And then, in the midst of all this tension, on Boxing Day Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, visited the Yasukuni shrine, where (among many others) 14 class A war criminals are enshrined. It is true that, earlier in 2013, Abe refrained from attending the shrine in person, sending only a representative, and that neither China nor Korea gave him any credit for this gesture. Abe issued a “Pledge for Everlasting Peace” on his visit, and has now offered to meet Chinese and Korean leaders to explain his move. But nothing has assuaged the anger of either Chinese or Koreans, to whom Abe seems to condone the brutality of his country’s occupation of theirs.