Yasuo Fukuda, former chief cabinet secretary and a popular candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Presidential election, who is opposed to the prime minister's Yasukuni Shrine visit, gave up his race over a week ago for the reason of averting the topic of the shrine visit from the focus of the election, whereas Shizo Abe, the incumbent chief cabinet secretary, who long favored the prime minister's shrine visit, has decided not to visit the shrine on August 15 for the similar reason, but he deliberately shunned away from saying whether he would visit the shrine after the election.

But things do not turn out the way they have wished. The issue concerning the Yasukuni Shrine visit has become the focus of public opinion in Japan. In its July 26 editorial, the Japanese newspaper "Asahi Shimbun" said, "No matter how Fukuda considers it, the repeated visits of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the Yasukuni Shrine has been a major political issue in Japan, and the already quite-hot LDP president election cannot dodge this issue at all, and every candidate, cannot but make his position clear, either in favor or in opposition.

According to the latest opinion polls of Japanese media organizations, those who are in opposition to the prime minister's shrine visit accounted for about 60 percent, or a little over 10 percent over half a year ago, and Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki also explicitly voiced his opposition to the shrine visit.

Why an apparent shift has surfaced in Japan's public opinion? Here three reasons are involved. First, the late Showa Emperor's talk on no longer visiting the Yasukuni Shrine came to light, stunning both the cabinet and opposition parties in Japan and shaking up the whole populace. Secondly, the rigid, inflexible Asia diplomacy of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has increasingly aroused anxiety of the people in Japan. And thirdly, more and more Japanese are worries that the United States would, too, joined in "shelling" the Jasukuni Shrine to help smooth down the dilemma situation, as the shrine visit challenges the verdict of the international community.

The crux of matter to deal with historical issues between China and Japan lies in the settlement of the issue regarding "the Yasukuni Shrine visit". For the past century or so, Japan has viewed and treated China with a superior mentality, and so it can hardly adapt itself today in facing up China's rapid economic growth. China and Japan have never come to the fore, both powerful, simultaneously. But to date, changes have occurred in the comparison of their strength. Moreover, Japan has embarked on a road of "making itself rich and building up its military might." Even without the emergence of the fast developing China, Japan will also go all out to make itself rich first and then proceed to strengthen its national defense.

The visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, changes done to history textbooks and revision of the peaceful constitution, among other activities that have cropped up in the past decade or so, are all aimed to re-instigate the narrow nationalism of common people in Japan, do away with their sense of terror and sense of guilty for the World War II, so as to re-arm the country.

All the people who have experienced the abyss of wars in the last century, do not want to see the old tragedy re-staged. Prof. Makoto Iokibe, the in-coming president of the Japanese National Defense Academy, cited the United States and China as the two principal nations Japan has to maintain its sound relations with. The cornerstone of Japan-China consultations and cooperation is precisely the foreign policy Japan should resort to, he acknowledged. He said China, instead of wanting to meddle in the internal affairs of his country, hopes to sincerely resolve the Yasukuni Shrine visits by Japanese leaders, an issue concerns the overall bilateral ties, and to see Japan take the road of peace and the foreign policy of good neighborliness to its neighbors effectively, so as to contribute its share to the development of Asia.

By People's Daily Online