Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Lee Teng-Hui does...

...Yasukuni?

「靖国、参拝したい」=時期は明言せず-李登輝氏
時事通信

 30日から訪日する台湾の李登輝前総統は、成田空港に向かう機中で、同行した日本人記者団の質問に答え、靖国神社参拝について、「六十何年間会っていない兄貴がそこに祭られているのに、行かないというのは弟としても人情としても忍びないことだ」と述べ、初参拝したいとの希望を明らかにした。明確な時期については示さなかったが、「そのことは行ってから決めましょう」と語った。 仮に実現した場合、中国が政治活動とみなして反発するのは必至だ。李氏の2歳年上の兄は1945年2月、旧日本軍人として、フィリピン戦線で戦死した。

Boy, and to think the Beijing government was upset at him for having the audacity to just go to Japan.

Is this the way Abe satisfies the mad dogs of the Japanese right, by having the former president of Taiwan do a Yasukuni sanpai in his stead?

What an interesting explanation Lee gives for his (potential) visit to the shrine, too.

"If I said I would not go there, to the place where my elder brother whom I have not met in 60 years is celebrated, that would be be an unbearable--from the point of view of a younger brother and from the point of view of ninjō."

There is that word again, serendipitously.

Strange rules guard the gates of the realm of the spirits... Lee Teng-hui, a graduate of Kyoto Imperial University who dreams in Japanese, born a Japanese citizen--ineligible for kamihood.

His elder brother, Japanese navy man, dead in the Philippines in February of 1945--enshrined at Yasukuni.

All in all...this has been a most exciting week...and it is still only Wednesday.

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