Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s surprise visit to a shrine linked to Japan’s militarist past threatens to damage ties with the U.S. and jeopardize a pillar of the White House’s diplomatic and military pivot to Asia.
The outing to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine on Thursday triggered strong criticism from Beijing and Seoul, but also a rare admonition from Washington, which has pushed the Asian neighbors to mend ties strained by territorial disputes and differences over wartime history.
“The United States is disappointed that Japan’s leadership has taken an action that will exacerbate tensions with Japan’s neighbors,” said the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on its website, in an unusual direct criticism of Japan’s leader by its main ally.
Abe Visit to Controversial Japanese Shrine Draws Rare U.S. Criticism
Visit to Yasukuni Raises Concern Premier Shifting Focus From Economy to Nationalistic Goals
by George Nishiyama
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304483804579281103015121712
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s surprise visit to a shrine linked to Japan’s militarist past threatens to damage ties with the U.S. and jeopardize a pillar of the White House’s diplomatic and military pivot to Asia.
The outing to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine on Thursday triggered strong criticism from Beijing and Seoul, but also a rare admonition from Washington, which has pushed the Asian neighbors to mend ties strained by territorial disputes and differences over wartime history.
“The United States is disappointed that Japan’s leadership has taken an action that will exacerbate tensions with Japan’s neighbors,” said the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on its website, in an unusual direct criticism of Japan’s leader by its main ally.
There were signs Mr. Abe hadn’t expected that his outing to the shrine would draw such a strong response. Despite Tokyo’s insistence the visit was purely a domestic issue, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida Thursday evening called U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy on her vacation to explain Mr. Abe’s “intentions” regarding the visit, the foreign ministry said.
As Mr. Abe starts his second year in office, his popular support has declined with some critics saying he is sidelining his program to revitalize the economy in favor of a nationalist agenda known to be close to his heart.
Many Asian nations that suffered from Japan’s wartime actions view Yasukuni as a symbol of Tokyo’s past militarism because it honors not just Japan’s war dead but also some convicted World War II war criminals, including Hideki Tojo, who was prime minister for most of the war.
The visit threatens to upend a vital Obama administration priority in Asia by inflaming South Korea, which was brutally colonized by Japan through World War II. U.S. strategy in the Pacific hinges on checking China’s rising economic and military influence by tightening ties between Tokyo and Seoul, a thrust of Vice President Joe Biden’s Asian trip this month.
Instead, Mr. Abe’s visit to the shrine marked the “final blow to ongoing efforts to improve relations between South Korea and Japan,” a senior South Korean official said.
Mr. Abe’s aides said what they cared about most was the U.S. reaction. “The biggest, or should I say, the only concern is what the U.S. would say,” said a senior government official who was aware of the prime minister’s plans in advance. He expressed confidence that the ties between the allies wouldn’t be affected, noting that President Barack Obama was relying on the prime minister to help seal a deal over a trans-Pacific free-trade forum and to move forward plans to relocate U.S. troops in the region.
The government official said Mr. Abe intended to stick to making economic recovery the top priority, stressing how investors would start to see deregulatory measures—the last of the three pillars of his economic policy—in action in the new year. “We intend to keep the ball rolling for Abenomics,” the official said.
Mr. Abe’s visit to Yasukuni will “throw a wrench” in political reconciliation efforts, said Sheila Smith, a senior fellow for Japan Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In contrast, Japanese-South Korean tensions have been “welcome news” for China, she added, noting that the prime minister’s trip will further isolate Japan diplomatically from other countries in the region.
Mr. Abe paid his visit in the midst of Washington-Tokyo talks aimed at completing a deal on a new U.S. Marine Corps base on the island of Okinawa. While the U.S. has pursued such a base deal for years, it also wanted Japan to stabilize its relations with China and South Korea.
“For them to take a step that is inevitably going to exacerbate tensions while increasing their security capabilities—that’s not what the U.S. was looking for,” said Jeffrey Bader, a senior Brookings Institution fellow and former National Security Council senior adviser during the Obama administration.
