Sanae Takaichi’s visit to Australia should have been a blockbuster.

Having broken the mother of all ceilings, charmed the world with her drumming skills and survived Donald Trump’s Pearl Harbor gag in the Oval Office with aplomb, the visit by Japan’s first female prime minister was eagerly anticipated.

Anthony Albanese has been on a diplomatic roll this year, unveiling the red carpet for a host of world leaders, including EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Canada’s Mark Carney and now Ms Takaichi.

In today’s climate, welcoming faraway friends to our soil is a vital and strategic move.

Allies once loved by the United States, now tossed about in the MAGA flotsam and jetsam of the US President’s habitual tirades, have made a big song and dance about being meaty middle powers.

In January, Mr Carney grabbed international headlines with his Davos speech, where he declared a rupture of the world order and a clarion call for middle powers to work together or else risk being on the menu, as his native Canada has felt itself to be, with Mr Trump’s repeated threats to annex his northern neighbour.

On the weekend, Mr Albanese, maybe slightly miffed his own attempt had not garnered the same attention, said the Canadian Prime Minister’s message was no different to what he said in New York at his debut before the UN General Assembly last year.

“He took from that speech the view very strongly that I put that middle powers needed to work together,” the PM told the ABC.

But both their speeches were upstaged by an even gutsier geopolitical display of David standing up to Goliath.

In November, Ms Taikichi told the Japanese Diet that if the Chinese blockaded or attacked Taiwan, it could trigger Japan’s right to self-defence as it would threaten Japan’s survival.

Her remarks, which departed from the careful ambiguity western allies usually use when talking about Taiwan, which is democratically ruled but not a recognised State, outraged Beijing.

They also shifted the dial from defending Taiwan in the event of a hypothetical all-out attack to include a potential blockade.

The Chinese Communist Party responded angrily, urging Japan to “reflect on and correct its wrongdoings.”

It revived its coercion measures, the kind used on Australia during the pandemic, for seeking an inquiry into how COVID emerged and spread from Wuhan, by throttling rare earth exports, reclaiming its pandas and curbing Chinese tourism.

The intimidation only strengthened the unorthodox Prime Minister’s standing with the Japanese who voted her into power in her own right, and with a whopping majority, in February.

WithChina and the United States behaving more like each other, Japan and Australia’s relationship is one of the most significant to develop to help counter Chinese dominance of the region, which could lead to a stranglehold over Australian trading routes.

Monday’s visit resulted in five joint statements from the leaders on economic security, critical minerals, cyber, defence and energy.

On paper, they are all noble and sensible pursuits. Collaborating with Japan in all these dimensions is in both countries interests.

But unfortunately, it was largely filled with guff. Take the joint statement on economic security.

The two leaders said they reaffirmed their “commitment to elevating our Special Strategic Partnership to even greater heights” which involved “looking for opportunities”, “strengthening” four existing dialogue including the, Economic Security Dialogue, Economic Dialogue, the Joint Committee Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation, Energy and Resources Dialogue, the Food Security Talks, and the Policy Dialogue for Telecommunications Resilience, and getting think tanks to collaborate more.

The statement on energy security was 255 words containing more affirmations. This time to commit to strengthening energy security, as though this was ever not a goal or in doubt. There is a lot of agreement to consult but no commitments to guarantee supplies in the event of coercion.

The critical minerals statement was a little more rhetorically ambitious, vowing to elevate critical minerals to “a core pillar of our economic security relationship.”

Critical minerals is a huge opportunity for Australia and one to get right. If successful, Australia, with the US and allies, particularly Japan and the EU, could break China’s dominance of the market and provide a rival supply chain.

But even here, the statement merely listed projects the Japanese government or companies have already announced investments in.

And on the cyber partnership? This shows promise, the two countries will work together to counter hacking attacks and joint defences, all governed by – you guessed it, another new dialogue!

The more substantial gains were in the areas of defence.

This statement contained genuinely new advances, promising “co-development and co-production of defence capabilities” and “testing of new equipment, advanced weapons and emerging technologies.”

Australia reaffirmed its choice of Japan’s Mogami frigates for the Navy, wants to increase intelligence sharing with Japan, which is a huge deal if it comes off, as well as train and exercise together.

But again, these have all been pre-announced. All in all, the substance was pretty eye-glazing stuff and underwhelming.

If there was more to see under the bonnet, it was not possible to question it. Japan’s domestically daring PM was timid when it came to the media, refusing to hold a press conference, restricting the leaders to talking to each other about being “quasi allies” without any rigorous testing of what is genuinely changed as a result of the visit.

Mr Albanese could not bring himself to name China — although he did mention the need for a free and open Indo-Pacific. Only Prime Minister Takaichi dared state China, and that was only to name it in a list of issues she raised with her Australian counterpart.

“I would like to see Japan and Australia working together to lead toward peace and stability in our region,” she told Mr Albanese.

Ms Takaichi’s decision not to hold a press conference was a mistake.

Not even President von der Leyen, whose submarine approach to the media infuriates the Brussels bubble, refused the Australian press that opportunity when she visited in March, and she had far more substantial goodies to hand out in the form of a trade agreement, security and defence partnership, critical minerals deal and entry for Australian scientists into the EU’s Horizon program.

Bryce Wakefield, CEO of the Australian Institute for International Affairs who has lived in Japan and is fluent in Japanese, said Ms Takaichi’s trip appeared time to coincide with Japan’s week of national holidays known as Golden Week.

“Takaichi’s visit was more about convenience and relationship management than coming up with anything new. It’s the typical mode of diplomacy favored by Japanese politicians at this time of year, when a series of national holidays at home gives them space to travel abroad,” Dr Wakefield told The Nightly.

“The big announcements on reciprocal access, defence and security agreements and arms sales have been and gone. Golden week is time for puffery.”

Combined with the damp squib that was Mr Carney’s visit in earlier this year, Dr Wakefield sees it as a reality check of the idea that the Trump Administration has led to a middle power moment.

“Flexible middle power diplomacy might sound exciting when you have been nestled in the warm bosom of NATO for eight decades. But it’s nothing new in the less structured Indo-Pacific where geography and diversity ensure that diplomacy takes the form of shifting and complex overlapping arrangements,” he said.

“Despite a message that all is not well in the north, and the usual Canadian cordiality, it’s hard to see a new direction for Australia in Carney’s foreign policy.”

This visit smacked of incrementalism and phoning it in at a time when smaller but substantial countries like Australia have never needed more than to expand into their regional power potential, including alongside a more confident, active Japan.

But that would require a whole lot more than dressing up pic-ops as substantial foreign policy.