BEIJING, Oct. 17  -- Some 110 Japanese lawmakers on Friday paid autumn tribute to the notorious war criminal-honoring Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, in a flagrant challenge to international justice and in disregard of concerns and opposition from the international community.

The tribute was yet another move by right-leaning Japanese politicians to tear off war scars and get on the nerves of the victims of Japan's brutal aggression in World War II.

Earlier in the day, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also dedicated a "masakaki" tree offering under the title of "prime minister" to the shrine.

It is absurd to hear lawmaker Hidehisa Otsuji, who led the group to the shrine, say that offering "gratitude" to the people who sacrificed their lives for the country is "natural," since those they were honoring include war criminals whose hands were covered with the blood of innocent people in countries invaded by Japan during WWII.

The Yasukuni Shrine, built in 1869 under Emperor Meiji, highlights Japan's wartime nationalism and is regarded as a spiritual tool of Japanese aggression in WWII.

Of the 2,466,532 people contained in the shrine's Book of Souls, 1,068 were convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Of those, 14 are convicted Class A war criminals.

In China alone, 35 million lives were lost and huge material losses were caused during the Japanese invasion of China (1937-1945).

After China's city of Nanjing was occupied by Japanese troops on Dec. 13, 1937, at least 300,000 Chinese were killed, with more than 20,000 women raped, over the course of six weeks by barbarian Japanese soldiers.

The Japanese politicians show of so-called homage to the deceased that becomes customary in the annual spring and fall festivals of the Yasukuni Shrine and on the war anniversary on Aug. 15 has become an insult to all nations victimized by the war of aggression, and deserves a show-throwing answer back.

This is also a flagrant challenge to international post-war justice and human conscience, which has given Japan's neighbors and the rest of the international community every reason to be highly vigilant and deeply concerned over the path Japan is taking.

If Japan really wants to mend fences with its neighbors, it should start from reflecting on history and sincerely correcting all the wrongdoing. Otherwise, there will be no way out of the shadow of war.