The war crimes of the Japanese on the Chinese, Koreans and the Taiwanese has for long been a cause for friction between the nations involved. While China has demanded that Japan teach in the schools the real history, the outgoing Japanese Prime Minister has ruffled feathers more than once by visiting the memorial for the Japanese soldiers. Several of these soldiers have been accused of war crimes by the other countries. Japanese Prime Minister J. Koizumi, in an apparent gesture of national reassertion visited the Yasukuni shrine (as the war memorial is called) in Tokyo in full formal dress, rather than make it a private visit last month. The visit drew loud protests from the Chinese, South Koreans and the Taiwanese. China and Korea have not ever had a full and free debate on their own war history but holler when Japanese honour their dead. The rising shrill of nationalism in all the countries is doing nothing to mitigate the situation.
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