Australia–Japan relations a lighting trip to Tokyo and started to develop a close relationship with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, following his predecessor's example. Abe later visited Turnbull in Sydney early 2017 during a pivot to South-East Asia, where both increased military, trade, cultural, and sporting ties. Both also discussed the South China Sea Crisis, North Korea, and their anxiety to co-operate with their mutual ally, the United States' new Trump Administration. Australian trade had shifted away from other Commonwealth countries toward Asia around the 1960s and 1970s. Japan in particular had emerged as the leading trading partner. In 1966–67, Japan surpassed the
Shinzō Abe Koizumi. He took some steps toward balancing the Japanese budget, such as appointing a tax policy expert, Kōji Omi, as Minister of Finance. Omi previously supported increases in the national consumption tax, although Abe distanced himself from this policy and sought to achieve much of his budget balancing through spending cuts. Since 1997, as the bureau chief of "Institute of Junior Assembly Members Who Think About the Outlook of Japan and History Education", Abe supported the controversial Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and the "New History Textbook". In March 2007, Abe along with right-wing politicians have proposed a bill