Nakasone denies China envoy's claim on accord not to visit Yasukuni

Japan Policy & Politics, May 2, 2005

TOKYO, April 28 Kyodo

Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone on Thursday denied a claim by Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wang Yi that China and Japan concluded an informal agreement after Nakasone paid an official visit to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in 1985 that top Japanese government leaders would not visit the Shinto shrine.

''It goes completely against the facts,'' Nakasone told reporters at his office in Tokyo. ''We never had that kind of agreement. Perhaps it is a mistaken memory on the part of the ambassador.''

Wang said Wednesday the two countries concluded a ''gentleman's agreement'' following Nakasone's 1985 visit to Yasukuni, in which Japan's prime minister, chief Cabinet secretary and foreign minister would refrain from going to the Shinto shrine in Tokyo.

Nakasone said he phoned the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo to lodge a protest against the remarks Wang made in a speech at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo.

Asked whether there was consent between Japanese and Chinese diplomats on the matter, Nakasone firmly denied there was any such arrangement.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda also separately denied the existence of a ''gentleman's agreement'' concerning the shrine visits.

Nakasone's visit to Yasukuni as prime minister sparked criticism from neighboring countries such as China and South Korea, which see the shrine as symbolic of Japan's militarist past. The shrine honors Class-A World War II war criminals along with the war dead.

China is outraged over Koizumi's repeated visits to the shrine after he took office in April 2001 and has urged him not to do so. Koizumi, who last visited the shrine in January last year, maintains he visits Yasukuni to renew his resolve to create a world free of war.