Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday dedicated a masakaki tree offering to Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines not only Japan's 2.34 million war dead but also Class-A war criminals. By not visiting Japan's war shrine during its spring festival, Abe apparently tried to avoid frictions with the United States ahead of his talks with U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday. Washington had said earlier that it was "disappointed" that Abe visited Yasukuni on Dec. 26.
Abe should realize that even if he did not visit the shrine this time, other countries will still interpret his dedication of an offering to the shrine as evidence that he supports the role the shrine played during Japan's wars in the 1930s and '40s and that the prime minister is making light of Japan's aggression against other Asian countries during the period.
Abe's visit to Yasukuni in December followed his repeated statements that it was a "matter of the greatest regret" that he could not visit Yasukuni during his first stint as prime minister from September 2006 to September 2007. Although he refrained from visiting the shrine this time, he allowed two members of his Cabinet to do so. Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Yoshitaka Shindo visited April 12 and Keiji Furuya, chairman of the National Public Safety Commission and state minister in charge of the issue of North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals, paid a pilgrimage on Sunday.