There are a number of war controversies relating to Yasukuni Shrine and its war museum Yūshūkan in Tokyo, Japan. The shrine is based on State Shinto, as opposed to traditional Japanese Shinto, and has a close history with statism in Shōwa Japan. Most of the dead served the emperors of Japan during wars from 1867 to 1951, but they also include civilians in service and government officials. It is the belief of Shinto that Yasukuni enshrines the actual souls of the dead, known as kami in Japanese. The kami are honored through liturgical texts and ritual incantations known as Norito.
Of the 2,466,532 men named in the shrine's Book of Souls, 1,066 are war criminals convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, following World War II. Eleven of those war criminals were convicted of Class A war crimes; one was charged with Class A but found guilty of lesser Class B war crimes; two other men were charged with Class A crimes but died before their trials could be completed. This decision to honor individuals who were found responsible for serious breaches of international humanitarian law caused China, Russia, South Korea, and North Korea to call Yasukuni Shrine an exemplar of the nationalist, revisionist, and unapologetic approach Japan has taken towards its conduct during World War II. This has made visits to the shrine by Japanese prime ministers, cabinet members, or parliamentarians extremely controversial. Then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi made annual personal non-governmental visits from 2001 to 2006. Since 1985, China, North Korea, and South Korea have protested such visits.
The decision on who is enshrined at Yasukuni remains a religious matter. While the practice started when State Shinto was controlled and managed by the civilian and then military governments of Imperial Japan, post-war governments established a strict legal separation that they have maintained ever since. The Yasukuni priesthood have complete religious autonomy over deciding whom they bestow enshrinement, which is thought permanent and irreversible by the shrine's current Kannushi. War criminals The shrine enshrines and, according to Shinto beliefs, provides a permanent residence for the spirits of those who have fought on behalf of the emperor, regardless of whether they died in combat. 1,066 of the enshrined kami were Japanese citizens convicted of some level of war crime after World War II and a further two were charged with war crimes but died before their trials were completed. Enshrinement typically carries absolution of earthly deeds. One of the criteria for enshrinement at Yasukuni is that a person be listed as having died of any cause while on duty in the war dead registry of the Japanese government. According to documents released on March 28, 2007, by the National Diet Library of Japan, Health and Welfare Ministry officials and Yasukuni representatives agreed during a meeting, on January 31, 1969, that Class-A war criminals judged at the Tokyo Trial were "able to be honored" as decided by the Shrine Priests and decided not to make this decision public.The Japan Times (March 29, 2007) Yasukuni, state in '69 OK'd war criminal inclusion (June 1, 2007)
On October 17, 1978, fourteen men who had been charged with Class A war crimes—eleven were convicted as Class A war criminals, one was convicted of Class B, two died before completing trial—were enshrined as because they were on the war dead registry:
Death by hanging: Hideki Tōjō, Seishirō Itagaki, Heitarō Kimura, Kenji Doihara, Akira Mutō, Kōki Hirota Iwane Matsui (sentenced for only Class B offenses) Lifetime imprisonment: Yoshijirō Umezu, Kuniaki Koiso, Kiichirō Hiranuma, Toshio Shiratori 20-year imprisonment: Shigenori Tōgō Died before a judicial decision was reached (owing to illness or disease): Osami Nagano, Yosuke Matsuoka
All imprisoned war criminals either had their sentences commuted or were released by 1958. The enshrinement was revealed to the media on April 19, 1979, and a still-ongoing controversy started in 1985.
Yūshūkan War Museum
Yasukuni Shrine operates a war museum of the history of Japan (the Yūshūkan), which some observers have criticized as presenting a revisionist interpretation. A documentary-style propaganda video shown to museum visitors portrays Japan's conquest of East Asia during the pre-World War II period as an effort to save the region from the imperial advances of colonial Western powers. The museum has no mention of any of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army, including the Nanjing massacre.
Izokukai The political overtones of Yasukuni Shrine are attributed to 4 factors. One is the ideology of State Shinto, which regarded any wars waged in the name of the emperor as just and anyone who died fighting for the emperor as an . A second is that Japanese Class-A war criminals are honored at the Shrine, and more importantly, that their wartime genocidal, crimes against humanity, etc. criminal actions are absolved of culpability. Another factor is the influence of various support organizations, especially the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association (), the largest organization representing the families of war dead from World War II. The most critical issue with many Asian nations that were invaded by Japan is that the Shrine was a meeting place for the Japanese elite to stir-up a frenzy among the Japanese public, before their military went on what was routinely a war of merciless and often genocidal conquest over what they considered inferior peoples.
