The shrine, which honours some war criminals, has become embroiled in controversy over politicians' visits

Yasukuni is a Shinto shrine. It is also Japan's most contested and controversial religious site since the end of World War Two. It has been the cause of disputes in the Japanese Diet and has led to protests by religious groups and political and civil authorities in China and Korea.

Located in Kudanshita in central Tokyo, it was one of the capital's most visited Shinto shrines.

Originally constructed in 1869, Yakusuni literally means 'peaceful country', a name that belies the history that it symbolises, so much so that in the rest of Asia it has come to embody Japanese imperialism.

According to Shinto tradition, upon death humans become kami (deities). In the temple, the kami of 2.5 million soldiers who died for Japan since the Meiji era (1868) are honoured.

Although it also honours nurses and civilians, it is the remains of 14 Class-A war criminals, including Japan's wartime Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo, that are at the heart of the matter.

In fact, the temple itself is not the reason for the controversy, but what it symbolically stands for, namely Japan's militaristic spirit.

Since state and religion were separated under the 1946 constitution, the Emperor has not visited the temple. But in more recent years, a faction within the Liberal Democratic Party has emerged intent on bringing the Yasukuni Shrine under direct state protection as was the case up to the war.

Between 1969 and 1974 rightwing lawmakers tried to get the Japanese Diet to grant the shrine official status. And over the years the rightwing faction has developed closer ties to the Shinto clergy that runs Yasukuni.

On August 15, 1975 then Prime Minister Takeo Miki paid the temple a private visit, a tradition that his successors have followed. But whilst August 15 marks Japan's defeat in 1945 in the rest of Asia, in Japan it is the day to honour fallen soldiers.

The process of rehabilitation reached its apex on August 15, 1986 when then Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro made an official visit to the temple along with all the members of his cabinet.

For the international community such visits began to take on a different aura after 1979, when the shrine's chief kannushi (Shinto priest) buried in a secret ceremony the remains of seven Class-A war criminals, whom he called the "martyrs of the Showa period" (1926-1989).

Other Asian nations have ever since viewed visits to the Yasukuni Shrine with alarm, as a justification for Japan's military expansion in the first half of the 20th century. In the case of China and Korea, both of whom were victims of Japanese aggression, they sparked a major diplomatic row.

Nakasone was eventually forced to cancel further visits but since coming to office in 2001 current Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Yasukuni four times. (PC)

• japan
• yasukuni
• shinto
• war
• dead