As Japan on Friday observed the 69th anniversary of its surrender in World War II, three Cabinet ministers made what they said were private visits to war-related Yasukuni Shrine.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, however, refrained from making another controversial official visit to the shrine on Friday to avoid blowing his chances of meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping, who he hopes to speak with for the first time on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November in Beijing.
Xi has refused to hold a summit with Abe ever since the conservative prime minister made an official visit to Yasukuni in December 2012. State visits to the Shinto facility, which served as Japan's spiritual backbone during the war, are viewed by Japan's former enemies as attempts to glorify its wartime past.
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