Sina Delenda Est

After Abe's Pearl Harbour visit, Japan minister prays at Yasukuni
AFP

TOKYO -- A Japanese cabinet minister offered prayers at a Tokyo war shrine on Wednesday, shortly after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a highly symbolic visit of reconciliation to Pearl Harbour.
Masahiro Imamura, the minister in charge of the reconstruction of northern Japan after the massive 2011 tsunami, visited Yasukuni Shrine in the afternoon.
Public broadcaster NHK showed Imamura throwing coins into a wooden box as an offering and bowing low at the shrine.
"I reported about this past year's work, expressed gratitude and prayed for our country's peace and prosperity," he said.
Imamura said his visit "has nothing to do with" Abe's trip to Pearl Harbour and the timing is "a coincidence", according to NHK and other Japanese media.
But Haruko Satou, professor of international politics at Osaka University, suggested the timing was suspicious.
"His real intention behind the visit is unknown, but it's natural to think that he chose the same day when Prime Minister Abe visited Pearl Harbour," Satou told AFP.

The minister also visited the shrine on Aug 11, several days before the anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II. 

Cabinet members often journey to the leafy religious site at that time and during its spring and autumn festivals.

The indigenous Shinto religious shrine honours millions of mostly Japanese war dead.
Imamura's visit came just hours after Abe and Barack Obama paid homage to the more than 2,400 Americans killed on December 7, 1941 in Japan's surprise attack that drew the United States into World War II.
They offered flowers and stood in silence before a memorial to those lost on the USS Arizona — roughly half of all those killed in the assault.
The pair issued declarations about the power of reconciliation and warned against fomenting conflict.