Japan’s Abe Visits Controversial Shrine

[Nan Yang]

US-Japan Alliance Sparks Korean Grand Strategy Debate

US-Japan Alliance Sparks Korean Grand Strategy Debate | The Diplomat

China is the primary backer of North Korea, which means a South Korean alignment against China only lengthens the division that has dominated Korean political life since the war. This reason alone is sufficient for the Koreans to reject the pivot-cum-containment.

China is also South Korea’s largest export market now.

China had strong cultural connections to Korea for a very long time in the classic Korean feudal period – the beloved Chosun Dynasty. Korea enjoyed pride of place in that Sinocentric tribute system, while Japan was badly behaved little brother. Americans, with their minimal knowledge of East Asian history, generally do not know this or care. But this is deeply important for Koreans, who have a strong (rather exaggerated actually) sense of their national distinctiveness and cultural age.

Finally, the Ming dynasty helped Korea defeat a Japanese invasion in the 1590s (the Imjin War). Again, this is the sort of long-past historical event Americans do not much care to hear about, but the Korean admiral of that conflict is one of the most celebrated figures in Korean history. His statue is all over Korea.

…and Dislikes Japan

Visits to the Yasukuni Shrine are an annual irritant (to the Chinese and Americans as well). It would help enormously if Japan could find a way to honor its war dead without the moral ambiguity of Yasukuni’s presentation of the war.

You can kiss bye bye to any Korea - Japan links

 

[Srinivas]

Chinese warnings department does it again .......

China gives Japan 'severe reprimand' over Shinzo Abe's war shrine visit

BEIJING: China summoned Tokyo's ambassador on Thursday and delivered a "strong protest and severe reprimand" over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the flashpoint Yasukuni shrine, the foreign ministry said.

Foreign minister Wang Yi said the move — the first such visit by an incumbent Japanese prime minister since 2006 — was "a flagrant provocation against international justice and treads arbitrarily on humanity's conscience", according to a ministry statement on its website.

China-Japan relations were "already grim", it said, adding: "It's absolutely intolerable for the Chinese side."

Tensions between the two were already high over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

The Japanese embassy in Beijing said a meeting between Chinese vice-premier Liu Yandong and visiting Japanese lawmakers had been cancelled.

Yasukuni is believed to be the repository of around 2.5 million souls of Japan's war dead, most of them common soldiers but also including 14 high-level officials indicted for war crimes after World War II.

"The essence of Japanese leaders' visits to the Yasukuni shrine is to beautify Japan's history of militaristic aggression and colonial rule," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement immediately after Abe's action.

Abe was "brutally trampling on the feelings of the Chinese people and those of other victimised Asian countries", he added.

China's ruling Communist Party seeks to bolster its public support by tapping into deep-seated resentment of Japan for its brutal invasion of the country in the 1930s.

Before and during World War II Japanese forces swept through much of east Asia, and their treatment of both civilians and prisoners of war was often appalling.

According to estimates by Chinese government researchers, China lost 20.6 million people directly from the war.

The 1937 Nanjing Massacre was one of the worst atrocities. Qin told reporters at a regular briefing that if Abe genuinely wanted to improve relations between Tokyo and its neighbours, "he should go to the memorial for the Nanjing Massacre rather than to Yasukuni shrine".

Even now the two countries' history is a key element of the backdrop to their bitter dispute over islands in the East China Sea, which Beijing sees as having been seized by Tokyo at the start of its expansionism.

The world's second- and third-biggest economies have significant business ties, but politically their relationship is often troubled. At times tensions over the islands have raised fears of a military incident.

Taiwan, which Japan colonised from 1895 to 1945, urged Tokyo to "face the facts and remember the lessons from history to refrain from taking any moves to hurt the people's feelings in neighbouring countries", according to a foreign ministry statement.

In a commentary soon after Abe's shrine visit, Xinhua said he "knows perfectly what he is doing and the consequences".

"Instead of a pledge against war, as Abe has claimed, the visit is a calculated provocation to stoke further tension," it said, adding that the visit "is the culmination of Abe's year-long policy of right-wing nationalism".

Users of China's popular social networks responded with fury, with many noting that Abe made his move on the same day that Chinese President Xi Jinping was paying tribute to Mao Zedong on the 120th anniversary of the former leader's birth.

"The base of Abe's power comes from his confrontation with China, so whatever upsets China, that's what he'll do," said one post.

"No matter what he says about China-Japan friendship, Asian prosperity and joint promotion of peace, it's all a facade."


China gives Japan 'severe reprimand' over Shinzo Abe's war shrine visit - The Times of India

 

[Developereo]

The Chinese strategy should be to shame Japan in the media, and the way to do that is through Hollywood.

Private Chinese enterprise (NOT the government) should commission Hollywood movies starring major western (NOT Chinese) actors, and where the story highlights Japanese atrocities.

 

[armchairPrivate]

Abe visited the criminal altar on Chairman Mao's birthday. If this is not a big fat finger to the Chinese, I don't know what is.

 

[Kolaps]

UNCLOS only gives permission upto 200 Nautical miles maximum beyond that they become international waters, But can you explain the nine dotted line of Chinese and their outrageous claims??

