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Nine Japanese Cabinet Members Visit Yasukuni Shrine
Nine Japanese cabinet members Tuesday visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo to pay respects to Japan's war dead on the 55th anniversary of the country's surrender in World War II.
The nine ministers included Justice Minister Okiharu Yasuoka, Education Minister Tadamori Oshima, International Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma and Defense Agency chief Kazuo Torashima.
Tuesday's visits bring to ten the total of cabinet ministers who paid respects at the shrine this year, up from last year's nine. Home Affairs Minister Mamoru Nishida visited the shrine last Friday.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa have said they will not visit Yasukuni after "taking all circumstances into consideration."
Japanese cabinet members' visits to the shrine, a bastion of the wartime military government-sponsored Shintoism and symbol of militarism in Japan before and during World War II, often draw condemnation from Japan's Asian neighbors, which suffered atrocities of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.
The shrine houses the memorial tablets of 14 class-A war criminals, including wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo, and some 2.4 million Japanese military personnel and officials who died since 1853 in Japan's various wars.
Cabinet ministers' visits to the shrine are also controversial as Japan's postwar Constitution stipulates separation of religion and the state.
In a rare development, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara also visited the shrine Tuesday despite criticism from several local civic groups, becoming the first Tokyo governor to make an official visit since the Tokyo metropolitan government starting recording such visits in 1967.
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