Takaichi sends offering to Yasukuni Shrine for spring rite

TOKYO — 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 regularly visited the shrine before taking office last October, is unlikely to do so during the festival this time, a source close to her said, as worsened ties with China following her November remarks on how Japan might respond to a Taiwan emergency show little sign of improvement.

Visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders and ministers have 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.

Takaichi sent a masakaki evergreen twig offering to the shrine for the biannual event under her name as prime minister, following the practice of her predecessors in recent years. Among those who made the same offering were House of Representatives Speaker Eisuke Mori and House of Councillors President Masakazu Sekiguchi.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara, the top government spokesman, told a news conference that Takaichi made the offering in a "private capacity" and that it was therefore not a matter for the government to comment on.

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.

But during last year's mid-October autumn festival, held weeks after Takaichi won the Liberal Democratic Party leadership race on Oct 4 but before she took office on Oct 21, she refrained from visiting and made a monetary offering using her personal funds.

Beijing has increased political and economic pressure on Tokyo since Takaichi said in parliament on Nov 7 that a Taiwan emergency could be a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan that could prompt a response by the Self-Defense Forces in support of the United States.

Taiwan is a self-ruled democratic island that China sees as part of its territory to be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

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.

On Tuesday, some senior members of the conservative Japan Innovation Party, the LDP's junior coalition partner since October, visited the shrine.

"We live today in Japan that was defended by heroes" whose souls are honored by the shrine and praying there is "what a politician should do," JIP co-leader Fumitake Fujita told reporters after the visit.

A cross-party group of Japanese lawmakers plans to visit the shrine on Wednesday.

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.

© KYODO