Former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui said Saturday in Tokyo that China and South Korea have lashed out at Japanese leaders over Yasukuni Shrine mainly because of their own domestic political problems, and Japan should not let other countries intervene in honoring its war dead.
Lee, speaking in Japanese at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, also criticized the media for playing up and politicizing his "private" visit to the war-related shrine.
"Yasukuni issues have been made up just because China and Korea could not handle their own domestic problems. And Japan has been too weak (in reacting to the protests)," said the 84-year-old Lee, who led Taiwan from 1988 to 2000.