Japan PM defies China, S Korea with war shrine visit

TOKYO, Aug 15 (Reuters) Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi paid his respects at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine for war dead today, the anniversary of his country's World War Two surrender, defying warnings from China and South Korea not to go.

The parting shot by the outgoing Japanese leader prompted angry protests from Beijing and Seoul, although Koizumi denied his pilgrimage had been intended to glorify war.

Koizumi is set to step down in September and his heir apparent, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinso Abe, declined again to say whether he would visit the shrine if he became premier.

The Shinto shrine honours Japanese World War Two leaders onvicted as war criminals along with 2.5 million war dead and is considered a symbol of Japan's past militarism in the two Asian countries, which bore the brunt of Japanese aggression.

Koizumi, wearing a morning suit and looking solemn as he followed behind a Shinto priest clad in traditional robes, bowed before entering the inner shrine as a steady rain fell. The visit, carried live on Japanese TV, was over in minutes.

The pilgrimage was the first by a Japanese prime minister on the Aug. 15 anniversary since Yasuhiro Nakasone went there on the emotive date in 1985, setting off howls of protest in China.

Tokyo's ties with Beijing and Seoul are already at their worst in decades, partly because of Koizumi's annual pilgrimages.

Today China said Koizumi's shrine visits were ''wrecking the political foundations of China-Japan relations''.

''Prime Minister Koizumi has constantly on historical issues hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and lost the confidence, not only of the international community, but also the Japanese people,'' China's Foreign Ministry added in a statement.

South Korea, which today celebrated the anniversary of its liberation from Japanese colonial rule, was similarly harsh.

''The Japanese prime minister's visit to the Yasukuni shrine is a total disrespect for the Korean government and people, particularly on our independence day and the day of the end (of) World War Two,'' South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters in the Australian capital, Canberra. ''All Korean people and government are frustrated and angry about this visit.'' While the United States has not publicly complained, experts say Washington is worried about Japan's growing isolation in the region and its deteriorating ties with China in particular.

FACING THE PAST Koizumi defended his decision to visit the shrine on the symbolic day and criticised Beijing and Seoul for refusing to hold bilateral summits because of the feud over the shrine.

''I do not go to justify the past war or to glorify militarism,'' he told reporters. ''I go with the feeling that we should not wage war again and that we must not forget the sacrifice of those who went to war and died.'' Critics argue Koizumi's visits reflect Japan's failure to face up to its wartime past, including atrocities in Asia.

The shrine, which played a central role in the wartime state religion that helped mobilise the nation to fight in the name of a divine emperor, considers 14 wartime leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as Class A war criminals to be ''martyrs''.

A museum on its grounds depicts the Pacific war as one Japan was forced to fight in self-defence and has been criticised for ignoring atrocities committed by Japanese.

Koizumi, 64, has visited the shrine every year since he took office in 2001 but until today never on Aug. 15 despite a campaign promise to do so.

Nationalist supporters of the shrine holding banners stood out among the crowds at Yasukuni and some right-wingers attacked a van carrying opponents of the shrine visit, throwing rocks and chasing it away before riot police moved in.

Japanese public opinion is divided on whether the prime minister should make pilgrimages to Yasukuni and the pilgrimages have become a focus of the competition to succeed Koizumi in a ruling party leadership election on Sept. 20.

''I think he (Koizumi) could have come on another day, but I also have the feeling that other countries should not interfere with our country's affairs,'' said Yasuteru Omiya, 28, a government worker, from Nagoya, central Japan.

Many Japanese business leaders, concerned the diplomatic chill could hurt vital economic ties with booming China, have made clear they want the next prime minister to halt the visits.

Abe, 51, has defended the pilgrimages and went there this time last year. Media say he also paid a secret visit in April.

Today, the soft-spoken political blue-blood, a security hawk known for his tough stance toward China and North Korea, stressed the need for dialogue to remove misunderstandings, and said the final judgment on who bore the heaviest responsibility for the war should be left to history.

REUTERS MS RK0915