By the time Shinzo Abe and Donald Trump teed off at the Mobara Country Club south-east of Tokyo in May 2019, it was the fifth time the two had played golf together. Diplomatic triumphs, as Japan’s current prime minister Shigeru Ishiba is about to discover, are a relentless slog.
The pictures from Mobara showed two good friends enjoying the spring sunshine; the atmosphere on the back of the golf cart was described by Japan’s foreign ministry as “cosy”. Lunch in the clubhouse was a double cheeseburger — made with US beef.
During Trump’s first term, Abe was universally acknowledged to have delivered a masterclass on handling the mercurial US president-elect. The lessons are being studied by a new generation of leaders who realise that Trump’s easily aggrieved personality will be as important a factor as political measures and economic inducements in dealing with his second administration.