Better late than never？

According to a report from BBC News, in-person Japanese PM visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine appear to have ended. PM Shinzo Abe instead made an offering to the shrine, declining to visit the Akasaka/Tokyo site in person:

Mr Abe offered a potted masakaki tree, accompanied by a card that read "the prime minister", to mark Yasukuni's spring festival on 21-23 April, a spokeswoman for the shrine said.

Although the debate over whether Japanese public officials should visit/not visit the shrine is usually limited to discussions of optics — and the visits themselves often seen as highly politicized lip service — this small gesture, IMHO, could prove to be a meaningful "first" in the necessary, but so far unrealized, establishment of a mutually accommodating East Asian security community.

And that's that.
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