China and South Korea have reacted angrily to the news that two cabinet members and the head of the largest opposition party paid their respects to Japan's war dead at Yasukuni Shrine.
Chinese media claimed the decision by Shinzo Abe, president of the Liberal Democratic Party, to visit the controversial shrine on Wednesday reflects "the resurgence of nationalism in Japan that could endanger regional stability."
On Thursday morning, Yuichiro Hata, the transport minister, and Mikio Shimoji, who is tasked with overseeing reform of Japan's postal system, also visited Yasukuni for its autumn festival.
The shrine is considered the last resting place of Japan's war dead, including 14 senior military and government leaders who were convicted of war crimes after the end of World War II and were executed by the Allies.
The government has emphasised that Hata and Shimoji were paying their respects in a "private capacity," while Abe - who is likely to be Japan's next prime minister in general elections that need to be held in the next 12 months - said he was simply paying his respects.
The timing of the politicians' visit to a shrine seen by Japan's neighbours as a symbol of its militarist and colonial past has come at an inopportune moment, with Tokyo locked in a bitter dispute with China over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands, which Tokyo controls, while simultaneously demanding that Seoul return islands that South Korea marks as Dok-do on its maps.
Describing Abe as "pandering to nationalist sentiment," the state-run China Daily newspaper quoted Wang Ping, a researcher on Japanese studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as saying that Japanese politicians are becoming increasingly more radical as they try to prove their nationalist credentials ahead of the election.
"As Japanese politics becomes ever more conservative, uncertainties may continue to mount and trigger further concern among Asian neighbours worried about regional stability," Wang said.
In Seoul, a spokesman for the foreign ministry expressed "deep regret and concern" at Abe's visit to the shrine, which he described as "a symbol of the Japanese war of aggression and militarism."
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