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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida donated religious offerings on Friday to a Tokyo shrine that China and the Koreas consider a symbol of Japan’s wartime militarism.
Kishida donated Shinto “masakaki” ornaments for Yasukuni Shrine’s biennial festival, as he has since becoming prime minister in October 2021. The donations are seen as a gesture toward conservative governing party lawmakers and voters.
Yasukuni honors about 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including convicted war criminals. Victims of Japanese aggression during the first half of the 20th century, especially China and the Koreas, see the shrine as a symbol of Japanese militarism, and visits by lawmakers to the shrine as signs of their lack of remorse over Japan’s wartime actions.
