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Abe went to Europe recently to try to reach some kind of consensus on the matter. The consensus was: if Merkel was opposed don’t bother trying. Other economic and trade issues will be hostage to the US presidential election result and Britain’s vote next month on Brexit, which is about its future in the European Union.

Trudeau may have more luck drumming up business for Canada in meetings with the top executives of Japan’s big three automotive leaders, Toyota, Honda and Suburu as well as other auto industry representatives.

As much as Trudeau will want to steer his talk in Japan towards trade, Abe’s main goal at this week’s leaders’ meeting of the seven biggest western economies is to get backing for the rule of law in the hotly disputed waters of the western Pacific where the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet has operated for decades and where China has overlapping claims with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Concerns will also be expressed at the G7 about Russia’s aggressive behaviour in eastern Europe, the refugee crises in the Middle East and Europe and growing anti-immigrant sentiment almost everywhere except in Canada.

The summit comes days ahead of a decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague where a tribunal of impartial experts has been examining part of China’s ambiguous claim to about 85 per cent of the South China Sea.

China has already vowed to ignore the arbitrator’s decision if, as almost everyone suspects, Beijing loses the suit, which was brought by the Philippines after the Chinese coast guard forced them off traditional fishing grounds that are much closer to the Philippine archipelago than they are to China. But as Beijing was one of the leaders in shaping and ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea that the suit is based upon, it is in a tricky diplomatic position that no amount of huffing and puffing — and there has been a lot of that lately — can obscure.