Japan PM makes donation to Yasukuni war dead shrine, cabinet members visit

15/8/2022 11:37

        Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sent an offering to a controversial Tokyo shrine for war dead visited by members of his cabinet on Monday, the 77th
        anniversary of Japan's World War Two surrender, moves set to anger South Korea and China.
        
        With the Yasukuni Shrine seen as a symbol of Japan's past military aggression, Japan's ties with China are already particularly strained this year after it conducted unprecedented military exercises around Taiwan following the visit there by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this
        month.
        
        During the drills, several missiles fell in waters inside Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone.
        
        The commemoration at Yasukuni, a site that honours 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal, as well as war dead, leaves Kishida facing a tricky balancing act.