Japan Press Weekly

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2024 January 10 - 16 [POLITICS]

GSDF vice chief of staff visits Yasukuni shrine

Vice Chief of Staff of the Ground Self-Defense Force Lt. Gen. Kobayashi Hiroki, the GSDF No. 2 post, on January 9 paid a visit to the war-glorifying Yasukuni Shrine.

He apparently visited the shrine on official duty because he went there in an official car. His visit may have violated the principle of separation of state and religion as stipulated in Article 20 of the Japanese Constitution. In addition, it is tantamount to advocating Yasukuni’s view of history which glosses over Japan’s past war of aggression.

Kobayashi in an Akahata interview answered that he visits the shrine every year.

Before and during WWII, administered by the former Ministries of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, the shrine was a military-religious institution honoring the war dead as “heroes” and mobilizing the people for the war of aggression. The shrine undertook a role as an emotional prop for Japanese militarism.

After WWII, the shrine claims that the past war of aggression was a “just war”.