Mr. Abe has repeatedly said he regretted not visiting the shrine during his first tenure as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and said his critics misunderstood his intentions. “I offered my respects to those who lost their precious lives for our country, and prayed that their souls may rest in peace,” he told reporters after the visit. “I have no intention at all of hurting the feelings of the Chinese or the South Korean people.”
Although a well-known conservative who has stated that changing the pacifist constitution drafted by the occupying U.S. forces was his “life’s work,” Mr. Abe had adopted an economy-first policy after taking office in December 2012, putting his nationalist agenda on the back burner.
His so-called Abenomics policy featuring government spending and monetary stimulus has spurred consumption, resulting in the Japanese economy recording the strongest expansion among industrialized nations in the first half of this year, although the country’s growth rate slowed in the third quarter.
Data out early Friday showed a 1.2% rise in core consumer prices in November, a further gain against deflationary malaise.
The improved economy had helped make Mr. Abe one of the most popular Japanese leaders in recent years, with his support ratings hovering around 60% for most of the past year.
All of that has come as a relief to Washington, which faces a rising military power in China and is wary of the regional tensions developing into physical confrontations. The U.S. has also tired of a revolving door of short-lived Japanese prime ministers.
During an October visit to Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel paid respects at the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery, a tomb for Japan’s unknown war dead, in a move widely seen as a message to Mr. Abe that there are alternatives to Yasukuni.
While Mr. Abe had refrained from going to Yasukuni until Thursday, on the anniversary of his taking office, some of his cabinet ministers had visited, each time inviting protests from China and South Korea. Mr. Abe’s visit was the first by a prime minister in seven years.
China’s foreign minister summoned Japan’s ambassador to protest and criticized Thursday’s visit as the latest attempt by Mr. Abe to gloss over Japan’s militaristic past. “Under these conditions, not only does the Japanese leader not show restraint, but instead makes things worse by manufacturing another incident over history,” spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement. “Japan must bear all the consequences arising from this.”
Analysts in the region agreed the move would further deteriorate relations. The development is severe, said Wang Shaopu, director of Japan Institution at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. “It will worsen China-Japan’s already bad-enough relations.”
Others said Mr. Abe had gone ahead with the visit because he felt he had nothing to lose given that ties were already frayed. While he has visited all of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, he has yet to visit China or South Korea nor has he held formal bilateral meetings with their leaders.
“Mr. Abe probably thought that a visit to Yasukuni at this point wouldn’t have too much of an impact on prospects of future summits with Beijing and Seoul considering how chances already seemed slim,” said Masafumi Kaneko, a senior research fellow at the Center for International and Strategic Studies at PHP Institute.
But Mr. Abe may have miscalculated the U.S. response, analysts said. “The U.S. reaction was unexpected. Mr. Abe is moving to bolster the Japan-U.S. alliance, and the focus is whether they can move beyond just a military alliance, and share values,” said Koji Murata, a political-science professor and the president of Doshisha University. “The U.S. may be frustrated at Mr. Abe, who is obsessed with history issues.”
The unusually tough U.S. statement may have consequences of its own by creating an impression that Washington is undercutting Mr. Abe.
“Beijing and Seoul can only interpret this as the U.S. siding with them against Japan,” said Michael Auslin, director of Japan Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, adding that the statement will “ratchet up” tensions in the region.
The statement represents “deep U.S. frustration” with the prime minister, Mr. Auslin said. But the U.S. appears to have “given up” on its goal of forging a diplomatic resolution between Japan and South Korea. “If it felt it could do that, it probably would not have made this statement,” he said.
Diplomatic feuds have shown they can affect business interests in the region. After the previous Japanese government nationalized disputed islands in the East China Sea in September 2012, Chinese consumers boycotted Japanese products, dealing a serious blow to Japanese firms, including car makers.
But the Tokyo stock market took Mr. Abe’s visit to the shrine in stride on Thursday, finishing higher. Investors said other factors, including a weaker yen, were more important than diplomatic issues.
While most investors said they weren’t worried about an economic fallout from the action, some nonetheless questioned Mr. Abe’s visit. “For a person like me who is focusing on the economy and financial markets, this raises questions of why he is doing this now,” said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at J.P. Morgan Securities.