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Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Koizumi's Yasukuni visit negatively affects Japan's diplomacy

Japanese Communist Party House of Councilors members used their time for questionings at Diet committee meetings on October 21 to point out that Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro's visits to Yasukuni Shrine adversely affect Japan's diplomacy.

At the House of Councilors Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, JCP representative Ogata Yasuo said that the prime minister's Yasukuni visits will have an adverse effect on the Six-Party Talks and future Japan-North Korea talks. He referred to the South Korean government comment indicating that his visits to the shrine honoring Japan's war dead including war criminals will not have a positive influence on the Six-Party Talks.

JCP representative Daimon Mikishi at the House of Councilors Finance Committee meeting stated that the prime minister's Yasukuni visits will have a negative impact on the effort to unite the East Asia community.

While expressing the government's hope for an East Asian community to be established, Finance Minister Tanigaki Sadakazu stated, "The prime minister said that he visited Yasukuni Shrine as a private citizen. It should not be taken so seriously." -- Akahata, October 21, 2005

Yasukuni Shrine

Yasukuni Shrine, located in central Tokyo, is a Shinto shrine dedicated to soldiers and civilians in the army who died during the past wars in the name of the emperor (Tenno).

Until the end of World War II, Yasukuni Shrine was the spiritual mainstay of militarism and wars of aggression, and after the war, it added former Prime Minister Tojo Hideki and other Class-A war criminals venerated as "martyrs" to war dead enshrined there.

Yasukuni Shrine's true mission is clear from the war museum literature on its compounds, "Yushukan." A booklet describes the Pacific War as an unavoidable war and states that the United States is to blame for the outbreak of the Pacific War.

The Japanese prime minister's Yasukuni visits amount to government endorsement of the argument that the past Japanese wars of aggression were just wars.