How is he going to evict Obama's troops from Japanese bases, or face the angry Japanese people?
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Yasuk...sia_afp/japanpoliticswarshrine_20100615065112
Members of a right-wing Japanese nationalist group marches into the controversial Yasukuni shrine in …
New Japan PM says he won't visit Tokyo war shrine
AFP
New Japan PM says he won't visit Tokyo war shrine AFP/File –
22 mins ago
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's new Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday he would stay away from a controversial war shrine in Tokyo seen as a symbol of the country's past military aggression by its Asian neighbours.
"Class-A war criminals are enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine," Kan told the upper house. "It's problematic for the prime minister or a cabinet member to visit it. I don't intend to visit it while I'm in office."
The Yasukuni Shrine, which honours 2.5 million war dead, including 14 top war criminals, is reviled especially by China and the two Koreas which suffered under Japanese aggression before and during World War II.
Kan and his centre-left Democratic Party of Japan, which came to power in September, have long opposed Yasukuni visits by past conservative prime ministers and recommended building a new non-religious war memorial.
Kan's predecessor Yukio Hatoyama -- who abruptly stepped down this month for his inept handling of a row over a US airbase on Okinawa island -- refrained from visiting the shrine during its autumn festival in October.
Former conservative prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who led the now opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), prayed once a year at the shrine during his 2001-2006 tenure.
His annual pilgrimages enraged China and South Korea, which refused to hold summits with him. Koizumi's three LDP successors avoided visiting the shrine but sometimes gave traditional offerings, which also prompted angry responses from Beijing and Seoul.
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Yasuk...sia_afp/japanpoliticswarshrine_20100615065112
Members of a right-wing Japanese nationalist group marches into the controversial Yasukuni shrine in …
New Japan PM says he won't visit Tokyo war shrine
AFP
New Japan PM says he won't visit Tokyo war shrine AFP/File –
22 mins ago
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's new Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday he would stay away from a controversial war shrine in Tokyo seen as a symbol of the country's past military aggression by its Asian neighbours.
"Class-A war criminals are enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine," Kan told the upper house. "It's problematic for the prime minister or a cabinet member to visit it. I don't intend to visit it while I'm in office."
The Yasukuni Shrine, which honours 2.5 million war dead, including 14 top war criminals, is reviled especially by China and the two Koreas which suffered under Japanese aggression before and during World War II.
Kan and his centre-left Democratic Party of Japan, which came to power in September, have long opposed Yasukuni visits by past conservative prime ministers and recommended building a new non-religious war memorial.
Kan's predecessor Yukio Hatoyama -- who abruptly stepped down this month for his inept handling of a row over a US airbase on Okinawa island -- refrained from visiting the shrine during its autumn festival in October.
Former conservative prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who led the now opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), prayed once a year at the shrine during his 2001-2006 tenure.
His annual pilgrimages enraged China and South Korea, which refused to hold summits with him. Koizumi's three LDP successors avoided visiting the shrine but sometimes gave traditional offerings, which also prompted angry responses from Beijing and Seoul.
