Kishida noted that more than 3 million Japanese were killed in the war. He also talked about the destruction in bloody ground battles on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa, fire-bombings across Japan, and the atomic attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Earlier today 3 of Kishida’s ministers, including Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, prayed at the Yasukuni Shrine — seen by Asian neighbors as a symbol of militarism because the shrine honors convicted war criminals among about 2.5 million war dead. Victims of Japanese aggression, especially China and the Koreas, see the Japanese visits to the shrine as a lack of remorse, and the visits by defense officials are considered especially controversial.
