Australia and Japan are bringing our countries even closer - embedding diplomats in each other's foreign ministries and locking in new annual talks between our most senior officials - as we mark 50 years since the Basic Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.
The two new initiatives include the establishment of annual Strategic Consultations between the Secretary of Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Vice-Minister of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), and a diplomatic exchange program between DFAT and MOFA.
The Strategic Consultations will put the leaders of our departments in the room together every year to progress regional security and strategic cooperation, economic resilience initiatives and people-to-people connections.
The diplomatic exchange program will see officials undertake secondments in areas of shared strategic importance, learning each other's systems from the inside and building the trust that comes from working together day to day.
Australia and Japan are Special Strategic Partners and we are working together to help shape a better future for our region.
In these uncertain times, embedding our people in each other's institutions and investing in formalised cooperation will bring us closer for years to come.
Fifty years on from the Basic Treaty, we are focused on writing the next chapter of our history.
