Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stayed away Monday from a Tokyo shrine that honours convicted war criminals among the nation's war dead, a bid to avoid controversy with neighbouring countries on the 71st anniversary of the end of World War II.
Abe instead sent a gift of money and religious ornaments to Yasukuni Shrine. His visit to the shrine in December 2013 drew sharp rebukes from China and South Korea, which see Yasukuni as a symbol of Japan's wartime militarism and consider the visits an attempt to whitewash the country's wartime aggression.
Abe's government is reportedly trying to arrange a meeting between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a G-20 summit in China next month.
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