The Chinese Communist Party is resurrecting one of its favorite complaints against the Japanese government, decrying officials’ routine visit to a shrine honoring dead soldiers of World War II.
Over 120 Japanese lawmakers visited Yasukuni Shrine on Wednesday, including ministers within Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government. The premier herself sent a ritual offering to the shrine on Tuesday, followed by a personal monetary offering on Wednesday.
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“The many war dead laid the foundation for a peaceful and prosperous Japan,” said House of Representatives member Ichiro Aisawa, a longtime member of Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party. “We must firmly pass down the memories and records of war to keep them from fading.”
Approximately 14 Japanese leaders of World War II are enshrined within the holy site and considered deities. This includes the infamous Gen. Hideki Tojo, the prime minister who was convicted of war crimes in 1948 and executed by the U.S. military.
The deification and worship of Japanese war criminals responsible for some of the Japanese Empire’s worst crimes in Korea and China has long been a source of rancor in the region.
During a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun accused Japan of failing to “rightly perceive and deeply reflect on its history of militarist aggression.”
Guo accused Japan of attempting to “change the verdict on its war of aggression and the Class-A war criminals” enshrined within Yasukuni.
He also attempted to link the shrine to Takaichi’s comments last year about the future of Taiwan, warning that the religious ceremony “bears on the political foundation of China-Japan relations” at a time when “Sanae Takaichi’s erroneous remarks on Taiwan” have already had a “grave impact” on bilateral diplomacy.
The CCP exploded with fury in November last year after Takaichi acknowledged the hypothetical invasion of Taiwan as a national security threat that could warrant a military response from Tokyo. Members of the Beijing elite called Takaichi an “evil witch,” and a diplomat stationed in Japan even threatened to “cut off” her “filthy head” following her comments.
That ire has only grown as Takaichi repeatedly refuses to walk back her position, and scooped up a historic victory in a snap election because of it.
“Japanese neo-militarism is rearing its ugly head and gaining strength, threatening to cast a shadow on world peace and security,” Guo warned at the Tuesday press conference — it is a recurring appeal to the international community that has largely fallen on deaf ears outside China’s direct sphere of influence.
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Takaichi notably did not worship at Yasukuni personally, instead sending her offerings through an intermediary.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the archconservative patriarch of modern Japanese politics who was assassinated in 2022, was the last sitting premier to pay respects at the shrine in-person. That visit, marking his one-year anniversary in office, took place in 2013.
When Abe made the controversial visit, protestations by South Korea and China were taken seriously by the United States, which issued a statement expressing “disappointment” that Japanese leaders would “exacerbate tensions” with their neighbors.
