Japan's transport minister, Tatsunori Ibayashi, visited the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Monday, becoming the second cabinet member to go there during this year's autumn festival after the growth strategy minister, Minoru Kiuchi, on Saturday, The Japan Times reports.
Ibayashi went with a cross-party group of about 70 lawmakers led by Ichiro Aisawa of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, including members of the Japan Innovation Party, the Democratic Party for the People and Sanseito. Several senior LDP figures also visited separately.
Hiroshi Kajiyama, chair of the LDP's general council, presented a ritual offering of money for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who he said covered the cost herself. Visits by politicians to the shrine, which honours Japan's war dead including convicted war criminals, have long drawn protests from China and South Korea.
Source: The Japan Times