August 30, 2020. This article examines how the Yasukuni Shrine controversy developed, noting that China and South Korea had not protested repeated visits by Japanese prime ministers before 1985. It focuses on articles by Asahi Shimbun correspondent Chihiro Kato, statements made by a visiting delegation from the Japan Socialist Party, and China’s first official criticism of a Japanese prime minister’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine. It also discusses Article 11 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Diet resolutions concerning clemency, and the revision of Japan’s Relief Act for War Victims and Survivors.

August 30, 2020
Although NHK has gone so far as to broadcast an entertainment program hosted by Ichiro Furutachi after paying him a large fee, I have never watched it even once, and I never will.
That is because, until August six years ago, I remained unaware of the true nature of the Asahi Shimbun and continued subscribing to it, while also continuing to watch TV Asahi’s Hodo Station.
I can never forgive Furutachi: because of my bitterness and regret over the time I spent watching it; because of my anger toward those involved; and because, despite being a leading example of a false moralist who spoke on behalf of the Asahi Shimbun, he continued earning an annual income exceeding one hundred million yen while continuing to deceive viewers.
By inviting such a man and paying him a large fee, NHK is unwittingly revealing that it is cut from the same cloth.
This chapter also proves that my anger was justified.
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
■ Visits to Yasukuni Shrine
By the time of Prime Minister Nakasone in 1985, Japanese prime ministers had visited Yasukuni Shrine approximately sixty times, yet until then neither China nor South Korea had protested even once.
China now says that “Japan-China relations will improve dramatically if the prime minister stops visiting Yasukuni Shrine,” but that is absolutely untrue.
The question of visits to Yasukuni Shrine is a “matter of the Japanese heart.”
If a people were to stop visiting the shrine merely because they were threatened by a foreign country, then even if Japan were occupied, they would surely never mount a partisan-style resistance movement.
It is deplorable that not only people in China and South Korea but even some Japanese argue that the prime minister should refrain from visiting the shrine, or that a separate facility should be constructed, because the “so-called Class-A war criminals” are enshrined there.
As the circumstances described below demonstrate, no “so-called Class-A war criminals” exist in Japan under either domestic or international law.
Soon after the peace treaty came into force, a national movement arose calling for “the saving of the lives of convicted war criminals, commutation of their sentences, and their repatriation to Japan,” gathering approximately forty million signatures—about half the Japanese population.
Both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors adopted resolutions calling for clemency by almost unanimous consent, without distinction between conservatives and reformists.
Consequently, on August 6, 1953, the Japanese government revised the Relief Act for War Victims and Survivors.
This removed the treatment of persons convicted as Class-A, Class-B, and Class-C war criminals as ordinary criminals and treated those who had been wounded, fallen ill, or died while performing public duties during the war as having died in public service, thereby providing survivors’ pensions and condolence payments to their families.
These resolutions and the amendment of the law ran contrary to the original purpose of Article 11 of the peace treaty, which sought to prevent the granting of clemency to convicted war criminals.
Nevertheless, all the Allied nations approved these measures because even the Allies subsequently reflected upon the fact that such a provision was contrary to international law.
Thus, beginning in the autumn of 1978, the former “so-called Class-A war criminals” were enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine.
In the following year, Prime Minister Ohira visited the shrine twice.
When Prime Minister Ohira subsequently visited China, he received an enthusiastic welcome.
However, in August 1985, Asahi Shimbun correspondent Chihiro Kato began publishing a series of hysterical, anti-Japanese articles under such themes as “The ‘Yasukuni’ Issue: How Asian Countries See It,” “A Return to the Prewar Era,” and “The Revival of Militarism.”
On August 15, the newspaper published an article based on an interview with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headlined “Hurting the People of Asia: China Criticizes,” decisively escalating the issue.
On August 26 of that year, a delegation visiting China and headed by Makoto Tanabe, secretary-general of the Japan Socialist Party, incited the Chinese side by saying, “There is a danger that Prime Minister Nakasone is seeking to turn Japan into a military power. Are you not concerned?”
In response, on the following day, August 27, Vice Premier Yao Yilin issued a statement criticizing Prime Minister Nakasone.
This was the first time China officially criticized a visit to Yasukuni Shrine.
Prime Minister Nakasone had visited the shrine a total of nine times by April 22, 1985, but he stopped visiting after this critical statement was issued.
When President Clinton visited Japan in April 1996, he expressed a desire to visit Yasukuni Shrine.
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, rejected the proposal.
Furthermore, before President Bush visited Japan in February 2002, he conveyed in advance his wish to visit Yasukuni Shrine together with Prime Minister Koizumi.
Prime Minister Koizumi agreed, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs once again suppressed the proposal.
I am rendered speechless by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ policy of avoiding trouble at all costs.
Had the two presidents’ visits to Yasukuni Shrine taken place, the persistent protests subsequently made by China and South Korea might never have occurred.
A request from the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Testimony by Nobuo Ishihara, then deputy chief cabinet secretary.
Sankei Shimbun, January 18, 2014, “Ippitsu Taron: The ‘War Criminal’ Issue Settled by Our Predecessors,” by Keiichiro Nakashizuka.
Revision of the Relief Act for War Victims and Survivors: Act No. 127 of April 30, 1952.
Article 11 of the Peace Treaty:
Japan accepts the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and of other Allied war crimes courts both within and outside Japan, and will carry out the sentences imposed thereby upon Japanese nationals imprisoned in Japan. The power to grant clemency, reduce sentences, or grant parole to such prisoners may not be exercised except on the decision of the government or governments that imposed the sentence in each instance and upon the recommendation of Japan. In the case of persons sentenced by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, this power may not be exercised except on the decision of a majority of the governments represented on the Tribunal and upon the recommendation of Japan.
(Translation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, except that “judgments” has been rendered as “the judgments.”)
Chihiro Kato:
A reporter for the Asahi Shimbun who served as its China bureau chief, senior staff writer, and editorial writer.
From 2004 to 2008, he appeared alongside Ichiro Furutachi as a commentator on TV Asahi’s Hodo Station.
Beginning in 2010, he served as a professor at the Graduate School of Global Studies at Doshisha University.
He was the principal person responsible for turning the Yasukuni Shrine question into an international issue and bringing humiliation upon Japan.