Participants in a symposium at Bunkyo Civic Center in Tokyo on Aug. 9, 2026, hold up signs reading “No Yasukuni,” referring to the controversial shrine where war criminals are enshrined. (Hong Seok-jae/Hankyoreh)
In Japan, talk of war and militarism has become harder to ignore. Since Sanae Takaichi’s hard-line conservative administration took power in 2025, phrases such as “a nation capable of waging war” and “the resurgence of militarism” have increasingly entered the national conversation.
On Sunday, the Seoul-based Center for Historical Truth and Justice, together with a council advocating for victims of the Pacific War and the Japanese committee of the Joint Action Opposed to Yasukuni, and other organizations, hosted a symposium in Tokyo to criticize Yasukuni Shrine, one of the symbols of Japanese militarism.
“The relationship between the Japan Self-Defense Forces and Yasukuni Shrine has become so strong that some are claiming that JSDF soldiers who die in combat must be buried at Yasukuni,” said Tetsuya Takahashi, a professor emeritus at Tokyo University.
“The attempt to secularize Yasukuni Shrine for political reasons is unconstitutional and goes against the separation of church and state,” he said. “While formerly, the Japanese army was under the Emperor of Japan, that is not the case for the JSDF. It is an organization under the command and supervision of the prime minister in postwar Japan, where sovereignty resides with the people.”
“Japan is increasingly being seen as the US’ key pawn in its efforts to deter China. Those who argue that fallen JSDF members should be enshrined at Yasukuni are clinging to an illusion of continuity with the former Japanese Empire and the Imperial Japanese Army. They are attempting to turn Yasukuni Shrine into a war shrine for the US-Japan allied forces,” Takahashi pointed out.
Masaie Ishihara, a professor at Okinawa International University, emphasized that the history of Okinawa reveals how the state has sought to frame its wartime past.
“During the Battle of Okinawa during World War II, Japanese soldiers coerced civilians into mass suicides, including infants. Those residents were regarded as having participated in combat as quasi-military personnel and therefore enshrined at Yasukuni. The Japanese government manipulated information to evade the state’s responsibility for the war and to exonerate the Japanese military of war crimes,” she said.
Even though the war ended 81 years ago, the pain of Koreans who suffered under Japanese colonial rule continues to be passed down through generations. The spirits of 2.47 million people who died in Japan’s civil wars and wars of aggression, including 14 Class A war criminals from the Pacific War, are enshrined at Yasukuni. Among them are approximately 20,000 Koreans.
Although some descendants of those Koreans have been filing lawsuits for four generations to have their ancestors’ names removed from Yasukuni, Japanese courts have refused to grant their requests.
Among the Koreans enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine were those who had been forcibly conscripted into the Japanese army during Korea’s colonization and were later classified as Class B and Class C war criminals after Japan’s defeat.
Participants in a symposium at Bunkyo Civic Center in Tokyo on Aug. 9, 2026, hold up signs reading “No Yasukuni,” referring to the controversial shrine where war criminals are enshrined. (Hong Seok-jae/Hankyoreh)
Following World War II, 148 Koreans were found guilty in trials as Class B and Class C war criminals. Most of them had been responsible for guarding Allied prisoners of war held by the Japanese military. Of those found guilty, 23 were sentenced to death, and some were enshrined at Yasukuni.
“Under colonial rule, the Koreans were mobilized for war as ‘Japanese subjects,’ tried as ‘Japanese,’ and excluded from compensation after liberation because they were considered ‘foreigners’ from Japan’s perspective,” said Heo Mi-seon, a lecturer of political science at Daito Bunka University.
“Now, they remain historical paradoxes after being enshrined at Yasukuni as fallen Japanese heroes, even though that went against the wishes of the individuals or their bereaved families,” she criticized.
Koreans weren’t the only colonial subjects enshrined in Yasukuni.
“During World War II, Taiwanese indigenous people were deployed by the Japanese government to battlefields as part of the Takasago Volunteer Corps, and many of them were enshrined at Yasukuni as fallen heroes who died for the Japanese emperor,” said Mitsunori Nakajima, a lawyer representing Taiwanese plaintiffs who sued Yasukuni Shrine.
“The lawsuit, filed by Taiwanese indigenous people, who pleaded for the return of their ancestors’ souls, is a lawsuit demanding cultural rights as a collective right,” he noted.
Heartbreaking appeals came from the survivors of the victims enshrined at Yasukuni.
Lee Hee-ja, the head of a council advocating for victims of the Pacific War and daughter of the late Lee Sa-hyeon, who was forcibly mobilized during Japan’s colonial rule of Korea, said she feels a personal responsibility to keep her father from being enshrined at Yasukuni.
“As a daughter, it is my duty and responsibility to ensure that my father is not enshrined at Yasukuni so that I can stop him from being humiliated by being treated as someone who supported the war. Even though the war ended in 1945, to me, the war is still ongoing,” she said.
Jang Jin-hwa, whose father, the late Jang Cheon-ok, is also enshrined at Yasukuni, described the pain of seeing his name there.
“My father currently lies in Yasukuni Shrine under the Japanese name ‘Chikyoku Natsuyama.’ He did not die for Japan, but was killed after being taken away against his will. Seeing him enshrined in Yasukuni alongside war criminals instills a deep sense of humiliation within me,” she said.
For Park Jin-bu, the son of another victim of forced mobilization, the search for his father has never ended. Park Seon-bong was reportedly taken to a mine in Fukushima, but his family has never learned what became of him.
“My father was supposedly taken to a mine in Fukushima, but we are still unaware of his whereabouts. The last act of filial piety entrusted to me as his son involves confirming where and how my father passed away, even if it is only through paper,” he said.
Surviving family members of Koreans who were forcibly conscripted by Japan and later enshrined in Yasukuni speak at a symposium at Bunkyo Civic Center in Tokyo on Aug. 9, 2026. (Hong Seock-jae/Hankyoreh)
The legal battle to bring relief to victims of forced mobilization and their surviving families has been long and arduous.
“The Japanese government and Yasukuni Shrine have enshrined Korean victims within Yasukuni’s religious and ideological framework, which glorifies Japanese imperialism and wars of aggression. They are subjecting those victims to such commemoration, continuing to maintain this status despite the bereaved families’ requests to have their names removed,” said Jang Wan-ik, the head of the legal team at Minbyun-Lawyers for a Democratic Society to have Koreans’ names removed from the controversial Japanese shrine.
“I hope this lawsuit, which seeks to end the continued illegal enshrinement, is resolved while the bereaved family members are still alive,” he said.
Following Sunday’s symposium, participants carried out a candlelit march, with some 200 Koreans and Japanese marching from the community center down the road toward Yasukuni Shrine for 45 minutes.
By Hong Seock-jae, Tokyo correspondent
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