Reports have reached us from Shanghai that someone sympathetic to Green Shinto has been unable to log into the site over several successive days. Apparently websites are jammed with no official reason why, so this is pure speculation, but it may be that government internet operators have banned anything to do with Shinto because of the legacy of the WW2 and the role of State Shinto. More particularly, the controversy over Yasukuni in recent years left a very nasty taste in the mouth of the Chinese authorities, as a consequence of which they may have seen fit to issue a general ban.
If this is true, supporters of Green Shinto will surely enjoy the irony, since our cause is to work towards opening up Shinto. We stand strongly opposed to those right-wing tendencies that seek to move the religion backwards towards its prewar nationalism. Believe me, such tendencies exist. Which is precisely what the Chinese are worried about…
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