Explainer: Why is Yasukuni Shrine symbol of Japanese militarism?

BEIJING, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Yasukuni Shrine has long been a political flashpoint across Asia. For countries like China and South Korea, its very existence is an unhealed historical trauma.

Any visit or even ritual offerings by Japanese officials is seen as a provocation, drawing immediate, fierce condemnation. When Shinzo Abe, then prime minister, visited Yasukuni in 2013, the backlash was so widespread that even the United States made a rare public expression of "disappointment."

No sitting prime minister has visited the shrine since, yet Sanae Takaichi has signalled she may break the precedent.

Fresh from her victory in the lower house election, Takaichi floated the prospect of a visit on Sunday, saying she had been working to "create an environment" conducive to paying respects at the shrine.

In response, China's foreign ministry urged prudence and a clean break with militarism. "Amnesia of history means betrayal, and denial of responsibility spells relapse," said spokesperson Lin Jian.

What makes Yasukuni such a potent taboo, why is it so detested by the neighboring countries and what ties does it have to Japanese militarism?

WHO ARE ENSHRINED?

Amid the upheaval of the Meiji Restoration, the Yasukuni Shrine was initially built by order of Emperor Meiji to honor those who died in the civil war that paved the way for Japan's modernization -- and, unfortunately, militarism.

In the late Meiji era, Japan launched the First Sino-Japanese War, forcing China to cede Taiwan to Japan.

Originally called Shokonsha, dedicated to the spirits of the war dead, the shrine was later renamed Yasukuni, meaning to "preserve peace for the entire nation."

Today, Yasukuni presents itself as a "shrine of peace," enshrining 2.47 million "divinities" who it says "sacrificed their lives in the course of fulfilling their public duty to protect their motherland." Notably, 2.13 million souls contributed to Japan's aggression in World War II.

In the shrine's own account, regardless of their rank, social status and historical role, all are honored equally and "worshipped as venerable divinities."

However, among those "divinities" hide 14 World War II Class-A war criminals -- all convicted at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials and sentenced to penalties ranging from death to imprisonment -- including seven who were executed, five who died while serving their sentences, and two who died before final judgment.

The war criminals were surreptitiously enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine in 1978, an act carried out without public disclosure and remained hidden until April 19, 1979, when major newspapers finally brought it into light.

Together with those convicted under Class B and C categories, Yasukuni commemorates over 1,000 war criminals in total, who are responsible for some of the most horrific atrocities committed in the Pacific Theater.

Yet, aligning with the Japanese government's position, Yasukuni refuses to deem them as criminals under domestic law.

WHAT DID THEY DO?

Hideki Tojo, Japan's prime minister during World War II, ranks among the 14 Class-A war criminals. It was under his leadership that Japan launched its aggression, where millions across the Asia Pacific were brutally killed.

Warfare soon engulfed much of East and Southeast Asia, pushing as far as British-controlled India. Across these occupied territories, Japanese militarists launched large-scale massacres, enforced forced labor and wrought widespread devastation.

Of the 14 Class-A war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni, 13 were directly involved in Japan's war of aggression against China or bore major responsibility for shaping and implementing its invasion policies.

Among them was Iwane Matsui, who ordered the Nanjing Massacre in December 1937. Over the following weeks, Japanese soldiers carried out his orders with ruthless efficiency.

Over 300,000 civilians and disarmed soldiers were slaughtered -- shot, stabbed, buried alive, or drowned. And more than 20,000 women were raped. Japanese troops looted and burned the city, destroying more than a third of the buildings.

According to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East Judgment, the Japanese military perpetrated over 100 large-scale massacres in places like Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand, many commanded by Class-A war criminals.

In the Philippines, Akira Muto oversaw the Manila Massacre, in which roughly 100,000 Filipino civilians were killed. Meanwhile, Heitaro Kimura, dubbed the "Butcher of Burma," presided over the construction of the Thai-Burma "Death Railway," which was built at the cost of forced laborers from Myanmar, Malaysia and Australia with some 100,000 deaths.

The atrocities of the "venerable divinities" enshrined in Yasukuni extend far beyond the battlefield: the forced imposition of Japanese-language education across occupied lands, the sexual enslavement of women and girls, the biological warfare and human experimentation carried out by Unit 731, the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor... and the list goes on.

