Shinzo Abe, leader of Japan’s main opposition party, visited a shrine to Japan’s war dead yesterday in a move likely to raise already heightened tensions with China.
Mr Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, which honours Japan’s war dead, including some convicted war criminals, drew a blast of condemnation from Chinese state media.
Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said: “[Abe’s visit] again reveals the stubbornness of Japan’s rightwing forces towards history and proves once more that the international community’s recent concerns over Japan’s increasing tilt to the right and even its invocation of militarism are not empty fears.”