Diminishing Returns? Prime Minister Koizumi’s Visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in the Context of East Asian Nationalisms

Abstract

The Yasukuni Shrine is a site of contested nationalist politics in Japan and in neighbouring countries. Within Japan the status of the Shrine exists in a tension between public and private and religious and secular meanings. These tensions are given a specific focus in the context of the visits to the Shrine by Japanese Prime Ministers. The history of such visits is discussed and analysed, with particular attention given to the causes and consequences of the visits by Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro between 2001 and 2006. It is argued that the controversies over the visits in Japan and elsewhere are best understood in the context of 'revisionist nationalism' in Japan. The reactions and nationalist problematics of the PRC and Taiwan with regard to the Yasukuni Shrine are then elaborated and analysed.Keywords Nationalism . Revisionism-Koizumi . Sino Japanese relations . Taiwan . YasukuniThe Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo has come to play a highly symbolic role in domestic and international politics in East Asia. To understand why this is the case it is necessary to engage with both elite politics and the politics of changing nationalist movements in Japan and in neighbouring countries. The Yasukuni Shrine is open to multiple readings and interpretations and the inability to agree on a settled meaning of the Shrine ensures that high level political visits result in significant political controversy. Two issues in particular generate debate.

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