The above is the map showing the regions in which each country has its EEZ based on UNCLOS. And have a look at Chinese claims as if they have ruled SCS for centuries.

The islands owned by Republic of China already before these modern countries of SE Asia exist.

According to UNCLOS, we have 200 Nautical miles maximum around them.

I feel like being bullied and robbed in the daylight, while witnesses are cheering the criminals.

 

[KAL-EL]

Japanese premier got elected not by pleasing what average Chinese wanted, but what Japanese citizen want.

What Chinese think or what they want him to do is not the concern of the Japanese PM, so for him, what would he choose? Pleasing some non-political related entity? Or try to please someone who is essential to his election?

100% correct! Still, a bad move for him to visit in my opinion. I have no connection to Asia, but as a human being, it still feels uncomfortable knowing this man visited a shrine that in part honors war criminals. War criminals that committed devastating atrocities during WWII.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

China should bull doze the facility and return the dug up ashes back to Japan

 

[TruthSeeker]

I have been to the Yasukuni Shrine, though not to the inner portion as I am a gaijin. It was, by my observation, very inspiring to elderly Japanese military veterans. All nations, including the Japanese, are entitled to their heroes and honored ancestors. The fact that Chinese celebrate the birthday of one of the most vicious megalomaniacal killers in the history of man, Mao Tse-tung, shows that the Chinese have no moral standing to criticize Abe for honoring the patriots of his own country at Yasukuni.

 

[eazzy]

^^ Learn some history.

 

[BigDaddyWatch]

I have been to the Yasukuni Shrine, though not to the inner portion as I am a gaijin. It was, by my observation, very inspiring to elderly Japanese military veterans. All nations, including the Japanese, are entitled to their heroes and honored ancestors. The fact that Chinese celebrate the birthday of one of the most vicious megalomaniacal killers in the history of man, Mao Tse-tung, shows that the Chinese have no moral standing to criticize Abe for honoring the patriots of his own country at Yasukuni.

I suppose you will have no problems with Germans honoring their heroes from WWII like Hermann Goering or Heinrich Himmler.

And since Americans are still honoring the mass murderers of the native Indians that your so proudly call your "founding fathers" or the collection of rapists and murderers that's call the US military (think Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan) shows that Americans have no sense of morality what so ever. And have no right to speak about others.

 

[Obambam]

I have been to the Yasukuni Shrine, though not to the inner portion as I am a gaijin. It was, by my observation, very inspiring to elderly Japanese military veterans. All nations, including the Japanese, are entitled to their heroes and honored ancestors. The fact that Chinese celebrate the birthday of one of the most vicious megalomaniacal killers in the history of man, Mao Tse-tung, shows that the Chinese have no moral standing to criticize Abe for honoring the patriots of his own country at Yasukuni.

You may as well worship Osama Bin Laden or put on a Nazis costume and perform the Nazis salute in public. I am sure the public will love you for it.

 

[jhungary]

That's the dark part of democratic system. In most cases, ordinary people social attitudes are short sight and selfish. Politicians are supposed to be more rational than others. If they are keen on pleasing most voters unconditionally, it's very possible that the country would be led to wrong way.

is’t your local polly is as short sighted and selfished like the commonbunch? so isbit less riskier to trust a bunch of short sighed, selfished moron than to allow a single short sighted moron for calling all the shot?At least when things start going down in drain, you get to say ”i told you so"

 

[EastSea]

Deng Xiaoping was murder, he initiate Sino - Vietnam war to protect Khmer Rouge, crime regime in Cambodia. They were murders too. How many innocent Vietnamese and Cambodian were killed brutally by Polpot and his camrades of China. How amy Vietnamese were killed in nonsense war 1979 by Chinese ?

But Chinese respected him as great leader of China. Look at yourselves first, Chinese warmongers.

 

[BigDaddyWatch]

Deng Xiaoping was murder, he initiate Sino - Vietnam war to protect Khmer Rouge, crime regime in Cambodia. They were murders too. How many innocent Vietnamese and Cambodian were killed brutally by Polpot and his camrades of China. How amy Vietnamese were killed in nonsense war 1979 by Chinese ?

But Chinese respected him as great leader of China. Look at yourselves first, Chinese warmongers.

Errr wrong. The Sino-Vietnam war was about border disputes and it was also about stopping Vietnamese expantion in SE Asia. And that's being appreciated in the region. Certainly by Cambodia.

 

[sincity]

I have been to the Yasukuni Shrine, though not to the inner portion as I am a gaijin. It was, by my observation, very inspiring to elderly Japanese military veterans. All nations, including the Japanese, are entitled to their heroes and honored ancestors. The fact that Chinese celebrate the birthday of one of the most vicious megalomaniacal killers in the history of man, Mao Tse-tung, shows that the Chinese have no moral standing to criticize Abe for honoring the patriots of his own country at Yasukuni.

Do you have document Mao ordered slaughter of millions of Chinese by tanks, or bombs dropped by fighter bombers? You tried to guilt Mao as a mass murderer then you need proof to make your case, Mao decision of spearheaded great leap forward plus the great famine during that time caused millions of dead. How can you equate Mao intention and supported the Japanese intention of mass slaughter and atrocity during the war. This kind of shit ain't fly if you have knowledge of history and not bias with your view.