Japan's Prime Minister Kishida Fumio will soon hold talks with his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau.
The two leaders are expected to reaffirm cooperation between their countries to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

Kishida is now visiting Canada on his tour of five of the Group of Seven nations. The tour comes ahead of Japan hosting this year's G7 summit in Hiroshima in May. Canada is the fourth leg of the tour.

During the meeting on Thursday, Kishida plans to call for members' unity to make the G7 summit a successful one against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and other global challenges such as food and energy issues.

Kishida is expected to tell Trudeau that Japan welcomes Canada's new Indo-Pacific strategy which was unveiled last year. The strategy keeps China in check and its document describes the country as an increasingly disruptive global power.

Following his visit to Canada, Kishida will visit Washington to meet President Joe Biden.

Kishida plans to explain to Biden about a major shift in Japan's security policy, including gaining capabilities to launch counterstrikes and large defense budget increase.

With China in mind, Kishida also wants to show that Japan and the US are on the same page in their security strategies, and the deterrence and response capability of the Japan-US alliance will be enhanced.