Abe rapped for war shrine offering

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Some 150 Japanese lawmakers visited the controversial Yasukuni war shrine early Tuesday.

A group of lawmakers are led by a Shinto priest as they visit Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo April 22, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

Beijing and Seoul lodge protest as act shows 'mistaken attitude toward history'

China and South Korea slammed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ritual offering to a war-linked shrine on Monday, accusing Abe of attempting to whitewash Japan's wartime atrocities.

Abe sent a sacred tree branch engraved with his name and official title "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe" to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine.

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Special: China-Japan relations

The shrine celebrates militarism and, according to Shinto belief, houses the souls of Japan's wartime military leaders, including 14 convicted Class-A war criminals.

But Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Abe made the offering as a "private citizen".

Beijing lodged a diplomatic protest to Tokyo on Monday, saying that Abe's offering and recent visits by Japanese ministers to the shrine showed the Cabinet's "mistaken attitude toward history", said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

The Yasukuni Shrine is damaging to Japan's image, which will worsen "if the Japanese leader persists" in being linked to the shrine, Qin warned.

South Korea also denounced Abe's offering on Monday and said in a statement by its foreign ministry that Abe's move was an "anachronistic act that hampered friendly ties among neighboring countries as well as stability in the region".

Yang Bojiang, deputy director of the Institute of Japan Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that through the ritual offering Abe is attempting to appease supporters of the far right, while at the same time to keep the support of those who are against revising history by not actually visiting the shrine.

"Abe wants to play both sides, yet he will probably fail and displease both sides in the end," Yang warned.

Abe visited the shrine in December, an act that saw tension in Japan's strained relationship with China and South Korea escalate, and drew rare criticism from Washington.

The offering made headlines just two days ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit to Tokyo.

Japan's NTV television quoted sources close to the prime minister as saying that Abe avoided a shrine visit this time for fear of drawing a similar critical response from Washington.