japan to deal with the Yasukuni shrine issue with caution, after the current Japanese Prime Minister reportedly sent an offering to the shrine.
    "Yasukuni shrine is one of the most important and sensitive issues in Sino-Japan relations. We hope the Japanese can abide by the agreements reached by the two countries on overcoming obstacles to bilateral ties and promoting healthy development of bilateral cooperation, and deal with the issue properly and cautiously," Jiang Yu, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told a regular press conference.
    The shrine is seen by many as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.
    News of the offering -- a US$500 (340 pounds) potted tree -- comes a week ahead of the prime minister's two-day trip to Beijing, where he is expected to meet Chinese leaders.
    Japan's relations with China chilled in former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's time in office from 2001-2006, in part because of his repeated visits to the shrine, where Japanese wartime leaders are honoured along with the nation's war dead.
    Ties improved after Koizumi left office, with the two subsequent prime ministers staying away from Yasukuni.
    Aso made his offering during Yasukuni's three-day spring festival, but the shrine spokeswoman could not say whether the premier himself had visited the shrine.
    Japanese broadcaster TBS reported that Aso's personal office had sent the plant and that the premier had no plan to visit the shrine. TBS cited an unnamed government official. A spokesman for the prime minister's office could not be reached for comment.
    Aso, an outspoken nationalist and a Catholic, has sidestepped questions on whether he would visit Yasukuni as prime minister.
    Yasukuni shrine honors millions of Japanese war dead -- among them soldiers from Taiwan and Korea who fought for Japan, their colonial ruler at the time -- but also some convicted war criminals, including wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo.
    The official shrine visits deeply upset Japan's neighbours. Koreans still chafe over Japan's brutal rule over the peninsula from 1910 to 1945, while China has bitter memories of Japan's invasion and occupation of parts of the country over 1931 to 1945.
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