Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sends a ritual “masakaki” tree offering to Yasukuni, a Shinto shrine, in Oct. 17, 2021. The shrine in central Tokyo honours 2.5 million war dead, mostly Japanese, who have perished since the late 19th century. But it also enshrines senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes by an international tribunal. KYODO
File Photo: Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Earlier this year, three top ministers paid their respects at the shrine on the anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender. But a Japanese prime minister has not appeared there since 2013, when Shinzo Abe sparked fury in Beijing and Seoul and earned a rare diplomatic rebuke from close ally the United States. KYODO
File Photo: Two of Kishida’s ministers — health and labour minister Shigeyuki Goto and Kenji Wakamiya, minister in charge of the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka — also offered sacred trees. /tokyotimes/
