Government officials from China and Korea have condemned Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso’s offering to a war shrine in Tokyo that honors fallen Japanese soldiers in the last 150 years. During the era of Japanese Imperialism, Japanese soldiers, whom many of them died during World War II, engaged in atrocities in both China and Korea. Japanese Prime Minister’s visiting of the war shrines have been a source of tension between Japan and its East Asian neighbors. Many of the “Class A” War Criminals from the trials under the command of General Douglas MacArthur are among the honored in the shrine. Prime Minister Aso is expected to visit China next week to discuss the North Korean missile launch.

This controversy has been going on for so many years that I really don’t think the angry diplomatic condemnation from China or Korea would do anything to change the behavior of the current and future Japanese Prime Minister. But I must say that Prime Minister does have some guts for visiting the controversial shine a week before he heads over China. Does he think the visit would do him any good for gaining political capital against the North Koreans? Not a chance.

But I applaud the fiery rhetoric by Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Minister. There are not a lot of countries with enough international political power to condemn Japan in the most appropriate languages.