TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine for war dead on Saturday, the 75th anniversary of Japan’s World War Two defeat, a ruling party lawmaker said, but refrained from a personal visit that would anger Beijing and Seoul.
Past visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni have outraged South Korea and China because the shrine, dedicated to the country’s 2.5 million war dead, also honors 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal.
Bitter memories of Japan’s past military aggression run deep in China and the two Koreas, and ties with Seoul have been strained by a feud over compensation for Koreans forced to work in Japan’s wartime mines and factories.
(Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski, Ju-min Park; Writing by Linda Sieg; editing by Grant McCool)
