TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan marked the 80th anniversary of its World War Two defeat on Friday, with at least one cabinet minister joining thousands of visitors at a shrine that Japan’s Asian neighbours view as a symbol of its wartime aggression.
Shinjiro Koizumi, Japan’s agriculture minister and a contender in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race last year, arrived at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo early on Friday.
Among the 2.5 million war dead commemorated at the shrine are 14 wartime leaders convicted of the most serious war crimes, along with over 1,000 others found guilty by Allied tribunals after Japan’s 1945 defeat.
China and South Korea have criticised past visits by senior Japanese officials that they say gloss over Tokyo’s wartime actions and damage diplomatic ties.
“It is important never to forget to show respect to those who gave their lives for their country, regardless of which nation it is. I believe this is a very important principle,” Koizumi told reporters.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attended a separate war memorial event in Tokyo along with Emperor Naruhito.
“August 15 is a day to mourn the war dead and commemorate peace. The government will continue to express gratitude to the war dead and their families,” government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a regular press briefing.
No sitting Japanese prime minister has visited the Yasukuni Shrine since Shinzo Abe in December 2013, drawing an expression of disappointment from then-U.S. President Barack Obama.
The last premier to visit on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender was Koizumi’s father, Junichiro Koizumi, in 2006.
Former economic security ministers Sanae Takaichi and Takayuki Kobayashi also went to the shrine, local media reported. Both ran in last year’s LDP leadership election.
Ishiba on Friday sent an offering to the shrine, according to local media. One he made in October provoked criticism from both South Korea, a Japanese colony for 35 years, and China, whose territories were occupied by Japanese forces in World War Two.
There was no immediate response from China’s Foreign Ministry when asked about the visit by Koizumi and other lawmakers.
The anniversary comes ahead of an expected meeting with South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung who will visit Japan on Aug 23-24 to discuss regional security and trilateral ties with the U.S.
On August 15, his country celebrates its liberation from Japanese colonial rule.
While relations between Tokyo and Seoul have often been strained, the two countries are deepening security cooperation to counter China’s growing influence and the threat posed to both by nuclear-armed North Korea.
As many 88 national and local lawmakers from Japan’s far-right Sanseito Party also visited Yasukuni, local media reported. The ‘Japanese First’ party wants to curb immigration, which it says is a threat to Japanese culture.
In July’s upper house election, it won 13 new seats, drawing support away from Ishiba’s LDP.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly, Irene Wang and Joseph Campbell; Additional reporting by Liz Lee in Beijing; Editing by Saad Sayeed and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
