, Columnist
Why Southeast Asia Trusts Japan More Than China
A matter of trust.
Photographer: Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images
China is remaking Asia’s security map, but not in the way it intends. From water cannon confrontations in the South China Sea to increasingly sharp rhetoric around Taiwan, Beijing’s behavior is driving its neighbors to welcome something once unthinkable: a larger security role for Japan.
Tokyo is emerging as the region’s preferred stabilizer, a remarkable reversal for a country whose wartime record once made Southeast Asia deeply wary of any Japanese military ambition. This is a subtle but significant shift in an area that’s become economically dominated by China, and one that Beijing views as its natural sphere of influence.