Ghost Worship by Proxy: LDP Top Brass Stand In for Takaichi at Yasukuni

Deep Throat

Japan announced its unconditional surrender 81 years ago. Yet to this day, its top officials are still "worshipping ghosts" as a pack. On 15 August, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stopped short of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in person. She instead made a "tamagushi" offering at her own expense in her capacity as president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). That same day, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi went to the shrine himself, joined for the first time by a collective of senior LDP executives. The spectacle drew international attention.

Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi visits the Yasukuni Shrine in person. Photo: AP

According to Kyodo News, Takaichi paid the "tamagushi" ritual offering fee out of her own pocket today as LDP president. She did not visit in person. Since the LDP returned to power, a prime minister's "tamagushi" offering on 15 August, made in the capacity of party president, has become an unbroken "tradition" for 14 consecutive years.

The Defense Minister and the "Four-Horse Carriage"

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi visited Yasukuni in person on the morning of the surrender anniversary. He is the first sitting defense minister to worship there on 15 August in two years, since Minoru Kihara did so in 2024. The Nikkei noted that Koizumi has visited the shrine many times before, including as environment minister and as minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

More striking still, LDP Secretary-General Shunichi Suzuki, General Council Chairperson Haruko Arimura and Election Strategy Committee Chairman Yasutoshi Nishimura visited the shrine together. It was the first collective pilgrimage by the party's top leadership. The original plan was reportedly for the LDP's entire "four-horse carriage" to worship as one: the secretary-general, the General Council chairperson, the Policy Research Council chairman and the election strategy chief. But Policy Research Council Chairman Takayuki Kobayashi was absent. His constituency in Chiba Prefecture had been hit by rare torrential rain, forcing him to hurry home to handle the disaster.

Takaichi's Stand-Ins

Analysts point out that the LDP's "leadership group visit" was anything but a spontaneous act by a few like-minded leaders. In reality, it was a scaled-down, cut-price version of a "Takaichi visit". The goal was “to deceive the heavens and cross the sea”: lull international attention while currying favor with far-right voters at home. The four who worshipped together were, in effect, Takaichi's own stand-ins. The move embodies the collective will of the LDP leadership under her rule. But it is also a provocation, a bid to manufacture a new precedent and test, step by step, how far the bottom line can be eroded.

The LDP's collective "ghost worship". Photo: AP

A Japan politics observer with Guancha.cn said the LDP is a "big tent" party. Its conservative right wing, with its near-obsessive devotion to Yasukuni worship, carries considerable weight. So whoever is elected LDP president, and whatever his personal view of history, he must make some gesture on 15 August. The point is to preserve party unity and appease the hardliners. For them, it is more a matter of political expediency.

For Takaichi, however, things are different. She has long been a vanguard of the "we should visit Yasukuni" chorus. During her two runs for the LDP presidency, she made "support for visits" a key personal selling point. She even vowed that "I will keep visiting even as prime minister". But what is the reality? As former Osaka governor Toru Hashimoto put it: "Anyone who uses their brain knows that a sitting Japanese prime minister simply cannot visit the shrine right now." Japanese netizens who once backed Takaichi are now pouring out grievances: "So much for 'I'll visit even as PM'. All lies, pure verbal fraud"; "Takaichi has really let us down". For Takaichi, the cunning heart is willing but it lacks the nerve is. Unable to visit, she can only settle for the next best thing: sending a "tamagushi" offering like everyone else, and calling it a day.

The Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined. Photo: AP

Swapping the Carriage for the Prime Minister

The secretary-general, the General Council chairperson, the Policy Research Council chairman and the election strategy chief are the "four-horse carriage" that actually keeps the LDP machine running. According to the Guancha.cn observer's analysis, the Takaichi government faces a bind. On one hand, constrained by the international situation, no one in the government dares to shoulder the grave consequences of a "sitting prime minister's visit". On the other, the government has broken its word time and again, and cannot give its diehard far-right supporters at home a proper account.

At present, centrist voters have turned sharply against the Takaichi government over issues such as amending the Imperial House Law. Its forced push for a consumption tax cut has deepened divisions within the LDP itself. If far-right voters were to abandon the government now, it would be adding frost to snow. A "tamagushi" offering alone could never satisfy the far right. Hence the leadership's new scheme: swap the "four-horse carriage" in for the "sitting prime minister", and demonstrate just how much they "value Yasukuni worship".

