Why can't the Chinese accept Abe's shrine visit?

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine on his first anniversary back in office further challenged the China-Japan relationship, which had already deteriorated over the Diaoyu Islands issue.

Ghost worshiper [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

Why can't the Chinese accept the Japanese prime minister's visits to the shrine?

First, the visit is rubbing salt into the old wounds of the victims of Japan's aggressive war. Almost 70 years have passed since the war, but the painful experience still remains in the memory of those people whose country was invaded. Unlike the Germans, some Japanese politicians have failed to face up to history. Therefore, despite the official peace treaty signed between the two countries, the Chinese people are unable to forgive Japan for what it did.

Second, some of those who are worshiped in the shrine are the enemies of mankind. The Class-A war criminals honored there were responsible for massacring Chinese civilians, waging chemical warfare, or performing vivisection on war prisoners and civilians while they were still alive. It is true that China and Japan should move on after the war, but Japan has left no stone unturned in covering up its evil deeds, and this has constantly reminded China, together with South Korea, North Korea and other countries it invaded, about their painful experience and alerted them to what Japan is planning to do now.

Although the Japanese government says it has apologized to China 23 times, a single official visit to the Yasukuni Shrine by its prime minister ruins them all, because it means that all apologies and reflections, in words or in writing, are just diplomacy.

Third, the shrine visit doesn't conform to international justice and universal values. The Yasukuni Shrine has nothing in common with China's Monument to the People's Heroes or Russia's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, because the latter two shrines honor people who died in just wars to protect their country.