TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba sent a ritual offering to the war-linked Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo on Thursday, the first day of its autumn festival, instead of visiting the shrine that has long been a source of diplomatic friction with Japan's neighbors.

Ishiba, who became prime minister on Oct. 1, sent the "masakaki" offering to the Shinto shrine, seen as a symbol of Japan's wartime militarism by China and South Korea.

During the three-day festival through Saturday, Ishiba is expected to refrain from paying a visit to the shrine in person, a source close to him has said.

The Yasukuni shrine honors the souls of Japan's more than 2.4 million war dead, while the country's wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by a post-World War II international tribunal are also enshrined there.

Japan's relations with its neighbors have been fraught with difficulties stemming from their wartime past. Japan invaded a vast swathe of China before the end of WWII and ruled the Korean Peninsula from 1910 and 1945.

Visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders and Cabinet ministers have drawn a sharp rebuke from China and South Korea.

Visitors have included the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, known as a hawkish politician. Ishiba's predecessor Fumio Kishida did not visit the shrine.