As PM Scott Morrison heads to the UK via Singapore today to meet up with the leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies at the G7 leaders summit in Cornwall, he’ll have a friend when it comes to the discussions about China’s push for power. Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton had a call with their Japanese counterparts Motegi Toshimitsu and Kishi Nobuo yesterday and agreed that China’s “coercive and destabilising behaviour in the region” was concerning. As China’s neighbour, Japan has been in a tricky spot for maintaining good relations, but pundits say Tokyo has decided to join a push against President Xi Jinping’s agenda. Yesterday, Morrison said our region was “the epicentre of renewed strategic competition”, which is a fancy way of saying that dealing with China’s ambitions is an issue. All of which sets the scene for discussions in the UK over the weekend when the US chips in.