Japan Honors War Dead and Opens Neighbors' Wounds

But many say Japan is also undergoing a surge of nationalism.

"Now is the season of nationalism in the world," said Makoto Iokibe, a professor at Kobe University, and an expert on the political and diplomatic history of modern Japan. "After 9/11, there was a burst of nationalism in the United States. There is also growing nationalism in China and Korea, and yes, there is growing nationalism now in Japan. . . ." he said. Japan "completely rejected nationalism" after World War II, he said, but "it is making a comeback here. The question is how far it will go."

That nationalistic view of Japanese history is evident at Yasukuni Shrine.

Constructed of wooden beams and decorated with embroidered purple tapestries marked with the Japanese imperial sign of the chrysanthemum, the shrine was built in 1869 only years before Meiji-era Japan embarked on military build-up that would lead to its rise as a major power.

The names of nearly 2.5 million of the fallen are inscribed here, all of whom are considered to be divine spirits worshiped under Japan's pantheistic Shinto religion. The controversy over the Yasukuni shrine largely erupted after 1978, when the names of convicted World War II criminals were included in its sacred book of names, sanctifying their souls as deities whose spirits are believed to dwell inside the shrine. Although more than 1,000 war criminals were enshrined, attention has centered on the 14 "Class A" war criminals -- mostly top Japanese military leaders, including Tojo, who were convicted by the Allies at the Tokyo trials after the war's end.

Although previous prime ministers have periodically come to the shrine, Koizumi outraged Japan's neighbors in 2001 when he began staging annual visits. Koizumi has said he visits the shrine "to console the spirits of the unwilling war dead and renew a pledge not to wage war again."

But critics describe the shrine and its adjacent museum as being anything but a symbol of peace. Here, World War II is instead called "the Greater East Asian War," while the invasion of China is described as "the China Incident." The adjacent museum, which moved to an expanded new building in 2003, displays the short sword used by Gen. Korechika Anami -- who advocated a continuation of the war after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- to commit suicide at dawn on August 15, 1945, the day Japan surrendered.

A film at the museum asks visitors to ponder the following statement: "The soldiers fought for the nation. Can you say they did a bad thing?"

There have been some calls to remove the names of war criminals to another shrine, so that Yasukuni can be more confidently used as a place to honor Japan's fallen heroes of the past. But the shrine's leadership opposes the idea, saying it is religiously impossible in Shinto to "remove" souls already enshrined.

"Those people dedicated their precious lives for the sake of the nation," said Shingo Oyama, a Yasukuni priest and the shrine's spokesman. "They are our ancestors. They are precious people to us."

Special correspondent Sachiko Sakamaki contributed to this report.