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"My 77-year-old mother thanks you for putting into words that other prime ministers wouldn't" about Yasukuni, said another.
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He is a long-time supporter of Yasukuni visits, and in the new mood this could be a liability.
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LDP, became the first big business group to give public warning of Yasukuni's danger to business with China.
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During the Wednesday debate, an opposition lawmaker asked Mr. Abe about the effects of visits by cabinet ministers to Yasukuni.
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Even Yasukuni has toned down the exhibits in its notorious museum, where until recently militarism was celebrated and all atrocities denied.
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As it happens, after the enshrinement of the war criminals in 1978, Emperor Hirohito stopped visiting Yasukuni, a stay-away continued by his son, Akihito.
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During that period, Yasukuni almost disappeared as a diplomatic sore spot because the previous Democratic Party of Japan government had discouraged senior members from visiting it.
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In office (and as foreign minister before that) Mr Aso has also eschewed visiting Yasukuni, where war criminals as well as Japan's 2.5m war dead are enshrined.
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Meanwhile, a long-odds successor to Mr Koizumi, Taro Aso, the foreign minister and another Yasukuni-goer, recently declared that when it came to sensitive issues, national interest should trump private beliefs.
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It would, said Mr Hyde, not be appropriate for Mr Koizumi to use the podium used by Roosevelt to denounce the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour if he then made his annual visit to Yasukuni on August 15th, the anniversary of Japan's defeat in 1945.
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