Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi sent a ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Tuesday as the shrine, viewed by China and South Korea as a symbol of Japan’s wartime militarism, started its three-day spring festival.
Takaichi, who routinely visited the shrine before taking office on Oct 21, appears to have sent the offering in lieu of visiting, as Tokyo-Beijing ties show little sign of improvement following her November remarks on a Taiwan contingency, a self-ruled island that China sees as part of its territory.
The shrine has long been a source of diplomatic friction with neighboring countries because it honors wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by a post-World War II international tribunal, along with millions of war dead.
During last year’s mid-October autumn festival, held weeks after Takaichi won the Liberal Democratic Party leadership race on Oct 4, she refrained from visiting the shrine.
Even while serving as a minister, Takaichi routinely visited the Shinto shrine during its spring and autumn festivals and on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II.
Beijing has increased political and economic pressure on Tokyo after Takaichi said in parliament on Nov 7 that a Taiwan emergency could be a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan that may prompt a response by the Self-Defense Forces in support of the United States.
At a press conference after winning the LDP leadership race, Takaichi, a conservative with hawkish security views, said she would decide “appropriately” on future visits to Yasukuni as prime minister, adding the matter “should never be made a diplomatic issue.”
The last Yasukuni visit by a sitting Japanese prime minister was in December 2013 by Shinzo Abe, known as Takaichi’s political mentor.
Past visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders, cabinet ministers and lawmakers have drawn harsh criticism from neighboring Asian countries. Japan invaded large parts of China before World War II and colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
Yasukuni enshrined 14 wartime leaders as deities in 1978, most of whom were convicted as Class-A war criminals, including Prime Minister Gen Hideki Tojo, who was executed in 1948 for crimes against peace.
© KYODO
