Was Japan’s recent ‘Golden Week’ diplomatic offensive effective, let alone ‘strategic’?

Every year around this time, I find myself asking a simple question: Why do overseas trips by the country’s prime minister, Cabinet ministers and senior ruling-party figures cluster during Golden Week?

Does that make this diplomacy “strategic”? I remain skeptical.

This year offers a striking example. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and roughly a dozen ministers fanned out across more than 20 countries, spanning the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Notably absent from these itineraries: the United States and China.