CCTV9英语新闻：安倍助手反驳美国失望论

A top adviser to Shinzo Abe has said the US government has been over-reacting to the Japanese leader’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine.

Japan’s Kyodo News agency says, Koichi Hagiuda, lashed out at US president Barack Obama’s administration for expressing disappointment towards the issue. He added that past Republican-led US governments would not have done this. The advisor even compared Yasukuni Shrine with Arlington National Cemetery in the US, which honors US veterans.

This is not the first time Japan’s right-wing politicians have compared the two places. Shinzo Abe himself did it in an interview with the US magazine DIPLOMAT. Western experts say the two memorials share neither the same history nor spirit, and the analogy between the two does not make any sense.