Central to the principals of Confucianism are the importance of respecting one's roots. Lee Teng Hui, the former Taiwanese president must have obviously forgotten his roots or is pathetically ashamed to be of Chinese genealogy.

It is abhorrent enough that Lee paid his respects last week at the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan which honours the remains of convicted Class A war criminals, but to make a stand hitting out against China and Korea when he said that Japan was too soft on these two countries is to be no different than former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi who did an ultimate 'up-yours' against his East Asian neighbours when he visited the Yasukuni Shrine on Aug 15, 2006. In Asia Pacific, Aug 15 is cherished as the date for the end of World War II, final liberation from the atrocities of the invading Japanese forces.

Moreover, for Lee to assume that the Yasukuni Shrine problem arose because 'China and Korea have their own problems that they can't solve' is a divergence of his cowardly act and smacks of condescension against these two countries presently and their victims of the Japanese cruelties formerly.

If Lee had some pride in himself, and an iota of sympathy for the prisoners of war and comfort women who were kidnaped, raped, tortured, decapitated and murdered in the most grotesque methods during the Japanese Occupation, he would not have even stepped foot near Yasukuni.

For Koizumi to make an annual pilgrimage to Yasukuni is bad enough, but for Lee, how can he accept the Japanese atrocities that were committed against his own ethnicity, or for that matter, against any other human being?

For someone who was educated at the then Kyoto Imperial University and speaks Japanese as his first language, surely he would have read the sign outside the shrine which erroneously reads that 'the Japanese were sent to Nanjing to preserve order'.

While in Malaysia there are Chinese who do not speak Mandarin or a dialect as their first language, their patriotism, however, is for Malaysia. Those born before Aug 31,1957 and who understood the importance of independence shared in the glory and joys of a multi-racial Malaya and in seeing our first Jalur Gemilang being raised at the stroke of midnight. They certainly do not view the British as their colonial masters in the way Lee views Japan as superior above all Asians. It appears that Lee sees himself as a Japanese first, or for that matter, a Japanese solder from the war generation who perceives the Chinese, Korean and Allied nationals and their women and children as non-humans unworthy of being treated with humanity.

While Lee has remonstrated that his visit was personal to pay homage to his fallen brother who served in the Japanese Imperial Army, this is a limpid excuse which hides a sinister motive similar to Koizumi's. Lee ought to be embarrassed that his brother's body even lays in Yasukuni and could have at least expressed a desire that the body be removed for reburial in Taiwan. It cannot be denied that there are remains of Korean soldiers who were forcibly conscripted into the Japanese army buried there. However, their family members have repeatedly demanded for them to be immediately returned to Korea.

While immediate post-war Japanese baby boomers may not be fully aware of the atrocities of Japanese militarism as this fact has been glaringly omitted from their history textbooks, there is hope as the younger Japanese of today s generation now get more exposure through the Internet, or through exchange visits with their East and Southeast Asian neighbours plus tours to the museums and memorials of those countries. Perhaps Lee could take a leaf from the younger Japanese today.