TOKYO, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- A Japanese lawmaker whose house was burned down after he criticized the prime minister's visit to a World War II shrine has warned of dangerous nationalism.
Koichi Kato, a former secretary-general of the dominant Liberal Democratic Party, voiced concerns in an interview with Japan Times that diplomatic policies presented by Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe - considered a likely replacement for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi -- are "too naïve."
"In today's Japan, I see a kind of aggressive nationalism without repentance (of Japan's militarism before and during World War II), like, 'We did nothing wrong in the last war,'" Kato told the Times.
Police believe a member of a Tokyo right-wing group was responsible for torching the house in Tsuruoka, Kato's hometown in Yamagata Prefecture. It was the same day that Kato had appeared on television talk shows blasting Koizumi for visiting the shrine on the 61st anniversary of the end of the war, the Times said.
No one was injured in the fire.
