Regarding the timeline, an additional question relates to the US statement. It was issued only a few hours after Abe's pilgrimage to Yasukuni was announced.
1. Did the US write the press release very quickly? Not obvious as such a declaration would have needed to be cleared by very senior DC officials and then the translation would have had to be very thoroughly checked.
2. Did Washington have one ready just in case? Like the obituaries which newspapers store and publish once the person dies.
3. Did Abe inform Washington days in advance?
4. Did US intelligence find out a few days before through old-fashioned spies inside the Kantei and/or the NSA that he would be going ?
Let us take your #2 as the working hypothesis. You are right, the statement could not have been composed and cleared in the few hours since the act and the release -- especially since it was the evening of Christmas Day in Washington.
So, why is Komeito still LDP's lapdog after all these years? What do they get in return? ...Power doesn't seem to be part of the equation.
Since its reemergence out of the New Frontier Party (Shinshinto), the Komeito, or more properly the New Komeito, has shrunk from a multi-issue counter to the Communists to a party with but one goal: the protection, mostly through electoral coalition with the LDP and the control of a large number of seats in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, of its mother organization's registration as a religious corporation.
While it is the height of paranoia to think that the mothership faces any threat of having its registration rescinded, the New Komeito nevertheless seems to maintain political alliances, both at the national and grassroots level (not necessarily with the members of a particular party in the local case) with the preservation of that tax-exempt coporation's status in mind.
"... the preservation of that tax-exempt corporation's status in mind."
Which isn't surprising considering the fact that they require their members to donate over 10% of their salaries to the corporation. (domestically anyway - I'm not sure about their foreign branches) One can guess through the size of their organization (both domestic and foreign) just how large of a treasure trove they are protecting.
Thank you for alerting me to what I have been searching for for years: a nickname.