As North Korea stokes ‘invasion’ fears over Japan troops’ Yasukuni visit, South Korea and China stay seemingly silent

A visit to Tokyo’s infamous Yasukuni Shrine by senior members of the country’s Self-Defence Forces has provoked a fierce backlash from North Korea, while eliciting an unexpectedly muted response from China and South Korea, which analysts said could signal a shift in their relationships with Japan.

The shrine, seen by Beijing and Seoul as a symbol of Japan’s past military aggression, honours convicted war criminals along with the war dead.

State media KCNA on Thursday said in an editorial that around a dozen senior SDF officers had “flocked to the shrine to pay homage” to the war criminals, “pledging before the dead militarists to realise their wild ambition for reinvasion and the old dream of the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ by dispatching SDF troops to the Korean peninsula”.

While analysts said North Korea’s hyperbole was not really a surprise, what stood out was China and South Korea’s near silence on the issue.

“North Korea can always be creative in its attacks on Japan so this comes as little surprise as they’re looking to score political points, while South Korea has toned down the rhetoric in its media regarding Japan,” said Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Tokyo.