Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi attacked the media
Thursday for criticizing his visits to a war shrine seen by many in
Asia as a symbol of the country's past militarism, as his heir
apparent defended such pilgrimages.
Speculation is mounting that Koizumi will visit Tokyo's Yasukuni
Shrine, where wartime leaders convicted as war criminals are
honored along with Japan's 2.5 million war dead, on the symbolic
August 15 anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe Shinzo, increasingly seen as a
shoo-in to succeed Koizumi as prime minister next month, defended
such visits in an interview published the same day, although he has
refused to say whether he will visit if he becomes premier.
Koizumi promised during his successful campaign to become ruling
party chief in 2001 that he would visit Yasukuni on August 15, a
pledge widely seen as intended to woo political support from a
powerful association of relatives of war dead.
He has visited the shrine each year since, but avoided the
anniversary in an apparent effort to moderate Asian outrage.
"If I do keep my public promises, they (media) criticize me and
if I do not keep my public promises, they criticize," Koizumi told
reporters before leaving for a two-day visit to Mongolia.
"It's not just August 15, they always criticize no matter when I
visit. It's the same whenever I go.... Japan's media should wake
up. There are pros and cons."
But Koizumi, who said on Wednesday that promises should be kept,
declined to say directly whether or when he would go.
"I will make an appropriate decision," he said. "I always do
that."
Koizumi came under fire in 2003 when he said during a
parliamentary debate with an opposition leader that it was "no big
deal" to break campaign pledges.
Most mainstream Japanese media have criticized Koizumi's annual
visits to the shrine, which have markedly chilled ties with China
and the Republic of Korea. Both countries have refused to hold
leaders' summits with Japan as a result.
Many Japanese business leaders, worried about the impact of the
diplomatic chill on vital economic ties with China, would also like
the shrine visits to stop.
In May, the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, a
business lobby, publicly urged the prime minister not to go.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao on Monday urged
Japan to stop visits by its leaders to the shrine.
But Koizumi defended his position, saying he visited to pray for
peace. "I think it is natural that Japan's prime minister visits
Yasukuni to pledge not to wage war again and express his
condolences for the war dead," he said.
Abe, who media reports said visited the shrine in secret in
April, supported the visits.
"I certainly do not think that the prime minister visiting the
shrine implies agreement with or admiration of the aims of the war
60 years ago," he said in an interview with the Bungei
Shunju magazine.
(China Daily August 11, 2006)
