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Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited a Tokyo war shrine honoring Japan’s war dead on Monday, despite criticism from neighboring Asian countries who say the shrine glorifies Japan’s past militarism.
The visit was Koizumi’s fifth to the war shrine since becoming prime minister in April 2001. He last went to Yasukuni in January 2004. The prime minister bowed in silence, threw coins into a donation box and left.
Japan’s 2.5 million war dead are worshiped as deities at Yasukuni, a shrine in Japan’s native Shinto religion. They include executed war criminals from World War II, such as the country’s wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.
