�� The birth of Yasukuni shrine
・Yasukuni shrine was built in1869, at Meiji era. It was a memorial
service shrine for war victims of Boshin war which was the longest and hardest civil
war with Tokugawa shogunate groups at that time. Protagonist of it was Masujiro
Ohmura who was a general of Meiji troop and famous for his smartness. He tried to
motivate soldiers to devout themselves to the war by showing that Meiji government
would appreciate their bravery through enshrining war victims. It was administrated
by Grand and Maritime defense departments and these decided whom they should
enshrine. After their decision was approved by Meiji emperor, victims were enshrined.
However, it was famous for as an amusement place not as a shrine during peaceful
time. Not only memorial rituals but also magic show (even professional wrestling!!)
took place at its lot. You can find an introduction of Yasukuni shrine in a travel map at
that time. If you promised to meet at Yasukuni shrine with friends, it meant to hang
out with them.
In 1927 , first national foundation festival took place at Yasukuni shrine . Yasukuni
was gradually recognized as a national shrine from this year . Governmental
campaign to nationalize Yasukuni shrine was reinforced more and more after 1927, it
became finally a part of politics. Military personnel were told they could be Gods, if
they had been dead in war.Generals agitated young militants to die in war. Many personnel
exchanged last words before they went to front line “See you again in Yasukuni”.
When families knew their children’s death, they said their children had become Gods.
�� What caused Yasukuni issue in Japan?
・All prime ministers attended to worship to Yasukuni for more than 20 years without
criticism from Asian countries. This problem had started to arise when prime minister
Miki declared he would visit Yasukuni as a private person.※1 I don’t know why he
said it, but it resulted in giving a reason Asian countries to criticize Japan. To matters
worse, Class A war criminals were enshrined in 1978 during Fukuda administration
who was known as a hawkish politician. This problem became multiply dimensional:
Is it a matter of whether a private or public person? If there were not Class A war
criminals, is it justified to visit without minding whether public person or not? It
seemed that this was an internal problem at first, however Japanese politicians didn’t
know that China was going to exploit this issue as a diplomatic policy.
�� China’s hostile policy to Japan
・China desperately tried to find a scapegoat, because it suffered from internal
problems like Wigle autonomy riot or the democracy movement in1970’s. Therefore,
Japanese sympathetic attitude to China was the most suitable scapegoat. Beijin
started the anti Japan campaign to direct people’s anger to the external nation.
It protested Nakasone’s visit officially first in 1985.※2 His excuse that the visit was as
a private person had no effect to cease this problem. They protested against the visit to
Yasukuni so hard that most of prime ministers after Nakasone were forced to stop
visiting or soften their views to World War 2. In addition to that, President
Jian zo Min promoted hostile education policy to Japan. He ordered to make a
teacher’s manual which advises them to hate Japan or construct a history museum of
massacre in Nanjing. The reason why many younger demonstrated is that they were
educated under the biased education by the government.
�� China’s thought at heart and Japanese situation
・Wang yi, Chinese envoy to Japan, made a speech in the headquarter of LDP office. He
revealed why China criticized Japanese so hard; ”China found it effective that it
exploits a history problem in order to advantage ourselves in Asia, because Japanese
are sensitive to it”. After all they think Japan is easy to treat. It is true that we have
reacted to it emotionally and repeated to show them apology. To my surprise, most
Japanese politicians seldom criticize China’s hostile policy and rather tried to
apologize to them. This topic had been the least popular in broadcast, because
Japanese didn’t want to remember their miserable time, so politicians didn’t dare to
debate it so publicly.
I think Japanese largely have been ignorant to this issue for ages. Even though this
issue becomes one of the most popular issues these days and we can see hard debates
about it, Japanese swung from passively to aggressively so much that they just
provoked Chinese and failed to think it calmly. Some politicians are motivated to earn
fame by being tough to China. However their statement tend to descendent to the
level of simple backbiting.
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