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South Korea Raises Japan Shrine Visit Issue With APEC Summit Leaders

Posted on: Saturday, 19 November 2005, 09:00 CST

Excerpt from report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

Pusan, 19 November: South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun used the just-concluded summit of leaders from 21 Pacific Rim nations to pressure Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to stop visiting a controversial shrine honouring convicted Japanese war criminals and millions of other war dead.

Roh raised the issue at bilateral summits with Koizumi, US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao, seeking support for his effort to put an end to the Japanese leader's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine.

Hu responded favourably to Roh's opposition to the shrine visit by Koizumi, while Bush remained neutral.

Koizumi, for his part, repeated his position that he makes the shrine visits not to defend past militarism, but to repent of it [Korean-language reports used "panso'ng" or "reflect" rather than "repent"].

In the summit with Roh Friday [18 November], the Japanese premier defended the shrine visits. "The reason for me to pay pilgrimages to Yasukuni is to repent for wars in the past and express my resolution that war should not be staged again," he said.

Koizumi was responding to the strong objection raised by Roh.

"However hard I try to accept Prime Minister Koizumi's remarks, our people cannot accept them," Roh told Koizumi. "The demands I have made (to Koizumi) should not be seen as excessive ones."

Roh also said he "would never accept Japan's position on Yasukuni Shrine, the Tokdo islets or school textbooks."

Japan claims South Korea's easternmost islets of Tokdo, and has approved school textbooks that Koreans believe glorify Japan's aggression and colonization of Korea and other Asian neighbours decades ago.

Roh said his government will no longer demand that Japan apologize or provide compensation for its past colonization of Korea, although the issue of compensation for individuals is another matter. [passage omitted]

The decision for Roh to hold a bilateral summit with Koizumi in Pusan Friday was made only recently, because of his displeasure with Koizumi's shrine visit in October, the fifth of its kind since the Japanese premier took office in 2001.

Hu did not have a bilateral meeting with Koizumi in Pusan, and Chinese officials have denounced Japanese leaders for worshipping war criminals and cited German political leaders who repented fully and rejected Adolf Hitler. [passage omitted]

The history dispute was also one of major issues in the Roh-Bush summit.

When Roh bilaterally met with Bush in the ancient capital Kyongju, Thursday, the South Korean president spoke about Japan's colonization of Korea and aggression towards other Asian neighbours at length. [passage omitted]

On Wednesday, Roh met with Hu in Seoul and stood together in opposing the Japanese prime minister's repeated pilgrimages to Yasukuni Shrine, which honours 14 convicted Japanese war criminals, among millions of other war dead.

"We agreed that the history issue should not have a negative impact on cooperation and development in Northeast Asia and that we need to try for future-oriented development," Roh said at a joint news conference with Hu. [passage omitted]

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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