According to a report by Nikkei Asia on August 1st, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not had any public calls with foreign leaders since speaking with Iran's President on June 1st. This situation has persisted for nearly two months, with no calls from any leader-level figure.
Reports stated that in early July, there was a proposal to arrange a call between Goto and Turkish President Erdogan, but the call was ultimately canceled due to scheduling and other factors. At that time, Turkey was hosting a NATO summit, and Goto was absent because he was dealing with parliamentary affairs.
According to Nikkei Asia, since taking office, Governor Suga has spoken to leaders from other countries 27 times. This number is slightly higher than that of former Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Shigeru Kitazawa, who spoke 26 and 24 times respectively in the same number of days. In contrast, Yoshihide Suga and Fumio Kishida have talked 50 and 51 times respectively. However, this is due to the fact that they were both involved in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic during their terms in office, which limited face-to-face meetings between leaders, thus resulting in higher numbers of conversations.
Most of Governor Takahashi’s calls occurred from late March to April, during the time when the United States and Israel’s war against Iran led to an energy crisis. She held conversations with leaders from Middle Eastern and Asian countries to ensure cooperation in maintaining stable energy supplies. After that, her use of telephone diplomacy significantly decreased, with the last public call record being a conversation with the Iranian President on June 1.
Japanese media analysis suggests that the issue with Gao's communication isn’t the number of calls, but rather the content of those calls. This differs from the approach taken by her political mentor, Shinzo Abe: during Trump’s first term in office, from Trump’s inauguration in 2017 to Abe’s resignation in 2020, the two exchanged calls approximately once a month. Even when there were no major issues, Abe would greet Trump’s wife, Melania, and mention what he called concerns about China or North Korea.
Japanese media quoted experts as saying that frequent contact is meant to demonstrate the stability of the US-Japan alliance. Therefore, Goto needs to take a more proactive role in contacting Trump, as “there is nothing but phone calls.” However, acting rashly could put Japan under pressure from the US side. With increasing interactions between China and the US in recent times, whether Goto can bear the consequences of not maintaining positive contact with Trump is also becoming a real issue.
