I was stunned by news reports that Junichiro Koizumi recently made his third visit as prime minister to Yasukuni Shrine. After his two previous visits drew strong protests from China and South Korea, and after he struggled to justify the visits, officials in both countries must be amazed and angered.
Former Prime Ministers Yasuhiro Nakasone and Ryutaro Hashimoto each paid homage at the shrine once while in office, but neither made further visits following protests from China and South Korea. Koizumi may assume that the two countries will throw up their hands and accept the visits to the shrine, regarded by some as a symbol of Japanese militarism, if he repeats them enough.
The Japanese press has also criticized the Yasukuni visits. Only two of Japan's six national dailies with circulations of more than 2 million support Koizumi's Yasukuni visits. The four others disapprove of Koizumi's behavior on the grounds that Class-A war criminals are enshrined at Yasukuni along with other military war dead, and that the visits are incompatible with the separation of politics and religion under the Constitution.