Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (left) and her Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, visit the Canberra Nara Peace Park in Canberra on May 4. | AFP-JIJI

Japan’s parliamentary debates resumed in earnest this week after the Golden Week holiday, during which Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration used the lull in domestic politics for a series of diplomatic engagements across Southeast Asia, Africa and Australia aimed at advancing its “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) strategy.

The visits reflected Tokyo’s effort to strengthen overlapping networks of economic and security cooperation across key middle power and “Global South” partners to deal with growing geopolitical uncertainty.

Golden Week diplomacy is hardly new in Japanese politics, as the down period gives the administration a break from domestic political obligations to travel abroad for engagements.…