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Japan’s Takaichi sends offering to Yasukuni on WWII anniversary, Koizumi visits shrine

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday sent a ritual offering to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, while the country’s defence chief Shinjiro Koizumi…

By Samantha Johnson / August 15, 2026

Sources have said Takaichi, a conservative, is likely to refrain from visiting the war-linked shrine on the war anniversary. The shrine honours Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals. Visits by Japanese prime ministers and lawmakers have drawn sharp rebukes from China and South Korea, which both suffered under Japan’s wartime aggression.

Takaichi, as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, paid for the offering out of her own pocket, according to a senior party executive.

Koizumi became the first sitting defence minister confirmed to have visited the Shinto shrine on the anniversary since Minoru Kihara, who went on August 15, 2024. Kihara is now chief cabinet secretary in Takaichi’s government.

Hitoshi Kikawada, another cabinet member, also visited the shrine.

Kikawada serves as state minister in charge of issues related to the Northern Territories off Japan’s Hokkaido – islands at the centre of a territorial row with Russia. Tokyo maintains the former Soviet Union illegally seized the islands after the war.

Then Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Sanae Takaichi visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II last year, two months before she became prime minister. Photo: Kyodo
Then Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Sanae Takaichi visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II last year, two months before she became prime minister. Photo: Kyodo

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