An LDP official told the Mainichi Shimbun on the 14th that, with Takaichi's absence a foregone conclusion: it would be good if this could show maximum consideration for the feelings of our conservative support base. Whether Japan's conservative voters swallow this trick is another matter. But the international community certainly will not be fooled. Eighty-one years on, Japan's right-wing forces keep rewriting history and building up armaments. The Defense Ministry is about to submit a budget request totaling some 8.9 trillion yen for fiscal 2027, yet another record high.

The Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined. Photo: AP

Beijing's Warning

In response, Senior Colonel Chen Xi, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, said that 81 years ago, under the heavy blows of China and the world's anti-fascist forces, Japan announced its unconditional surrender. Japanese militarism once dragged all of Asia into an abyss of blood and fire. Atrocities such as the Nanjing Massacre, the Bataan Death March and the Thai-Burma Death Railway brought untold catastrophe to the peoples of Asia and the world. The Japanese people themselves also suffered deeply.

Chen stressed that the truth of history must not be forgotten, and that justice and peace brook no desecration. "We urge the Japanese side to reflect deeply, confess and atone for its crimes, strictly abide by the post-war international order, and halt its dangerous march toward 're-militarization'. Straying back onto the wrong path will only invite a more painful defeat and a more thorough reckoning."

Deep Throat

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A whistleblower is dead. Britain's The Banker magazine reported on October 2 that Simon Andriesz, a former British banker, died by suicide. He was 57.

Ex-banker whistleblower Simon Andriesz dead by suicide at 57.

The Evidence Left Behind

Andriesz had spent more than 35 years in the financial markets. He previously served as a managing director at Wall Street's BGC Group. The firm's CEO at the time: Howard Lutnick, now the US Commerce Secretary.

The news instantly sent shockwaves through international opinion. The reason? According to reports, Andriesz held evidence of a key connection between Lutnick and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Andy Agathangelou, founder of the Transparency Task Force, confirmed Andriesz's death.

The organization had joined Andriesz in blowing the whistle on Lutnick's past business dealings with Epstein. Andriesz tracked down a 2018 email chain using Lutnick's initials.

Andriesz had already taken his story to the BBC. He said he discovered evidence that Lutnick failed to disclose his business relationship with Epstein. He also found a 2018 email in which Lutnick and Epstein discussed the prospects of a digital advertising startup they were both involved in.

The BBC aired the program in July under its "File 4 Investigation" banner. Its title: "The Epstein Files: Lutnick, the Royals and the British Whistleblower."

A congressional oversight committee said at the time it would step in and investigate. But the White House swiftly rejected the reports.

From 2005 Denial to a Senate Reversal

Lutnick's story had a shelf life. He had stated publicly that he cut ties with Jeffrey Epstein back in 2005.

Then the unsealed documents told a different story. They showed that in 2012 Lutnick arranged for his entire family to visit Epstein's private Caribbean island for lunch.

The proof was ironclad, and it forced a reversal. At a Senate hearing this February, Lutnick changed his story and admitted he had indeed lunched with Epstein: "I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife was ... We had lunch on the island. That is true. For an hour."

Lutnick forced to admit Epstein lunch at Senate hearing.

Andriesz had already tried the official channels. He reported the inside information to the FBI in 2020 and 2021, only to be coldly brushed off.

The price was devastating. He was fired for exposing his former employer's financial problems, then mired in lengthy litigation. The enormous pressure wrecked his physical and mental health and ruined his family's finances.

But the record has its limits. No evidence to date shows Lutnick was involved in any of Epstein's actual crimes.

The Epstein Death List Grows Longer

Key figures in the Epstein saga keep dying by "suicide," one after another. Jeffrey Epstein himself, the case's central character, was found "hanged" in his cell at New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center in August 2019. Jean-Luc Brunel followed in 2022. The famed French modeling agent, branded an "accomplice" and suspected of recruiting and raping underage girls for Epstein, hanged himself in a Paris prison while awaiting trial.

Epstein case figures keep dying by 'suicide'.

Virginia Giuffre also took her own life in April 2025, dying on a farm in Australia at the age of 41. She was the earliest key victim and witness to publicly accuse Epstein and Britain's Prince Andrew of sexual assault.

The "Epstein-related death list" circulating online and among the public runs to more than 20 names. Now yet another "whistleblower" meets the same end, pulling the case back into the spotlight.