All 4 Top LDP Executives Visit Yasukuni Shrine

Takayuki Kobayashi, Policy Research Council Chairman of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), visited the Yasukuni Shrine today (August 16).

With this visit, all four top officials holding key party posts have now visited the shrine.

Kyodo News reported that Policy Chief Kobayashi visited Yasukuni Shrine this morning and paid for a ritual offering called "tamagushi" out of his own pocket.

Speaking to reporters after the visit, Kobayashi said his grandfather was killed in action, adding, "I visited as a member of a bereaved family."

Regarding Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi opting not to visit Yasukuni Shrine directly yesterday—Japan's wartime defeat day—but instead bowing toward the shrine from several hundred meters away in a ritual known as "yohai," Kobayashi responded, "It is a matter for the prime minister to judge appropriately on each occasion."

When asked about South Korea and China protesting the shrine visits made yesterday by cabinet ministers such as Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, he brushed it off, saying, "It is a matter of individual conscience."

Kobayashi has consistently visited Yasukuni Shrine on the occasion of Japan's war defeat anniversary or the shrine's seasonal festivals.

With Kobayashi completing his visit a day later, all four top LDP executives have now visited Yasukuni Shrine during this period.

Secretary-General Shunichi Suzuki, General Council Chairperson Haruko Arimura, and Election Campaign Committee Chairman Yasutoshi Nishimura visited the shrine together as a group yesterday.

While LDP executives have previously visited Yasukuni Shrine in a personal capacity or as members of a parliamentary group that visits the shrine together, analysts in Japan view it as unusual for top party executives to engage in a group pilgrimage.

There are also interpretations that the group visit by senior LDP executives may serve as preliminary groundwork to pave the way for Prime Minister Takaichi—who has withheld visits to the shrine out of consideration for neighboring countries' backlashes—to visit the site in the future.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.