Japan's top leaders are tempting fate. They are waving a red flag at the bulls. And they are doing so at just the wrong time.
On April 20 and 21, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso and two other Cabinet members visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine. This was followed by a visit by 168 members of the Diet, mostly from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party.
The shrine unfortunately serves several conflicting purposes. In principle it is a memorial to the dead from all of Japan's wars — a kind of Arlington Cemetery in U.S. terms. But it also enshrines several former officials and soldiers who were convicted as Class A war criminals after World War II.