Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sent a masakaki ritual offering bearing his name and title to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Sunday for its autumn festival.
Kishida does not intend to visit the shrine during the Annual Fall Rites, which started the same day and run through Wednesday.
His predecessor as prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, visited Yasukuni Shrine in the morning. Suga did not visit the shrine during his tenure as prime minister, but had also sent masakaki for the previous fall festival and the Annual Spring Rites.
Also sending masakaki on the first day of the festival were Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Shigeyuki Goto and World Expo 2025 minister Kenji Wakamiya.
From a nonpartisan group of lawmakers that visit Yasukuni Shrine together, only a few representatives including chairperson Hidehisa Otsuji, a former vice president of the House of Councillors, visited the shrine in light of the pandemic.
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