TOKYO, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Two of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet ministers visited the notorious Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo during its Autumn festival on Wednesday.
The two ministers were Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi and Katsunobu Kato, minister for promoting dynamic engagement of all citizens.
Both cabinet ministers are close allies of Abe, who himself paid a tribute to the shrine by making a ritual offering there on Monday.
Earlier Wednesday, an aide to the prime minister, Seiichi Eto, who also serves as an upper house member of Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, also visited the infamous shrine.
Wednesday's high profile visits by Takaichi, Kato and Eto, are the latest following some of Abe's cabinet ministers previously making ritual offerings and a contingent of more than 80 lawmakers from different parties paying homage en mass at the shrine on Tuesday.
Visits and ritual offerings made at the shrine during its festivals by politicians draw the ire of Japan's neighbors as Yasukuni Shrine stands as a testament to Japan's past militarism and the barbaric acts that the Imperial Japanese Army committed during their brutal wartime occupation of many parts of Asia.
China on Monday called on Japan to face up to and reflect upon its past aggressions, after Abe sent the ritual offering to the shrine.
The shrine honors 14 Class-A convicted war criminals as well as millions of war dead.
"We firmly oppose the wrong-doings of Japanese politicians," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a press briefing, stating that Japan should make a clear break with its militarist past so as to win trust from its Asian neighbors and the international community.
