Photo/Illutration “Masakaki” ornaments donated by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which sit to the left of the same ornaments given by health minister Masanobu Kato, are displayed at the main hall of Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on April 21. (Nen Satomi)

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made religious offerings on April 21 to a shrine in Tokyo that Chinese and Koreans see as a symbol of Japanese wartime militarism but did not visit it in person.

Kishida donated Shinto “masakaki” ornaments to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward to mark the shrine’s spring festival that started the same day.

He did so under the name of “Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.”

The shrine honors convicted war criminals among about 2.5 million war dead.

Health minister Masanobu Kato also donated the same ornaments to the shrine that day.

Sanae Takaichi, minister in charge of economic security, visited and prayed at the shrine on the afternoon of April 21.

She made a “tamagushi-ryo” cash offering using her own money.

Since becoming prime minister in October 2021, Kishida has donated the masakaki ornaments to the shrine at its spring and autumn festivals.

In addition, his representative made an offering of a tamagushi-ryo to the shrine on Kishida’s behalf as the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party using his own money on Aug. 15, 2022, a day that commemorates the end of World War II.

Kishida also didn’t visit the shrine that day.

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