A change in attitude in Japan over the suffering the country inflicted on other nations looks increasingly unlikely. 

About 50 young parliamentary members formed a research group on June 22 to show their support for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine. An official plenary session of the group is due today.

Shinzo Abe, acting secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, is a member of the group. It is thought he could become the new prime minister next year.

A diehard supporter of Koizumi's annual pilgrimages to the shrine, Abe has been bolstering the Japanese prime minister at every opportunity. He has repeatedly criticized China and South Korea for "interfering with Japan's internal affairs" on the issue of history.

This is the reality we are going to face in the near future. And this is part of the reason the current prime minister is bent on having his own way. He continues to show respect for war criminals even though he has apologized for what Japan did during World War II.

Koizumi told a parliamentary committee that he felt no obligation to bow to pressure from China and South Korea to stop visiting the shrine, which honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead including 14 Class-A WWII war criminals.

"I do not think we should just do what South Korea says nor just do what China says," Koizumi said.

This was his response to Katsuya Okada, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan. He accused Koizumi of making comments to encourage nationalism to increase his approval ratings.

Koizumi might be ready for the fact that the shrine and history textbooks that whitewash Japan's wartime atrocities are having diplomatic consequences for Japan, and rattling nerves across Asia.

But Koizumi needs to know his annual visit to the shrine is not an issue his neighbors will ignore.

He has made it clear he will not regard any other site as a "replacement" for the Yasukuni Shrine.

Okada has urged Koizumi to build a secular memorial for the war dead to avoid the dispute over Yasukuni.

Visits by a prime minister and other top officials to Yasukuni are the height of bad manners because the shrine openly defends Class-A war criminals.

In 1978, Yasukuni, operated by a private Shinto religious foundation, secretly enshrined 14 Class-A war criminals who were convicted by an international tribunal after World War II.

"Both sides do wrong in war. It is erroneous to label only countries that win as right and nations that lose as wrong." Those were the words of Masahiro Morioka, the parliamentary secretary for health, labor and welfare, at a meeting in Tokyo of lawmakers from various parties late in May.

Morioka also said that Class-A war criminals are no longer regarded as criminals in Japan, and called the tribunal "one-sided."

Political forces supporting the shrine often argue that the war Japan waged in the 1930s and 1940s was for self-defense and not one of aggression.

So what is the Yasukuni Shrine?

Shrine officials said that as a result of revisions between 1953 and 1955 to laws concerning government relief for families of the war dead, the government began treating convicted war criminals the same as the nation's war dead.

The shrine unapologetically describes the 14 war criminals as martyrs who were "unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of allied forces."

The Yasukuni website explains the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1942 and the invasions of China and Southeast Asia like this: "To maintain the independence and peace of the nation and for the prosperity of all Asia, Japan was forced into conflict."

Yasukuni, which means "peaceful nation," is supposed to be a place to reflect on the sorrow of war. But the keepers of the shrine are clearly more sensitive to Japan's suffering than the suffering it inflicted on others.

Koizumi has reiterated his opinion on his visits to the shrine, saying "in any country, it is completely natural for a person to express his heartfelt sorrow for those who lost their lives for their country.

"Some people say they do not understand such a feeling but it may differ from country to country. I think we just have to keep making efforts in the future to generate understanding from other countries."

His "efforts" involve visiting the shrine and paying homage to war criminals. In our opinion, this generates no understanding whatsoever.

(China Daily June 27, 2005)