Photo/Illutration Yasukuni Shrine started its autumn festival on Oct. 17 in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward. (Yuki Minami)

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba didn't visit the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Oct. 17, the start of the shrine's autumn festival, but he made a ritual offering of "masakaki" evergreen twigs.

He sent the ceremonial implement for Shinto rituals under the name of “Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.” 

Yasukuni Shrine memorializes people who gave their lives for the country, including 14 Class-A war criminals of World War II. The war criminals included wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.

Visits by Japanese leaders to the controversial shrine trigger a backlash from China and South Korea.

Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also avoided visiting Yasukuni while in office, but donated masakaki for the shrine’s spring and autumn festivals.

Hidehisa Otsuji, president of the Upper House, and Takamaro Fukuoka, health minister, also sent masakaki offerings to the shrine on Oct. 17.

A bipartisan Diet members' group for visiting Yasukuni Shrine announced that it would avoid making a group visit to the shrine because it falls during the Lower House election campaign period.

Ishiba didn’t clarify his stance on visiting the shrine in September, during the presidential election campaign of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

At the time he only told reporters that the “prime minister’s job is to create an environment where the emperor can visit the shrine.”

Meanwhile, Sanae Takaichi, a former minister in charge of economic security, visited the shrine on Oct. 17. She continued visiting Yasukuni even while she was a Cabinet member.

In contrast with Ishiba, she told reporters that she would continue to visit even if she became prime minister during the LDP presidential campaign. She narrowly lost to Ishiba in the runoff vote.

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