▲ Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi offered ritual offerings to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo today (October 17).
According to Kyodo News and NHK, Prime Minister Takaichi offered a ritual tree known as a masakaki under the name of "Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi" for the shrine's autumn festival, which began today.
Citing sources close to the Prime Minister, Kyodo News reported that Takaichi plans to refrain from physically visiting the Yasukuni Shrine during the three-day autumn festival running through October 19.
Kyodo interpreted this as an effort to avoid diplomatic friction with neighboring countries such as South Korea and China that could arise from a visit.
Before taking office as the Liberal Democratic Party leader in October of last year, Takaichi had routinely visited the Yasukuni Shrine during the spring and autumn festivals, as well as on August 15, which marks South Korea's Liberation Day and Japan's World War II surrender anniversary.
However, since assuming the LDP presidency last October, she did not visit the shrine during that month's autumn festival or the spring festival held after her inauguration as prime minister.
On August 15, she offered ritual-fee money known as tamagushiroyo out of her own pocket in her capacity as LDP leader, and instead of entering the shrine, she performed yobai, bowing toward the shrine from afar.
Regarding whether Prime Minister Takaichi also performed yobai today, her aides declined to comment, according to Kyodo.
Among cabinet ministers, Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy Minoru Kiuchi visited the Yasukuni Shrine today.
After his visit, he told reporters that he had paid for the tamagushiroyo using his own funds.
Takayuki Kobayashi, chairperson of the LDP Policy Research Council, also visited Yasukuni this afternoon.
Additionally, Kyodo News reported that House of Representatives Speaker Eisuke Mori, House of Councillors President Masakazu Sekiguchi, and Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare Kenichiro Ueno sent ritual offerings.
On October 19, a bipartisan group of lawmakers known as the "Parliamentarians' Association for Visiting Yasukuni Shrine Together" is scheduled to visit the shrine.
The Yasukuni Shrine honors the spirits of some 2.466 million people who died in civil wars following the Meiji Restoration and numerous wars waged by Japanese imperialism.
Nearly 90 percent of them, about 2.133 million spirits, are connected to the Pacific War, notably including Class-A war criminals from the Pacific War such as wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who was executed under the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
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