What to do about Yasukuni?

Obeika said:

I just think it's a shame that JSDF personel that died in service defending Japan can not be enshrined there, only those that died fighting in a war of agression.
To me at least those that died defending Japan, the JSDF, should be honored in the same way.

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I think so.
However, as long as the official position of JSDF is not clearly defined, it's difficult. Yasukuni won't refuse to enshrine the victims of JSDF, but they can't do that today. The government should decide about this legally.
Anyway a few of our neighbour countries may complain it.

By the way, do you know the fact of that;
At the time of Korean war, Japan carried out minesweeping of Korean sea area by American request.
This mission was secret. Because Japan was under occupation, and she didn't have "official" Navy at that time.
The victims in this mission were enshrined at Kotohira shrine known as "Konpirasan" in Kagawa.
Kotohira shrine is the deity as the guardian of the sea.
In spring and autumn every year, JSDF ships come to the port of Takamatsu, my hometown, to visit Kotohira shrine.

Mikawa Ossan said:

Saying that they were refused internment implies that internment was applied for. Do you know if this is the case? (I don't know.)
Because that's different than going straight to the Gokoku shrine without applying and being denied internment at Yasukuni.

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I will try to find the thread again where there was a link included with information about this topic.

I am pretty sure I read it somewhere here on this forum.
I don't know about the "going straight to Gokoku with applying" part though.

Lee Pays Respects at Yasukuni

"We didn't receive my brother's belongings or his body, so my father did not believe that my brother had passed away. That was why we did not build a tomb for him," Lee said.

"Because he is my brother, it is natural that I visit (the shrine) and pay my most sincere respects to him," the former president told the press.

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A retired old man who might not live for a long time finally met his elder brother's spirit. Some media reported that Dr. Lee was teary-eyed.

Anyone who can spit acid words about that is a savage.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/06/06/japan.lee.reut/index.html

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui, despised by Beijing for asserting the self-ruled island's sovereignty, paid his respects at a Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine on Thursday, despite China's objections.

Lee's visit could cast a cloud over the recent thaw in Sino-Japanese relations, although a Japanese government spokesman said it would have "nearly zero effect" on ties.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on Lee's pilgrimage to Yasukuni, which is seen by many in Asia as a symbol of Japan's militarism before and during World War Two.

But Beijing had earlier warned Japan it risked harming ties by allowing Lee to visit the country. Tokyo had countered that his trip was for tourism and should have no impact on relations.

Lee, 84, told a news conference before going that his pilgrimage to Yasukuni was a personal matter to pay respects to his elder brother, who died fighting for the Japanese during World War Two, when Taiwan was a Japanese colony.

"It is completely personal, please don't think of anything political or historical," he said, speaking in Japanese. "As family, showing respect to my elder brother by visiting the shrine is something I must do."

Some 300 supporters of Lee, who was educated in Japan and led Taiwan from 1988 to 2000, shouted "banzai" (long life) when he arrived at the shrine. Some waved Japanese flags.

Yasukuni honors millions of Japanese war dead -- among them soldiers from Taiwan and Korea who fought for Japan, their colonial ruler at the time -- but also some convicted war criminals, including wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo.
Fragile rapprochement

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had said Japan was a free country and would not prevent Lee from visiting the shrine.

Lee's pilgrimage could damage the fragile rapprochement in Sino-Japanese ties that began after Abe took office in September and made an ice-breaking trip to Beijing.

Relations had worsened under Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, largely due to Koizumi's annual visits to Yasukuni.

Before becoming prime minister, Abe had backed Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni shrine, but he has declined to say whether he would go there while in the country's top post.

Some diplomats said Lee's move was partly an appeal to conservative Japanese politicians who favor tighter ties with Taiwan, with which Tokyo has no formal diplomatic ties.

Beijing has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when China's Nationalist forces fled to the island after losing power on the mainland to Mao Zedong's Communists.

Unlike much of Asia, which harbors deep resentment toward Japan due to its wartime aggression, Taiwan maintains a more friendly attitude toward its neighbor to the north.

Taiwan was already a Japanese colony when World War II broke out and was largely spared the fighting and harsh treatment meted out to many of the countries that Japan occupied during the war.

Many in Taiwan also credit Japan for helping to modernize the island and maintain rule and order there.

In another move that might irk Beijing, Japan's Justice Ministry decided to let U.S.-based Chinese pro-democracy activist Wei Jingsheng enter the country for medical tests, Kyodo reported.

