Minister wants visits to shrine by emperor

Taro Aso, Japan’s foreign minister, asserted over the weekend that regional protests over visits to the Yasukuni Shrine were making it more likely that Japanese political leaders would continue to go there.
“The more China complains, the more one feels like going there,” the Kyodo News agency reported him as saying. He added that a visit by the Japanese emperor would be “the best.”
He advised Beijing, “It would be best to keep quiet.”
Hirohito, the father of the current emperor Akihito, visited the shrine regularly after his country’s defeat in World War II, but stopped after plaques memorializing officials executed by the Allies for war crimes were installed in 1978. Akihito also pays respects at a less controversial war memorial.
Korea’s Foreign Ministry called the remarks “regrettable.”