Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s debut at this week’s G7 summit is an opportunity to turn her rapport with Donald Trump into a bridge between the US president and the bloc’s leaders, analysts say, as she seeks to cement her image as Japan’s “Iron Lady”. At a working dinner on Monday – the opening night of the three-day meeting in Evian, eastern France – Takaichi also proposed a joint strategic stockpile partnership to bolster critical mineral supply chains and reduce China’s dominance in the...

Indonesia sits at the confluence of the world’s busiest sea lanes. Its coastline stretches nearly 55,000km (34,000 miles) and its waters encompass the Malacca and Lombok straits, chokepoints through which trillions of US dollars in global trade pass annually. Yet for years the nation’s navy has lacked the subsurface awareness to monitor, let alone counter, what moves beneath the waves. Japan intends to change that. Tokyo confirmed on June 5 that the two countries had agreed to begin formal talks...