A cross-party group of over 120 Japanese lawmakers on Wednesday visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, regarded as a symbol of the nation’s past militarism by its Asian neighbors, for its spring festival.
Minoru Kiuchi, the minister of economic and fiscal policy, visited the shrine separately, becoming the first confirmed cabinet member to do so during the three-day event that began Tuesday under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government. Takaichi sent a masakaki ritual offering that day.
Takaichi as president of the Liberal Democratic Party made a personal monetary offering on Wednesday, according to Haruko Arimura, head of the ruling party’s General Council, who delivered the offering to the shrine on her behalf.
Ichiro Aisawa, leader of the group and a veteran House of Representatives member of the LDP, told reporters, “The many war dead laid the foundation for a peaceful and prosperous Japan,” adding, “We must firmly pass down the memories and records of war to keep them from fading.”
Kiuchi told reporters that he had offered his “sincere gratitude, with deep reverence, to the spirits of heroes who gave their precious lives for the nation.”
From the LDP, policy chief Takayuki Kobayashi also visited the shrine.
Takaichi, a conservative known for regularly visiting the shrine, has no plan to do so during the ongoing festival, according to a source close to her, as ties with China have deteriorated since her remarks in November suggesting Japan might intervene if Taiwan is attacked.
China views Taiwan, a self-ruled democratic island, as a breakaway province to be eventually reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Visits to the shrine by Japanese politicians have long been a source of diplomatic friction, mainly with China and South Korea, because it honors wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by a post-World War II international tribunal, along with more than 2.4 million war dead.
The cross-party group routinely visits the shrine for its spring and autumn festivals as well as the anniversary of the surrender in World War II on Aug. 15. Before taking office on Oct 21, Takaichi also made such visits, even while serving as a Cabinet minister.
During last year’s autumn festival in mid-October, weeks after Takaichi won the LDP’s leadership race on Oct 4, she refrained from visiting the shrine and instead made a monetary offering.
Yasukuni enshrined 14 wartime leaders as deities in 1978, most of whom were convicted as Class-A war criminals. They include Gen. Hideki Tojo, a wartime prime minister who was executed in 1948 for crimes against peace.
Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 and occupied a wide area of China by the end of the war.
© KYODO