HOW JAPAN WHITEWASHES ITS TRACK RECORD?

In Yushukan, Yasukuni's historical museum, history is presented from a starkly different perspective.

According to the museum, Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War "inspired dreams of independence in people around the world, especially in Asia."

In its telling, Japan's march across the Asia-Pacific was "unavoidable" and necessary for "national survival and self-defense." Japanese militarists in Southeast Asia were portrayed as liberators rather than occupiers, aiming to rescue the region from Western imperialism and build a self-sufficient regional order.

Beyond distorting history, it brushes aside the atrocities they committed across Asia and the immense suffering of their victims.

Calling it an "incident," the monstrous Nanjing Massacre is reduced to just a few brief lines in the museum: After the fall of Nanjing, "the defeated Chinese rushed to Xiaguan, and they were completely destroyed. The Chinese soldiers disguised in civilian clothes were severely prosecuted."

The museum's display is a masterpiece of selective memory. It proudly showcases a locomotive from the Thai-Burma Railway, gushing over its "wartime importance" and "postwar benefits" but willfully obscuring the brutal reality of its construction: a project synonymous with forced labor, atrocity, and death on a massive scale.

"No matter how much we try to reshape history to fit our own narrative, we only end up hurting and tormenting ourselves," said Haruki Murakami, a famous Japanese writer. "Japan must acknowledge its past aggression and keep apologizing until the oppressed countries accept it."

Despite fierce criticism from Japan's right-wing groups, Murakami has mentioned the Nanjing Massacre in his novel, denouncing it as "extremely wrong to forget or distort" history.

"We must fight historical revisionism. There is only so much a novelist can do, but it is possible to fight through the medium of storytelling," he said.

WHY SHRINE VISIT DRAWS INFURIATION?

The historical revisionism and the evasion of Japan's wartime culpability that Yasukuni embodies have kept it a persistent source of regional tension.

Each visit by Japanese politicians sparks anger in neighboring countries, which view Yasukuni as a spiritual symbol of Japanese militarism and an affront to the victims of its past overseas aggression.

That backlash resurfaced in October 2025, after then Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba sent a ritual offering to the shrine and several senior, right-leaning lawmakers paid visits.

China's foreign ministry slashed the moves as a "blatant challenge to historical justice and human conscience," demanding Japan be prudent on historical issues such as the shrine and completely sever ties with militarism.

South Korea also voiced strong objections, calling on Japanese leaders to face history and stressing that Japan's future relations with its neighbors must rest on "humble reflection and sincere remorse" over its wartime past.

However, Ishiba's successor Sanae Takaichi said in a recent book of interviews that Japan's problem is not what it did in World War II, but that it lost.

"If Japan had won the war, Japan probably wouldn't be blamed by anyone now, and those who started the war would be heroes," said the prime minister. "When victors judge the vanquished, it creates an enduring misery of defeat and hardship for future generations. Yet I believe it is wrong for Japanese people to apologize endlessly simply for being born Japanese."

A regular visitor to the Yasukuni Shrine, the firebrand nationalist has long denied well-documented Japanese war crimes, including the Nanjing Massacre and the forcible conscription of "comfort women" and laborers.

Her recent remarks implying the possibility of armed Japanese intervention in the Taiwan Strait pose "a serious threat to peace and stability" both regionally and globally, said Richard Black, a senior researcher at the Schiller Institute.

"Frankly speaking, militarism is once again on the rise in Japan," he said.

Experts highlighted that even 80 years after its World War II defeat, Japan has failed to answer fundamental questions about "aggression" and "responsibility," revealing a lack of remorse and a distorted understanding of history.

Frank Schumann, a German publisher and writer, told Xinhua that while Germany confiscated the assets of Nazi officials and war criminals, removed "Nazi remnants" from the education and judicial systems, and thoroughly implemented anti-fascist education in the media and cultural spheres, Japan still enshrines Class-A war criminals, and refers to as "incidents" its atrocities committed against Chinese people at the time.

"Japan has not truly reflected on its history of aggression to this day," he said.