The visits to the Yasukuni Shrine are mostly taken by the PR China and the Koreas as an opportunity to complain and bring up old wounds. Simply stopping visiting Yasukuni is not going to solve the fundamental problems in relations between these nations – disputes over Liancourt Rocks/Dokdo/Takeshima and Pinnacle Islands/Senkaku/Diaoyu or provide the demanded apologies over Japan’s World War II conduct which in any case when offered tends to be rejected as not enough. [1]  Ultimately foreign relations between nations do not have to be linked to history; many countries put conflicting pasts behind them. If the other countries of North East Asia wanted good relations with Japan they would simply ignore these visits.  [1] AP, ‘China dismisses Japanese apology for war aggression’, USA Today, 22 April 2005,