Japan’s Abe sends donation to Yasukuni Shrine on War Anniversary

TIL Desk/World/Tokyo-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual donation to a controversial Tokyo war shrine Monday — the 71st anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II — but avoided visiting in an apparent nod to China and South Korea.

Yasukuni Shrine honours millions of mostly Japanese war dead, as well as senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes after the war. The indigenous Shinto religious shrine has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism by countries that suffered from Japan’s colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century.

Abe visited in December 2013 to mark his first year in power, a pilgrimage that sparked fury in Beijing and Seoul and earned a diplomatic rebuke from close ally the United States, which said it was “disappointed” by the action. He and other nationalists say the shrine is merely a place to remember fallen soldiers and compare it to burial grounds such as Arlington National Cemetery in the US.