TOKYO: Japan's nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid tribute at Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni war shrine on Thursday, in a move Beijing condemned as “absolutely unacceptable”.

Abe described his visit, which is certain to roil already-troubled ties in East Asia, as a pledge against war and said it was not aimed at hurting feelings in China or South Korea.

The shrine is the believed repository of around 2.5 million souls of Japan's war dead, most of them common soldiers, but also including several high-level officials executed for war crimes after World War II, who were enshrined in the 1970s.

South Korea and China see it as a symbol of Tokyo's unrepentance and say it represents a misguided view of its warmongering past.

“I chose this day to report (to enshrined spirits) what we have done in the year since the administration launched and to pledge and determine that never again will people suffer in war,” Abe, dressed in a a formal black swallow-tailed coat and a silver tie, told reporters.

“I am aware that, because of misunderstandings, some people criticise a visit to Yasukuni shrine as an act of worshipping war criminals, but I made my visit to pledge to create an era where people will never suffer from catastrophe in war,” Abe said.

“I have no intention at all to hurt the feelings of Chinese or South Korean people.”

“Like many prime ministers who have visited Yasukuni after the war, I wish to continue friendly relations with China and South Korea, which are important and benefit national interests,” he said.

The visit came exactly 12 months after he took power, a period in which he has met neither China's President Xi Jinping or Korea's President Park.