Japanese Emperor Visits Korean War Memorial
Japan’s Emperor Akihito made a surprise visit to a memorial honoring the Korean War dead on the second day of a trip to the Northern Mariana island of Saipan, site of one of World War II’s defining conflicts.
The visit comes amid anger in China and the Koreas over what many there see as Japan’s failure to make amends for wartime atrocities, and visits by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a Tokyo shrine that honors Japan’s war dead, including convicted war criminals. Many Koreans were forced to fight for Japan when Korea was a Japanese colony, from 1910 until 1945.
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