Coronavirus: Scott Morrison to break bubble and break bread with Shinzo Abe

Scott Morrison is planning to break out of the COVID-19 travel bubble for a face-to-face meeting in Tokyo with PM Shinzo Abe before the US presidential election.

Scott Morrison with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka in 2019. Picture: Getty Images

Scott Morrison is planning to break out of the COVID-19 travel bubble for a face-to-face meeting in Tokyo with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before the US presidential election, amid growing ­regional strategic concerns about China’s influence spreading with the pandemic.

The Prime Minister has been looking “at the calendar” for several months for chances for a personal meeting with his Japanese counterpart either on a separate visit to Tokyo ahead of the planned visit to Washington DC for the G7 or while in the US.

Pandemic travel restrictions and the cancellation of the G7 summit, to which Mr Morrison had been invited as a guest, stymied plans for a person-to-person meeting.

There is a mutual Australian-Japanese desire for a leaders’ summit to establish a common ­regional position as fears grow that debt-laden smaller Asian nat­ions are falling further under Chinese economic influence amid continuing disputes in the South China Sea and heightened border tensions between India and China.

Regardless of who wins the US election in November, there is an expectation American leadership will concentrate more on domestic economic recovery than on the strategic concerns of the Indo-Pacific.

The plan is to have a personal meeting between the two prime ministers and repeat the success of the private “Darwin dinner” they had on Mr Abe’s last visit to Australia for the commemoration of the bombing of Darwin in World War II.

Although Mr Morrison and Mr Abe recently held a video summit, there is still planning for a visit to Tokyo, preferably before the US election, where the two leaders can talk about the Indo-Pacific strategy, increased relations with India and linking with the US after the pandemic.

On Wednesday, Mr Morrison said on ABC radio that Australia would “continue to be true to who Australia is … Australia’s position hasn’t changed, Australia’s actions right across the board, whether it’s on our national sec­urity or whether it’s how we deal with our infrastructure, foreign investment, all of these things, we do on Australia’s terms,” he said.

“We will continue to look out for Australian’s interests and put that first, our sovereignty, and our national interests and our defence and our protections.”