Japanese officials again pretended they didn’t understand why China and other neighbors were angry, after several senior government officials honored Japanese war dead at a shrine that venerates several convicted war criminals.

Cabinet members carried an offering from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo to mark the 68th anniversary of Japan’s surrender, a place seen abroad as a symbol of Japan's past militarism and colonialism.

Abe keeps pushing the line to appease his rural and nationalist base, while not totally angering Taiwan, South Korea, China, where anti-Japanese protests marked the day, and any other country Imperial Japan wronged during World War II.

“I asked my special aide to make the offering on my behalf with a feeling of gratitude and respect for those who fought and gave their precious lives for their country,” Abe told reporters at the prime minister's office.

Unfortunately, that offering goes to a shrine that honors now just rank and file war dead, but also 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.

The conservative Japanese government claims it’s purely a domestic matter, but other nations don’t think so.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry called the visits “deplorable”, and accused the ministers of shutting their eyes to history.

Retired Chinese Major General Luo Yuan was more blunt, asking, “Can you imagine what the world would think of Germany if they paid homage to Nazi boss Hitler?”