TOKYO, April 23 -- Three of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet members visited the controversial war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Thursday, less than 24 hours after a meeting between the Japanese leader and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asian-African summit in Jakarta sparked hope of thawing diplomatic relations.

Following a herd of more than 100 lawmakers visiting the shrine a day earlier for its annual spring festival, Eriko Yamatani, disaster management minister, made a cash offering at the shrine Thursday morning and Haruko Arimura, the minister in charge of administrative reform and gender equality, visited the shrine before noon.

In addition, Sanae Takaichi, the internal affairs and communications minister, went to the shrine in the afternoon, marking the second successive time including the autumn festival in October that all three female cabinet ministers visited the infamous shrine.

Regardless of the capacity in which the ministers and lawmakers visit the shrine, the gesture draws the ire of Japan's neighboring countries, particularly China and South Korea, who both suffered at the hands of Japan's brutal militarism before and during World War II.

Yamatani told reporters after her visit to the shrine that honors the souls of some 2.5 million war dead, including more than 1,000 war criminals convicted by a post WWII court and 14 Class-A war criminals as adjudicated by the war crimes tribunal, that she was offering prayers of thanks to those who fought for Japan and sacrificed their lives.

"I offered a prayer thanking the souls of the war dead who fought for the country and gave up their precious lives," Yamatani, who also serves as the head of the National Public Safety Commission, said.

Visits to Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese politicians and dignitaries, located in Tokyo's Chiyoda ward, are a continuous flash point in relations between Japan and its neighbors, as the controversial shrine stands as a religious shrine devoted to propagate the supremacy of the Shinto faith, the holiness of Japan 's Emperor and to espouse the glory of Japan's militarism both past and present.

For the victim countries of Japan's wartime atrocities, the shrine is a living reminder of the horrors inflicted by the Japanese Imperial Army during its time of occupation, particularly in East Asia, and a symbol of ultra-rightwing defiance and a stronghold of contemporary historical revisionism, militarism and an imperialistic mentality.

Visits to the war-criminal honoring shrine by known right-wing revisionists such as Yamatani do little to help repair the diplomatic ties damaged by Japan over its misperception of history and ongoing territorial disputes with its neighbors, despite efforts being made by some of Japan's neighbors to reestablish meaningful dialogue, as evidenced recently in Jakarta.

Despite embryonic signs of a defrosting of diplomatic relations between Japan and China, Abe himself drew flak on Tuesday for sending a ritual offering to the shrine, dedicating a "masakaki" tree on the first day of the annual spring festival, alongside a handful of other political bigwigs who also made a similar offering, while Abe's aide, Seiichi Eto, opted to visit in person.

Ritual offerings giving by a proxy are still considered a tacit blessing given to the 14 souls who are enshrined at Yasukuni and were found guilty of committing Class-A war criminals whether or not the benefactor fully realizes this or not.

Yasukuni Shrine is run by a highly-secretive, private foundation and the 14 Class-A war criminals' "souls" were enshrined there without the public's knowledge in 1978, by the clandestine foundation, and nowadays the shrine's Yushukan museum openly depicts the war criminals as martyrs and misrepresents Japan's war in China as an act of "suppression" rather than one of aggression.

The museum itself has numerous displays depicting Japan's war- time endeavors, but has blatantly misrepresented the actual facts, in not referring to the well-documented Nanking Massacre, chemical and other heinous experiments conducted on prisoners of war and the suffering of thousands of comfort women at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army.

Abe himself has not visited the shrine since he paid an ill- advised tribute there in person in December 2013, the fallout of which saw Japan's ties with its closest neighbors effectively disintegrate.