Wei had arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport at the weekend to attend an event to mark the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators that killed hundreds, possible thousands, of students and workers.

But Japanese immigration authorities had refused him permission to enter the country because he lacked a visa. He has been staying at a hotel near the airport since his arrival.

Wei, 57, suffers from diabetes, Kyodo said.

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Tired of discussions about Chinese and Koreans?

Each Southeast Asian country has a different dialect for every neighborhood of their country. Say, for instance you mix a guy from the country with a guy from the city. One thinks, he's such a faggot. The other thinks, dang he's too girly and old fashioned.
Everywhere you go, even in the United States of America, people deal with hating one another. Cause it's easier! Easier to categorize people so you can just get on with your life. But usually, instead of relying on what older people say about our history of what remains from the world wars, make friends with people of different ethnicities and try to view people like they are from a prism of colors. I mean everybody, even poor people. Don't ever make fun of somebody cause they are ugly or not smart enough. If you are ever bloodguilty from hiding the truth from them, you have no answer to give to God in the end. By the way, what did they say about koreans? bakame

Emperor Hirohito expressed "deep sorrow" about Yasukuni Shrine

Emperor Hirohito held "the view that the enshrinement of Class-A war criminals would leave a deep source of problems for the future with regard to countries involved in war" with Japan:

TOKYO, Aug. 4 KYODO

Late emperor concerned over Class-A war criminals damaging ties

The late Emperor Hirohito was concerned about Yasukuni Shrine's enshrinement of Class-A war criminals because he thought it would adversely affect Japan's future relations with the countries Japan had fought in World War II, according to a onetime aide to the emperor.
It was reported in July last year that a memorandum by a former Imperial Household Agency chief showed that the late emperor had expressed displeasure about the Tokyo shrine's honoring of Class-A war criminals. But the specific reasons for the emperor's discontent regarding the enshrinement were not known.
The late Yoshihiro Tokugawa, a former grand chamberlain to Emperor Hirohito, told poet Hirohiko Okano about what he claimed were the views of the emperor, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, according to Okano.
Tokugawa visited Okano, a prominent Japanese poet who had been on the jury of the Imperial New Year's poetry reading since 1979, in the fall of 1986 to seek his advice regarding dozens of ''waka'' poems composed by Emperor Hirohito, Okano said.
One of the poems had a line expressing ''anxiety'' about Yasukuni Shrine. Okano asked Tokugawa what the ''anxiety'' referred to and Tokugawa cited the honoring of Class-A war criminals at the shrine, according to Okano.
Tokugawa was then quoted as saying, ''His majesty holds a view opposed to the enshrinement of Class-A war criminals. There are two reasons.''
''One is that he believes it alters the nature of the enshrined deities when (Yasukuni Shrine) is made to honor the souls of people who went to war for the country and died in wars,'' the grand chamberlain was quoted as saying of the shrine's move to honor Class-A war criminals.
Tokugawa also said that Emperor Hirohito held ''the view that it will leave a deep source of problems for the future with regard to countries involved in war'' with Japan, according to Okano.
In explaining the background to the composition of the verse, the former grand chamberlain told Okano, ''If such 'anxiety' had been explicitly represented in the poem, it would have had an adverse effect, so a request was made to add a touch of euphemism,'' said Okano, who was a professor at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo at the time Tokugawa consulted him.
Emperor Hirohito paid homage at Yasukuni eight times after World War II and made his last visit in November 1975. Yasukuni added 14 Class-A war criminals including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo to its list of those honored at the shrine in 1978.
The current emperor, Akihito, has not visited Yasukuni since ascending to the imperial throne on the death of his father, Emperor Hirohito, in 1989.
Yasukuni has been a constant source of diplomatic disputes since then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone visited it along with Cabinet ministers on Aug. 15, 1985, the anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific theater. After fierce protests from China and other neighboring countries, Nakasone did not pay a visit the following year.
Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the shrine every year while he was in office from 2001 to last year, heightening anti-Japan sentiment in China and elsewhere.
Current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe maintains a policy of remaining ambiguous about visits to the shrine.
The shrine's precursor was built in 1869 and was renamed Yasukuni Shrine in 1879. It was built to honor those who died in wars fought by the Japanese government. The majority of the around 2.5 million people enshrined at Yasukuni were military servicemen and civilian employees of the Japanese military.
==Kyodo

Found in: Kyodo News: http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=329535