hankyoreh

By Park Min-hee, staff reporter

The US government unofficially expressed serious concerns to Tokyo about recent statements by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Cabinet members’ visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, Kyodo news agency reported on Apr. 26.

According to sources in the US and Japan, a US Department of State official voiced concerns to the Japanese ambassador in Washington that Abe’s denials of past Japanese aggressions and other controversial moves by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) administration could destabilize Northeast Asia.

A State Department deputy spokesman also made comments suggesting the US might have expressed concerns to Japan. During an Apr. 25 briefing, Patrick Ventrell said, “We also had other countries like China and South Korea that expressed some concerns ” about the Japanese government’s actions.

“We talk to the Japanese, both here at their embassy and obviously out at our embassy in Tokyo all the time,” he went on to say.

Ventrell also contradicted reports that the US had made a formal protest to the Japanese embassy in Washington.

The comments suggest the US is urging Tokyo to restrain itself after the strong outcry from South Korea and China over the Abe administration’s actions. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns reportedly brought the Yasukuni Shrine issue up during an Apr. 24 meeting in Japan with deputy chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato.

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper also reported on Apr. 26 that China had canceled a scheduled meeting with the South Korean and Japanese finance ministers and central bank governors that had been scheduled for May 3. This came on the heels of Seoul’s decision to cancel foreign minister talks with Tokyo.

China, which was acting as chair for the financial minister and bank talks, explained the cancellation to Japan by saying there was “no agenda for the three countries to address.”

The newspaper speculated that the cancellation may have been due to the ongoing dispute between the two countries over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands and the visits by Japanese Cabinet ministers to pay their respects at the Yasukuni Shrine.

Abe appeared to be making attempts to smooth things over by refraining from any additional provocative remarks, although it is unclear whether the response from South Korea, China, and the US was the cause. During a House of Representatives Cabinet meeting on the morning of Apr. 26, he affirmed that he did “not want issues of historical perception becoming diplomatic and political issues,” adding that such issues were “best left to historians and experts.”

He also said that his Cabinet “agrees with past Cabinets that Japan caused a great deal of harm and pain to people in many countries in the past, especially other Asian countries.”

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