Fury at Japan

last updated 8 January 2015

Beijing

China this week canceled a planned visit by Japan’s foreign minister, because of outrage over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s honoring of war criminals. Koizumi this week visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which pays homage to 14 convicted war criminals, along with other war dead. Koizumi has visited the shrine numerous times, but he hinted last summer that he would no longer do so. The shrine has a museum extolling the glories of Japan’s imperial past, which included the brutal conquest of much of China in the 1930s. Koizumi’s aides said that the prime minister visited this time as a private citizen, not as an official—a distinction lost on China. “The Chinese government and people express their strong indignation,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing. “Koizumi should bear all the responsibility for his wrongdoings and for the serious political consequences.”