{"id":8352,"date":"2026-04-20T07:31:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T07:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/8352\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T07:31:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T07:31:07","slug":"vietnam-and-philippines-trust-japan-why-doesnt-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/8352\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam and Philippines trust Japan. Why doesn\u2019t Indonesia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Southeast Asia, trust in Japan<\/a> runs deepest where China presses hardest and breaks down where neutrality is a point of pride.Analysts say that dynamic, revealed in an annual survey released earlier this month, explains why Vietnam<\/a> and the Philippines<\/a> both see the East Asian nation as a trusted partner while Indonesia<\/a>, a country that has long prized non-alignment, is uncomfortable with Tokyo\u2019s deepening embrace of Washington.<\/p>\n

Trust in Tokyo is highest in the Philippines (77.3 per cent), Brunei (72.9 per cent), Cambodia (72.0 per cent) and Vietnam (67.9 per cent), according to the latest annual State of Southeast Asia survey conducted by the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.<\/p>\n

Across all 11 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations<\/a>, trust in Japan outweighed distrust. Yet public opinion took a turn in Indonesia, as confidence slid from 61.5 per cent in 2025 to 47.9 per cent this year.\"JapaneseJapanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and US President Donald Trump share a glance during remarks at a White House dinner on March 19. Photo: KyodoAnalysts say the strength of Japan\u2019s standing in Vietnam<\/a> and the Philippines<\/a>, in particular, reflects the reality on the water. Both countries face direct Chinese pressure in the South China Sea<\/a> \u2013 Manila through vessel clashes and maritime friction, Hanoi through strategic resource blockades \u2013 and both have come to regard Japan as a security partner that delivers without demanding anything in return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Southeast Asia, trust in Japan runs deepest where China presses hardest and breaks down where neutrality is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6176,12,7310,7311,7309,22,7308,8,17,23,7307,245,5108,2234,52,3283],"class_list":["post-8352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-association-of-southeast-asian-nations","tag-china","tag-east-asian","tag-free-and-open-indo-pacific","tag-hamas","tag-indonesia","tag-iseas-yusof-ishak-institute","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-philippines","tag-phnom-penh","tag-south-china-sea","tag-southeast-asia","tag-taiwan-strait","tag-tokyo","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}