Dan Twining writes in that China isn’t the only big story in East Asia these days:
China’s rise in Asia is real, and is transforming Asia’s strategic landscape. But breathless scholars and analysts already heralding a new political order in Asia centered on Chinese power and influence are missing part of the picture. Asian countries are deeply concerned, and worried, about China’s rise: in Japan, for example, 78% of the public views China’s growing military power negatively, according to the BBC. Japan still has Asia’s largest economy, which is growing again after a decade of stagnation. Japanese forces have deployed to the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters. Moreover, a new, assertive nationalism is emerging in Japan, partly in response to China’s rise. As this editorial in the Economist points out, Japan may be a tortoise to the Chinese hare, but if Japan’s economic reforms are successful and its diplomacy skillful, ‘it could face up to China on equal, or even superior, terms.’ China’s rise is one of the stories of our time, but so is Japan’s reemergence as a strategic actor in East Asia.
