Japan PM sends Yasukuni offering on WWII anniversary
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- Sanae Takaichi sent a ritual offering to Yasukuni on Aug. 15, paying out of her own pocket as LDP president to mark the 81st anniversary of WWII's end, while refraining from an in-person visit since taking office in October 2025
- Shinjiro Koizumi became the first sitting defence minister confirmed to have visited the shrine on the Aug. 15 anniversary since his predecessor Minoru Kihara attended on Aug. 15, 2024
- Hitoshi Kikawada, state minister in charge of Northern Territories issues with Russia, also visited, tying wartime memory to Japan's active territorial dispute over islands seized by the former Soviet Union after the war
- Senior LDP executives — Secretary-General Shunichi Suzuki, General Council head Haruko Arimura, and Election Strategy Committee head Yasutoshi Nishimura — attended the shrine in person
- Yasukuni enshrined 14 wartime leaders as deities in 1978, most convicted as Class-A war criminals, including wartime PM Hideki Tojo, who was executed in 1948 for crimes against peace
- Shrine visits by Japanese officials historically draw sharp rebukes from China and South Korea, which suffered under Japan's wartime occupation of China and 1910–1945 colonisation of the Korean Peninsula
Why it matters: Koizumi's visit marks the first sitting defence minister on Aug. 15 since 2024, and Kikawada — the minister handling Japan's active dispute with Russia over the Northern Territories — joined him, deepening coordinated LDP engagement with wartime memory at a moment that typically draws formal objections from China and South Korea.
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