TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on Thursday, but did not visit in person in an effort to avoid inflaming tensions with Asian neighbours.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows after offering a chrysanthemum flower during a memorial service for those who died in World War II, during a ceremony marking the 68th anniversary of Japan's defeat in the war, at Budokan Hall in Tokyo August 15, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]

Koichi Hagiuda, an executive of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told reporters that Abe had sent the offering in his capacity as ruling party leader to pay his respects to the war dead and wanted to apologise for not going in person.

Visits by Japanese leaders to the shrine in central Tokyo have outraged China and Republic of Korea, which suffered under Japanese occupation and colonisation in the 20th century, because wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal are honoured there along with the nation's war dead.