Tokyo
Ladies in traditional kimonos leave the Yasukuni Shrine
Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine founded by Emperor Meiji which commemorates anyone who had died in service of Japan. More than two millions names are honoured here. But it is surrounded in controversy thanks to the presence of a number of war criminals from the Second World War there, including 14 that the US categorised as Class A, the worst kind.
Annual visits to the shrine by Japanese PMs from the Liberal Democrat Party are a constant source of anger across much of Asia where it is seen as a sign of Japan's reticence to address its wartime atrocities.
The museum attached to the shrine is an extraordinary act of revisionism, describing Japanese militarism in the most benevolent terms, as some sort of anti-colonial liberator and skipping over its atrocities and massacres such as Nanjing and the treatment of POWs.
Tokyo
Ladies in traditional kimonos leave the Yasukuni Shrine
Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine founded by Emperor Meiji which commemorates anyone who had died in service of Japan. More than two millions names are honoured here. But it is surrounded in controversy thanks to the presence of a number of war criminals from the Second World War there, including 14 that the US categorised as Class A, the worst kind.
Annual visits to the shrine by Japanese PMs from the Liberal Democrat Party are a constant source of anger across much of Asia where it is seen as a sign of Japan's reticence to address its wartime atrocities.
The museum attached to the shrine is an extraordinary act of revisionism, describing Japanese militarism in the most benevolent terms, as some sort of anti-colonial liberator and skipping over its atrocities and massacres such as Nanjing and the treatment of POWs.