Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, at the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. Photograph: Shuji Kajiyama/AP
It's the fifth time he's been there so Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, will have known the score. His visit to Yasukuni shrine, which honours the country's war dead, has predictably unleashed a frenzy of diplomatic protest from neighbouring countries.
Mr Koizumi said it was a personal rather than state visit, in part because of a recent ruling by the Osaka high court which found that the official visits violated the constitutional division between religion and the state.
"A foreign government should not take issue with the way the Japanese express condolences to the Japanese war dead as well as the world's war dead," Mr Koizumi told a group of reporters.
Fat chance. Within minutes, the South Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, summoned the Japanese ambassador, Shotaro Oshima, in Seoul to protest.
Later South Korea's presidential spokesman, Kim Man-soo, said a summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and Mr Koizumi scheduled for later this year would be "difficult unless there is a significant change in the situation".
The Chinese protested likewise as to them, praying at Yasukuni is to tarnish the memory of Chinese who suffered under Japanese imperial army troops.
Relations between the countries have long been poor. In April, the release of a Japanese school text book which skirted around wartime atrocities sparked violent protests in China.
After today's visit, Japanese people living in Beijing were warned to be vigilant. Bloggers have begun to react, with some putting provocative arguments about what the shrine represents.
