Australia–Japan relations in 2013 with the new Abbott Government calling Japan Australia's "closest friend" in Asia, when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Australia to conclude the Japan–Australia Economic Partnership Agreement and to address the future of the relationship between Australia and Japan, being the first Japanese Prime Minister to address the Parliament of Australia. With the new Turnbull Government starting in 2015, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has made a few changes to the bilateral relationship between Australia and Japan. This included a slight pullback in terms of the recent bid for the upgrade of the Royal Australian Navy submarine fleet in
Japan–Russia relations leaders decided to sign off on joint projects in five areas — aquaculture, greenhouse farming, tourism, wind power and waste reduction. At the 2018 Thirteenth East Asia Summit in Singapore, Shinzo Abe followed up on a proposal from Vladimir Putin to sign a peace treaty without preconditions by the end of the year. He said that the leaders would seek a peace treaty to the terms of the 1956 Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration. The declaration gave Japan the Habomai islet group and Shikotan while the Soviet Union claimed the remaining islands, but the United States did not allow the 1956 treaty.