Yasukuni Shrine considers the Izokukai as its de facto lay organization. The Izokukai was formerly known as the , established in 1947. The original purpose of the Izoku Kōsei Renmei was "pursuing the end of warfare, establishing global peace and world prosperity and contributing to the welfare of the humanity." They sought "to provide relief and assistance to the families of those who died in the (Asia Pacific) war." The organization provided assistance to the widows, orphans and aging parents of deceased veterans as well as lobbying the government on behalf of those families' interests. In 1953, the organization became a trust foundation and changed its name to Izokukai. The organization changed its main purpose to pursue "the establishment of a peaceful Japan, the cultivation of character, and the promotion of morality" and to "seek to praise eirei, to promote the welfare of the families of the war dead, and to seek recognition and compensation for civilian auxiliary units." The change, which removed the mention of international pacifism and inserted a reference to eirei, is regarded as giving a nationalist slant to the character of the organization. Chairmen of the organization have usually been members of the governing Liberal Democratic party and the organization is regarded as the informal pipeline between the LDP and the Shrine. In 1962, Okinori Kaya, a militant member of the LDP and a convicted class A war criminal, was appointed chairman.
Politicians' visits Japanese politicians' visits to worship at Yasukuni Shrine have resulted in controversy. This issue first surfaced when emperor Hirohito refused to visit the shrine from 1978 until his death in 1989. According to a memorandum released in 2006 kept by Imperial Household Agency Grand Steward Tomohiko Tomita, Hirohito stated that the reason he stopped visiting the shrine was because of the decision to enshrine class A war criminals.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was one of the most outspoken and controversial visitors. On October 17, 2005, Koizumi visited the shrine for the fifth time since taking office. Although he claimed that his visit was a private affair, it came only days before Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura was scheduled to visit Chinese officials in Beijing to strengthen Sino-Japanese relations. The People's Republic of China responded by canceling the scheduled visit as they consider the shrine a glorification of Japan's past military aggression. Koizumi's annual visits continued to draw criticism from around the world. During the 2005 APEC summit in Busan, South Korea, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing blasted Koizumi's visits, asking, "What would European people think if German leaders were to visit (memorials) related to Hitler and Nazis?" In 2006, Henry Hyde, chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, stated that Koizumi would embarrass the United States Congress and offend American veterans of World War II if he were to give a Congressional speech after making another visit to Yasukuni.
Koizumi's expected successor, Shinzo Abe, visited the shrine in April 2006 before he took office. Although this visit concerned both Chinese and South Korean governments, Abe remained vague as to whether he had visited or would visit the shrine in the future. Subsequent events have led some to suggest that a compromise on the issue was reached with China. Abe publicly supported his predecessor's visits to the shrine, and he made at least one visit to the shrine during his term as prime minister. On June 7, 2007, former President of the Republic of China Lee Teng-hui visited the Shrine to pay tribute to his older brother who died in the Japanese Imperial Navy; he too volunteered as a Japanese Imperial Army officer. Former prime minister Yasuo Fukuda has vowed never to visit the shrine. Fukuda's open political opposition to the shrine has helped improve relations with China, and North and South Korea.
A group of 62 Diet members from the Liberal Democratic Party and the People's New Party, including former Minister of Agriculture Yoshinobu Shimamura and Fukuda's special adviser Eriko Yamatani, visited the shrine on April 22, 2008.Lawmakers visit Yasukuni festival, https://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080423a5.html On April 23, 2013, a group of 169 Japanese lawmakers visited the shrine.
On August 13, 2021, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi visited the shrine.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made offerings to the shrine on April 21, 2026, but did not visit Yasukuni.
General opinions in Japan of the politicians' visits have varied significantly, with the percentages of those who approve ranging from as low as 38% in telephone surveys to as high as 71% on the internet. In a 2015 self-administered survey by Genron NPO, 66% of the respondents did not see a problem with the visits while 15.7% opposed them completely. A 2006 public opinion poll taken by Nihon Keizai Shimbun also found that half of the respondents supported Koizumi's visit to the shrine while 37% opposed it.
Foreign visitors
Pre-war President Emeritus of Harvard University Charles William Eliot visited on July 10, 1913. Major General Nathaniel Walter Barnardiston of the British Army visited on December 14, 1914.『靖国神社百年史』事歴年表、1987年。 Crown Prince of Romania Carol visited on July 7, 1920. Marshal of France Joseph Joffre visited on January 22, 1922. Edward, Prince of Wales visited on April 18, 1922. Governor-General of French Indochina Martial Merlin visited on May 24, 1924. Colonel Francesco de Pinedo of the Italian Air Force visited on September 30, 1925. General Wu Guangxin visited on October 16, 1925. Crown Prince of Sweden Gustaf Adolf visited on September 12, 1926. Italian Navy Captain Luigi Miraglia visited on November 25, 1927. Ambassador of Italy to Japan Pompeo Aloisi visited on July 26, 1928. Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester visited on May 5, 1929. French Navy Counter-Admiral Georges Mouget visited in October 25, 1929. Prince Alongkot visited on November 26, 1929. Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark visited on March 18, 1930. King of Siam Rama VII visited on April 8, 1931. French Navy Vice-Admiral Octave Benjamin Herr visited in June 17, 1931. Reichsmarine Captain Robert Witthoeft visited on July 9, 1931. Charles Lindbergh visited on August 27, 1931. Lord Victor Bulwer-Lytton visited on March 2, 1932.