Controversies Surrounding Yasukuni Shrine - Prime Minister's Visits

Prime Minister's Visits

On June 27, 2005, the governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, told Kyodo News, "If the prime minister does not pay a visit to Yasukuni Shrine this year, I think Japan would go rotten from the inside and collapse."

On October 12, 2005, Yasukuni Shrine returned the Bukgwan Victory Monument to South Korean authorities. The monument was erected in 1707 to commemorate Korean victory over Japanese forces in the Seven-Year War. It was subsequently moved to the shrine by Japan following the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 over Korea. South Korea returned it to North Korea in early 2006.

On October 17, 2005, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the shrine for the fifth time since taking office. Although Koizumi claimed that his visit was a private affair, officials in the People's Republic of China responded by canceling a scheduled visit to China by Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura in protest.

On 15 November 2005, during the APEC summit in Busan, South Korea, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing rhetorically asked: "What would European people think if German leaders were to visit (memorials) related to Hitler and Nazis?"

On May 16, 2006, Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations sent a letter to Koizumi expressing his "concerns about the efficacy of an invitation to the Japanese prime minister who continues to make controversial visits to the Yasukuni shrine." Hyde's letter underscored the offensive nature a shrine visit was to Americans who remember World War Two and Hyde didn't want to "dishonor the site in Congress where President Franklin D. Roosevelt made his 'day of infamy' speech after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor." .

On August 4, 2006, Japanese media reported that Junichiro Koizumi's expected successor, Shinzo Abe, had visited the shrine in April. Chinese and South Korean governments expressed concern over Abe's visit to Yasukuni. However, Abe has remained vague as to whether he had visited or would visit the shrine and subsequent events have led some to suggest that a compromise on the issue has been formed with China.

On August 15, 2006, retiring Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the shrine to commemorate the anniversary of Japan's official World War II surrender .

In April 2007, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a cermemonial offering to the shrine, but did not actually visit himself. According to official reports the offering was made by Abe as a private citizen rather than in an official capacity, although it was reported that the card attached to the floral offering was signed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe . Although Abe publicly supported his predecessor's visits to the shrine he did not visit the shrine himself during his term in office.

In June 2007, former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui visited the shrine to pay his respects to his elder brother Lee Teng-ching (李登欽, or Lí Teng-khim in Taiwanese POJ), also known as Iwasato Takenori (岩里武則?) in Japanese, who is among the 27,863 Taiwanese honored there.

In August 2007, the 16 members of the Cabinet all declared they had no intention of visiting the shrine during Japan Surrender Day. Abe, who at this point had not disclosed whether he himself intended to go, commented "Paying homage at the Yasukuni temple, or not, is up to the individual, even for a Cabinet member. I expect people to use their own discretion."¨

On August 15, 2007, Sanae Takaichi, minister in charge of gender equality and Okinawa-related issues, visited the shrine in an apparent effort to avoid a rare absence of all Cabinet members at Yasukuni on the anniversary of Japan's official World War II surrender.

Former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda vowed never to visit the shrine, a commitment applauded by Japan's Asian neighbors. Fukuda's open political opposition to the shrine led to improved relations with China, North and South Korea . However, a group of 62 Diet members from the Liberal Democratic Party and the People's New Party, including former farm minister Shimamura and Eriko Yamatani, a special adviser to Fukuda, visited the shrine on 22 April 2008.