TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba sent an offering to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, his office said on Thursday, a move that has previously been criticised by South Korea and China, which view the shrine as a symbol of Japan’s militaristic past.
It was Ishiba’s first such offering, including before he took office this month, his office said, a rite commonly made to coincide with autumn and spring festivals.
The shrine includes 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal among the 2.5 million war dead honoured there.
Ishiba called a snap election of Japan’s lower house of parliament this month, where polls indicate his ruling Liberal Democratic Party is at risk of losing its outright majority.
(Reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo, John Geddie, and Rocky Swift; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)
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