Takaichi makes ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made a ritual masakaki tree stand offering to war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Saturday, the start of its autumn festival.

She offered the masakaki in her capacity as prime minister.

Takaichi is expected to skip a visit to the Shinto shrine during the three-day festival, which runs through Monday. She did not visit the shrine during its spring festival in April or on the Aug. 15 anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II.

Yasukuni Shrine is regarded by countries such as China and South Korea as a symbol of Japan’s wartime militarism as it honors Class-A war criminals along with the country’s war dead.

Among members of her Cabinet, Minoru Kiuchi, minister in charge of growth strategy, visited the shrine Saturday and made a tamagushi cash offering at his own expense.

“I offered my sincere condolences to the spirits of those who sacrificed their precious lives for their homeland and expressed my deep respect for them,” he told reporters.

Takayuki Kobayashi, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, also visited the shrine Saturday.

Lower House Speaker Eisuke Mori, Upper House President Masakazu Sekiguchi and health minister Kenichiro Ueno, meanwhile, also made masakaki offerings.

Takaichi on Saturday attended a memorial ceremony at the Defense Ministry near the shrine, for Self-Defense Forces personnel who died on duty.

Sources close to the prime minister declined to comment on whether she prayed toward the shrine while there, as she did on Aug. 15 from a parking area following a national war anniversary ceremony at the Nippon Budokan, about 500 meters away from the shrine.

She had continued to visit the shrine during its festivals, including when she was serving as a Cabinet minister, but has not done so since the autumn festival in October last year, shortly before taking office as prime minister.

She appears to be prioritizing diplomatic relations with China, which have been strained by her remarks on a possible contingency involving Taiwan, as well as with South Korea, with which relations have been improving.