Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a special envoy of new South Korean President Moon Jae In agreed Thursday to resume "shuttle diplomacy" between the two leaders, according to the envoy. The shuttle diplomacy, which sees the leaders visit each other's countries roughly every year, has been suspended since December 2011 under the administration of then President Lee Myung Bak.The two leaders could hold their first face-to-face talks in July on the margins of a summit of Group of 20 major economies in Germany.

Next up is San Francisco, where this autumn another comfort women memorial will be erected. There, too, local politicians were subjected to hardball pressure tactics and an orchestrated campaign against the memorial that reflect badly on brand Japan. Shouldn’t public diplomacy work toward improving Japan’s image? In the history wars now being waged by Tokyo, this goal is being sacrificed on the altar of revisionism.

The modern day relationship does not involve attempted invasions, divine typhoons, or malfunctioning boats, but rather political and diplomatic dialogue, economic relations, and people-to-people affairs. [...] As Mongolia’s foreign policy apparatus expands both regionally and globally, Japan serves as a source of democratic principles and values as well as a political, economic, and social model for Mongolia’s own development.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will propose new Cabinet-level US-Japan talks on trade, security and macroeconomic issues, including currencies, when he meets US President Donald Trump today, a Japanese government official involved in planning the summit said. 

Caroline Kennedy stepped down on Wednesday after three years as US ambassador to Japan, where she was welcomed like a celebrity and worked to deepen the US-Japan relationship despite regular flare-ups over American military bases on the southern island of Okinawa [...] Some will also remember the efforts of the first female US ambassador to Japan to promote literacy and women’s and LGBT rights. 

The personal touch shows Abe’s determination to maintain ties with the Philippines as Japan competes with China for business deals. Security ties between the Southeast Asian nation and the U.S. have deteriorated under Duterte, and with China growing increasingly assertive in the region, Abe is seeking to convince his counterpart to stick with Japan and the U.S.

In the last month of President Barack Obama’s two terms, he is focused on the same foreign country when he began his presidency: Japan. [...] Eight years later, Tuesday, President Obama and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood together at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, to honor the sacrifices of Americans killed during the Japanese attack on U.S. warships 75 years ago.