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Japan arrests Chinese man over graffiti incident at Yasukuni Shrine, two more put on wanted list

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Japan arrests Chinese man over graffiti incident at Yasukuni Shrine, two more put on wanted list

A Chinese national living in Japan was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly conspiring with two others to spray-paint the English word “toilet” on a stone pillar at the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo earlier this year, police said.

Jiang Zhuojun, 29, is suspected of buying the spray paint and, in other roles, damaging the pillar near the entrance with the shrine’s name engraved on it.

The Tokyo Police Public Security Bureau issued arrest warrants for two other Chinese nationals, 36-year-old Dong Guangming and 25-year-old Xu Laiyu, and placed them on the wanted list.

The three are said to have vandalized the pillar on May 31 at around 9:55 p.m.

Dong and Xu left Japan for China on June 1, but a video was posted on Chinese social media showing a man apparently urinating on the stone pillar before spray-painting the word “toilet” in red.

A still from a video circulating on Chinese social media shows an unidentified man next to the word “toilet” in graffiti at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Photo: X/Ek_aike

According to the bureau, the damage is estimated at 4.2 million yen (US$26,000). Dong is suspected of being the perpetrator and Xu is accused of filming the act.

Police declined to comment on whether Jiang had admitted the allegations.

Yasukuni is a source of diplomatic tension with China and other Asian countries because the more than 2.4 million war dead who are paid their last respects at this shrine include Japan’s wartime leaders who were convicted as war criminals by an international tribunal after World War II.

Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said at a press conference last month that the Japanese government had expressed its concerns about the measures to the Chinese government through diplomatic channels.

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