Justin Bieber apologized Wednesday to those he offended by visiting Japan's Yasukuni war shrine this week, saying he was misled to see it as only a place of prayer.
The Shinto shrine in Tokyo honors 2.5 million war dead, including 14 convicted war criminals. China and South Korea in particular see Yasukuni as a symbol of Japan's past militarism and see visits to it as a lack of understanding or remorse over wartime history.