Chinese Ambassador blasts Abe for Yasukuni visit

Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua strongly blasted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the latter’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine through a newspaper op-ed piece.

In his op-ed piece published in the Mainichi Shimbun on Monday, Cheong said, “Prime Minister Abe made a pledge not to engage in war at the Yasukuni Shrine, but the venue was wrong. Conscientious people around the world have strong antipathy to and suspicion about it.”

Cheong said, “The Yasukuni Shrine was the mental anchor for Japan’s aggression into foreign countries, and currently holds ancestral rites for Class-A war criminals, and is spreading a historical view that is incompatible with international opinion. The best example is Yushukan within the shrine. Yushukan is Japan’s first war memorial, and regards Japan’s aggression into Asian countries as a “movement to liberalize Asia.”

Ambassador Cheng said, “We have no objection to ordinary citizens paying respect to their late relatives (at the shrine), but Japanese leaders’ visit cannot be tolerated because it is related with how (Tokyo) is recognizing the characteristic of and responsibility for its war of aggression.”