This week, the G7 leaders are meeting in Hiroshima. As host, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated that the goal to be achieved at the Summit is to demonstrate strong determination to “uphold the international order based on the rule of law”.

Two main areas will fixate the attention of the world’s leading democracies in Japan. First: Russia’s brutal war and illegal occupation of parts of Ukraine continue with a war that will soon stretch into its tenth year, marked by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its renewed and brutal aggression from February 2022. Second: all eyes in Hiroshima will also be fixated on the increasing challenges that China poses to its neighbours in the Indo-Pacific, and globally through draconian tactics such as economic coercion, political interference and an a la carte approach to the rule of law.