Japan PM Takaichi Sends Yasukuni Offering, Stoking China Tensions
Takaichi paid for the offering herself, marking the shrine’s autumn festival, a Japanese news agency reported.
Two days earlier, on Saturday, she had already sent a “masakaki” ritual offering of evergreen twigs to the shrine in her capacity as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Two senior officials also went to the shrine in person, acting separately: Land Minister Tatsunori Ibayashi and Nishimura Yasutoshi, who chairs the Liberal Democratic Party’s Election Strategy Committee. The shrine honors millions of war dead, along with “convicted war criminals”.
Visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni have repeatedly drawn sharp condemnation from China and South Korea. By the end of World War II, Japan had occupied a vast swath of China, and South Korea lived under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.
The latest development arrives as relations between Tokyo and Beijing remain strained. About a year ago, Takaichi suggested that an attack on Taiwan could trigger a response from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces in support of the United States.
China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that must eventually be unified with the mainland. Taiwan insists on its independence.
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