Tokyo, April 21 : Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday sent a ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine on the occasion of its spring festival.

Takaichi sent a ritual "masakaki" tree offering to the war-linked shrine on the first day of its three-day ceremony.

Yasukuni Shrine, located in central Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, has long been a source of diplomatic friction between Japan and its neighbours, reports Xinhua news agency.

For a long time, visits and ritual offerings made by Japanese officials to the controversial shrine have consistently sparked criticism and opposition both at home and abroad, hurting the feelings of the people of China, South Korea, and other countries.

Any visit or even ritual offerings by Japanese officials is seen as a provocation, drawing immediate, fierce condemnation. When Shinzo Abe, then prime minister, visited Yasukuni in 2013, the backlash was so widespread that even the United States made a rare public expression of "disappointment."

No sitting prime minister has visited the shrine since, yet Sanae Takaichi has signalled she may break the precedent.

Fresh from her victory in the lower house election, Takaichi floated the prospect of a visit, saying she had been working to "create an environment" conducive to paying respects at the shrine.

Amid the upheaval of the Meiji Restoration, the Yasukuni Shrine was initially built by order of Emperor Meiji to honour those who died in the civil war that paved the way for Japan's modernisation -- and, unfortunately, militarism.

In the late Meiji era, Japan launched the First Sino-Japanese War, forcing China to cede Taiwan to Japan.

Originally called Shokonsha, dedicated to the spirits of the war dead, the shrine was later renamed Yasukuni, meaning to "preserve peace for the entire nation."

Today, Yasukuni presents itself as a "shrine of peace," enshrining 2.47 million "divinities" who it says "sacrificed their lives in the course of fulfilling their public duty to protect their motherland." Notably, 2.13 million souls contributed to Japan's aggression in World War II.

In the shrine's own account, regardless of their rank, social status and historical role, all are honoured equally and "worshipped as venerable divinities."

/IANS