The decision by Japan's outgoing prime minister Mr Junichiro Koizumi to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, where the spirits of 2.5 million of the country's war dead are honoured (including 14 Class A war criminals from the second World War), has stirred another round of bitter political resentment and recrimination in east Asia.
Chinese and South Korean leaders sharply criticised the visit, which came symbolically on the 61st anniversary of the war's end. Mr Koizumi signed himself as prime minister of Japan, ahead of his departure from that office next month, making this a more formally representative occasion than his private visits to the shrine on previous occasions. It fulfils a promise he made to the conservative base of his Liberal Democrat Party five years ago, reiterated during last year's general election, which he won handsomely. Mr Koizumi insists his intention is not to glorify Japan's imperial past but to honour its war dead. He has regularly repeated Japan's standard regret for its war crimes in the 1930s and 1940s.
This row between east Asian neighbours taps not only into a resurgent Japanese national feeling which has developed since the end of the Cold War, but into new nationalisms in China and South Korea as well. They represent a new form of political solidarity, supplanting the communist ethos in China, and symbolise South Korea's growing political and economic strength and independence from the United States. They come into play, paradoxically, when the region as a whole is much more economically interdependent, driven above all by China's spectacular growth. This has stimulated renewed growth in Japan, including huge investments in China and a completely new travel and tourist trade between their peoples.
During his five years in office Mr Koizumi has encouraged these economic changes but has also developed a much closer political and strategic relationship with the United States. Running through the hostile Chinese and South Korean reactions to his Yasukuni visits is a wider uncertainty and resentment about Japan's political direction in the region. It is further stoked by intense rows about territorial and resource claims involving islands disputed with China, South Korea and Russia.
Thus Yasukuni should be seen as a symptom of a new regional tension rather than its primary cause, even if that does not excuse Mr Koizumi's determination to abide by his commitment. The issue is controversial in Japan - including within the governing coalition - as well. Mr Koizumi's successor must decide whether to continue such visits - or play them down to reduce tension.