Lawmakers visit Tokyo war shrine

Dozens of Japanese lawmakers including a Cabinet minister visited a Tokyo war shrine on Friday in a ritual angering China and South Korea, where memories of Japan’s military and colonial record remain raw.

The capital’s Yasukuni Shrine honours millions of Japanese dead, including several senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes after World War II.

The leafy central Tokyo shrine to Japan’s Shinto religion has for decades been a lightning rod for criticism by countries that suffered under Japan’s colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century.

Visits to the shrine by senior Japanese politicians, including occasionally Prime Ministers, drew angry reactions from China and South Korea, which see it as a symbol of Tokyo’s militaristic past.

“We hope that political figures in Japan would develop a correct understanding of history and do more to promote reconciliation and mutual trust between Japan and its Asian neighbours,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular briefing in Beijing.

South Korea also blasted the visit, with foreign ministry spokesman Cho June-Hyuck saying in a statement that the shrine “beautifies the colonial past and war of aggression, and enshrines war criminals”.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other nationalists say the shrine is merely a place to remember fallen soldiers and compare it to burial grounds such as Arlington National Cemetery in the United States.

At least 92 lawmakers visited Yasukuni for its annual spring festival.