Takaichi makes an additional offering at Yasukuni despite protests from South Korea and China; will not visit the shrine

【Financial News, Tokyo—Correspondent Seo Hye-jin】Despite protests from South Korea and China over her offerings at Yasukuni Shrine, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made an additional offering payment on the 19th. Although she has decided not to visit the shrine in person during the autumn Reitaisai, around 70 Japanese cabinet ministers and lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties paid their respects there that day.
According to NHK, Kyodo News and other outlets, Takaichi paid from her personal funds an offering fee known as “tamagushi-ryo,” through Hiroshi Kajiyama, chair of the LDP General Council, who visited Yasukuni Shrine that morning.
Kajiyama told reporters, “I received a heartfelt tamagushi-ryo from LDP President Takaichi and offered it.” This means she sent the offering fee in her capacity as LDP president.
Earlier, on the 17th, the first day of Reitaisai, Takaichi made an offering in the form of a potted plant called “masakaki” in the name of “Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.” The South Korean government expressed regret, while the Chinese government condemned it as “a provocation against the postwar international order.”
Takaichi plans to refrain from visiting the shrine in person during this Reitaisai. She also did not visit during the spring Reitaisai in April, instead making offerings of masakaki and tamagushi-ryo one after the other.
She also paid the offering fee from her personal funds on August 15, South Korea’s Liberation Day and the anniversary of Japan’s defeat. Rather than visiting the shrine, she performed a “yohai”—paying her respects toward Yasukuni Shrine—from the grounds of Nippon Budokan, several hundred meters away. Kyodo News reported that aides said they would “refrain from answering” when asked whether she had also performed a yohai on the 17th.
Group visits by politicians also continued. About 70 members of the cross-party Parliamentarians’ Association for Visiting Yasukuni Shrine Together went up to the shrine’s main sanctuary and paid their respects shortly after 8 a.m. that day. Lawmakers from the LDP, Japan Restoration Party, Democratic Party for the People, Sanseitō and other parties took part, as did Ibayashi, Takaichi’s minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, and Kamiya, Sanseitō’s leader.
After paying their respects, Aizawa, the association’s chair and a former LDP Diet Affairs Committee chairman, said at a press conference, “We have once again etched in our hearts the horrors of war and the preciousness of peace, and renewed our resolve to move forward as a peaceful nation.” Aizawa went on to argue that lawmakers born after the war have a duty to pass on to the next generation the tragedy of war and the preciousness of peace.
Earlier, on the 17th, Minister in Charge of Growth Strategy Minoru Kiuchi and LDP Policy Research Council Chairman Takayuki Kobayashi also visited Yasukuni Shrine.

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