Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sent a ritual offering to a shrine for war dead on the anniversary of Japan's WWII defeat, but did not visit the shrine seen in China and South Korea as a symbol of Tokyo's wartime militarism, an aide says.
Visits to Yasukuni Shrine by top Japanese politicians outrage China and South Korea because it honours 14 Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal, along with war dead.
Ties between China and Japan, Asia's two largest economies, have also been strained in recent days as a growing number of Chinese coastguard and other government ships sailed near disputed islets in the East China Sea, called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
Abe has not visited the shrine in person since December 2013, when he said he did so to show respect for those who died for their country.
"This was out of respect to those who gave their lives for the country," said Yasutoshi Nishimura, an aide to Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), who presented the offering in Abe's name as LDP president rather than as prime minister on Monday.
Among the dozens of other lawmakers who visited the shrine were Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda and Shinjiro Koizumi, the son of popular prime minister Junichiro Koizumi who is often tipped as a future prime minister himself.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said he was aware of the visits but declined to comment, saying it was a private matter for each individual.
He also expressed regret over a morning visit by South Korean lawmakers to a disputed set of islands known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea.
"It is extremely regrettable that this visit took place despite protests beforehand," he told a news conference. He said Japan would protest strongly.
New defence Minister Tomomi Inada, who has been accused by China of recklessly misrepresenting history after she declined to say whether Japanese troops massacred civilians in China during World War II, is visiting troops in Djibouti and would not be able to attend as she usually has.
