China has accused Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of siding with convicted war criminals over the United Nations... following his recent visit to the Yasukuni Shrine... as the Japanese war dead honored there include more than a dozen Class-A war criminals.
Kim Hyun-bin reports.
China has taken its diplomatic row with Japan to the United Nations, questioning Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's distorted view on history after he visited a shrine commemorating several notorious war criminals.
China's UN envoy Liu Jieyi says Abe was siding with convicted war criminals over the UN by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine which he said whitewashes and glorifies Japan's wartime aggression.
"It is a dangerous distortion of the right and wrong and it is also a stand of the wrong side of history."
In response, Japan's UN ambassador Motohide Yoshikawa said Abe's visit did not praise war criminals or militarism but was a tribute to the Japanese war dead.
Following talks with visiting Japanese foreign and defense ministers in Paris Thursday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Abe's visit, although a delicate issue, was to respect the Japanese that died during the war.
Abe's younger brother and Senior Vice Foreign Minister Nobuo Kishi will head to the U.S. next Monday to ask Washington to understand why Abe visited the shrine.
During his five day trip, Kishi is expected to meet with U.S. government officials and experts, among others.
Fourteen Class-A war criminals and hundreds more convicted of lesser crimes are enshrined in Yasukuni among Japan's two-point-five million war dead.
Kim Hyun-bin Arirang News.
