Photo/Illutration A seated Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba greets Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before the start of a session at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima. (Naoko Kawamura)

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba displayed his diplomatic inexperience during a recent visit to South America to attend two international conferences.

Before the start of a session of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit held in Lima, other leaders were walking around, greeting and backslapping their counterparts.

Ishiba was at his assigned seat, fiddling with his smartphone.

When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau walked up to Ishiba to shake his hand, the Japanese leader remained seated rather than follow etiquette and stand up to greet Trudeau.

Not being aware of diplomatic mannerisms demonstrated not only Ishiba's inexperience but also seemed to indicate that his underlings were not briefing him thoroughly before each session.

Ishiba may never have been especially keen to make a major impression at the conferences.

A high-ranking Foreign Ministry official compared Ishiba’s schedule at the APEC summit with those of other prime ministers in past years.

“There was a lot of free time in his schedule,” the official said.

The most pressing problem for Ishiba was dealing with political issues at home. Now in charge of a minority ruling coalition, Ishiba had to also attend to ongoing discussions in Japan between the coalition and the opposition Democratic Party for the People about tax revisions while attending the conferences in South America.

The support of the DPP will be needed to ensure a degree of smooth Diet proceedings in the future.

Ishiba did manage to hold 10 one-on-one meetings with other leaders during his time in Peru and Brazil.

During his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Ishiba was able to secure confirmation that work to implement the agreement reached in September to lift Beijing’s ban on Japanese seafood imports would proceed.

He also reached an agreement with U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to set up a trilateral secretariat to handle cooperation on various issues, including dealing with North Korea.

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