Japan’s security presence in Asean now ‘routine’, as fears grow of China gaining sway amid US apathy

TOKYO – Two Japanese warships called on a Cambodian naval base on April 19, becoming the first foreign vessels to dock at a facility inaugurated just two weeks earlier after extensive China-funded upgrades.

The event at Ream Naval Base, hailed as “historically significant” by the Japanese embassy in Phnom Penh, sent a strong signal of Japan’s interest in maintaining a rules-based multilateral order in the Indo-Pacific through defence diplomacy, projecting its military presence in regional waters.

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