After declaring the nation “open for business,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has set a target of achieving free trade deals with China, Japan and South Korea within just 12 months. Can the recently elected leader succeed where his predecessors failed? Having stated at the APEC summit in Bali that he wished to swiftly conclude eight years of negotiations with China, Abbott told reporters at last week’s East Asian Summit in Brunei that he was adding the nation’s second and third-biggest trading partners to the target list.

In contrast to neighboring countries, former U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair welcomes the efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to reinterpret the pacifist Constitution and bolster the nation’s defense capabilities, saying Japan needs to adapt itself to the changing security landscape of the Asia-Pacific region.

Akie Abe, the wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is eager to rub elbows with first ladies from other countries to improve mutual understanding. “I wish to build friendships with the wives of other leaders by going beyond politics and without being bound by political debates by our husbands who are responsible for national interests,” she said.

An expert panel to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proposed bolstering support for Japanese-language education in ASEAN countries by increasing the number of teachers, as more people in the region are learning Japanese. The proposal, submitted to Abe on Monday, calls for boosting the dispatch of Japanese-language teachers by utilizing university and graduate students, as well as seniors, to work for up to one year in member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

On Sept 24, when US President Barack Obama gave his speech in front of the United Nations, he caused a buzz not by what he said, but by what he failed to mention. During his speech, Obama mentioned China once, and the Koreas, Japan, and India zero times, noted most prominently by Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group.

Apparently, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calculated that sharing a few words with Chinese President Xi Jinping was worth the risk of a potential brush off. This set the stage for Abe’s diplomatic gambit at the G-20 Summit meetings in St. Petersburg earlier this month. While leaders milled about in the moments before the kickoff, Abe approached Xi and extended his hand in an attempt to begin a process of chipping away at the diplomatic deep-freeze in Sino-Japanese relations since last September’s purchase of three of the disputed Senkaku-Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.

Like the 1964 Olympics, the 2020 Summer Games are expected to have a positive impact not only economically but psychologically as well. They will also offer Japan the chance to set an example for the industrialized world, to demonstrate that despite its troubles — deflation, a rapidly aging population and scars from a triple disaster — it can still pull off the world’s biggest sports event.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan and Canada have agreed to cooperate more closely on shipments of natural gas as the country seeks new energy supplies after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Abe, speaking yesterday to reporters in Ottawa at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said Canada is a stable source of energy and can provide gas at competitive prices. Abe said the two countries will hold “ministerial level consultations,” without providing details.