Japan's neighbors are expressing great indignation over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Aug. 13 visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, where the spirits of 14 convicted World War II war criminals are enshrined among some 2.5 million of Japan's war dead over the past two centuries. His decision to go early, rather than on Aug. 15 -- the 56th anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender -- has done little to temper the criticism of those at home and abroad who did not want him to visit (while also upsetting visit supporters, who see the date change as caving in to China and South Korea).
Many point to Koizumi's visit as further proof of Japan being unable to deal with its past, but the opposite is the case. Not going to the shrine solves nothing; it merely postpones the reckoning. I believe Koizumi was right to visit the shrine for much the same reasons that former President Bill Clinton (a Vietnam War protestor) had an obligation to visit Washington's Vietnam War Memorial on Veteran's Day: not to glorify war or justify what he (and many others) saw as an unjust military campaign, but to honor those who sacrificed their lives for their country and, equally important, to help continue the healing process.
Unfortunately, the prime minister lost a great opportunity to move the reconciliation process forward by failing to seize this opportunity to more specifically atone for Japan's past. Koizumi said that he wanted "to express heartfelt sympathy to those who became victims of the nation in spite of themselves." This is appropriate, but it is not enough. He also needed to express his own and his nation's heartfelt apology for the deeds of those "handful of war criminals" whose spirits reside among the "victims."