Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Kudanboku, Tokyo, on the morning of December 19, 2013. It was his seventh visit to the Yasukuni Shrine since December 2013. He tweeted, “I visited Yasukuni Shrine today to report to the spirits that I am stepping down as Prime Minister on the 16th of this month,” along with a photo of the visit.
As of this writing, there has been no reaction from China or South Korea to his visit to Yasukuni Shrine.
As of this writing, there has been no response from China or South Korea to his visit to Yasukuni Shrine. According to some sources, Abe signed his signature on the signature sheet during his visit to Yasukuni Shrine as “Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe”.
In the past, China did not have a problem with the visits to the Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese cabinet members and parliamentarians other than the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Chief Cabinet Secretary.
On December 26, 2013, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which was met with strong protests from China and South Korea, and surprisingly, the U.S. Embassy in Japan issued a statement saying that the U.S. government was disappointed.
Since then, Abe has not visited the Yasukuni Shrine for nearly seven years, but has dedicated eight consecutive years since 2013 to the shrine on the anniversary of his defeat.
On August 15 this year, four members of Abe’s cabinet paid a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. The four members of Abe’s cabinet visited Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, 2012, and were: Minister of Environment Shinjiro Koizumi, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Koichi Hagita, Minister of Northern Affairs Sungichi Eito, and Minister of General Affairs Hayato Takashi. This is the first time in four years that a member of the second Abe Cabinet has visited Yasukuni Shrine on the day of Japan’s defeat, and it is the largest number of cabinet members who have visited the shrine on that day since the second Abe Cabinet began in December 2012.
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