New Zealand Prime Minister Gacienda Ardern's four-day visit to Japan began with an embarrassing mistake when China and Japan got confused at a news conference Thursday.
"This is a very encouraging time for New Zealand and its relationship with China, excuse me, with Japan," Ardrin said in her opening speech.
While Ardiren was blamed for the exhaustion caused by the flight's lengthy confusion, it came a day after a report by the Asia-New Zealand Foundation that the Pacific nation's relationship with Japan was overshadowed by China's economic power.
"As China's tremendous economic power grows, and the growth in other Asian countries offers new potential, the strength of our relationship with Japan can be easily overlooked," the report says.
After a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Ardern said the two countries - located in the volcanic belt of fire - agreed to strengthen their strategic cooperative partnership.
"Japan is increasingly one of New Zealand's most important partners in the world," she said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held talks with his New Zealand counterpart Gacienda Ardern on Thursday, hailing her as a role model for women.
"I would like to express my respect to Prime Minister Ardern, who has become a role model for women worldwide by playing a role in the care of a child and at the same time as prime minister," Abe told a joint news conference in Tokyo.
Abe pledged to create a "society in which all women shine." However, women MPs in Japan represent only 10.2 percent of the powerful House of Representatives, putting it 164th in terms of women's representation on a list of 192 countries in the world, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
In June 2018, she became the first female prime minister to bring a baby into power after former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1990.