Why are Chinese stone lions still at Yasukuni Shrine?

In the outer garden of Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo are two stone lions, far from where they once stood in China.

Originally from Sanxue Temple in Haicheng, Liaoning Province, the lions were looted by Japanese forces during the First Sino-Japanese War and later placed beneath the shrine's main torii gate.

Historical records show that the seizure took place at the initiative of Aritomo Yamagata, then commander of the Imperial Japanese Army's First Army, who proposed presenting the lions to the Japanese emperor. They were then loaded onto carts with their pedestals and transported by a considerable number of mules to Yingkou.

The seizure was documented in Dianshizhai Huamao（Dianshizhai Pictorial, a Shanghai publication during the Qing Dynasty, which published an illustration showing Japanese troops transporting the stone lions from Haicheng. A scene captured in print more than a century ago.

In 2021, the Campaign for the Return of Chinese Cultural Relics was established as a civil society organization in Japan, seeking to bring home Chinese heritage items. According to official Chinese data, China had lost at least 3,607,074 cultural relics by the end of WWII.^（1）

Tsuguo Tokairin, one of the group’s representatives, says it has repeatedly requested Yasukuni Shrine to return the lions. But its efforts have so far failed.

The shrine agreed to meet and talk with the group after its first formal request. Subsequent requests, however, were rejected. The group has now made five requests in total, with no agreement reached.

The controversy surrounding Yasukuni Shrine goes far beyond the two stone lions.

Fourteen Class-A war criminals convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, commonly known as the Tokyo Trial, are enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine as noble spirits.

Moreover, inside the Yushukan, the shrine's war museum, aircraft used in Japan's wars of aggression that killed numerous civilian lives – including a Mitsubishi A6M5 Model 52 Zero fighter and a replica of the Sakura rocket-powered kamikaze aircraft, Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka – are displayed alongside other military artifacts as symbols of military achievement.

Tokairin says many Japanese people come to pay their respects without knowing that Yasukuni enshrines Class-A, B and C war criminals connected to Japan’s wars of aggression. He finds this lack of awareness regrettable.
That concern led him to work as an independent guide at the Yushukan, explaining the history from a perspective challenging the shrine’s own narrative. He recalls that other groups also gathered in front of the museum’s display boards to explain the history from perspectives different from the shrine’s own.

But the shrine now allows only its own guides to lead tours at the Yushukan and bars outside guides.

For now, the two stone figures remain beneath Yasukuni Shrine’s torii gate. Their presence stands as a reminder that the history of Japan’s aggression can never be forgotten.