Trade and influence: Beijing outperforms Tokyo in Southeast Asia

Chinese trade with the region is three times that of Japan. The Japanese retain the lead in net foreign investment. Poll: For 77% of respondents, China is the most influential economic power in the region. Japan appreciated for promoting peace and international security.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - China has surpassed Japan as the trading partner of Southeast Asian countries, according to data from the Asean Secretariat, the economic association that brings together 10 countries in the region. In 2021 trade with the Chinese was three times that with the Japanese.

As Nikkei Asia notes, Beijing's overtookTokyo in trade in South-East Asia in 2009: previously the Japanese competed with the US for first place. Last year, trade between China and Asean nations reached USD 878 billion a year, according to Chinese government figures.

China also surpasses Japan in the number of visitors. In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than four million Chinese travelled to Southeast Asia, compared to just over one million Japanese.

Despite a decline in recent years - from .9bn in 2012 to .5bn in 2020 - Japan continues to outpace China in accumulated net foreign investment. This is explained by Beijing's requests to use Chinese materials, personnel and equipment to carry out the projects to be financed, requests that Tokyo does not forward.

For 77% of the experts and opinion leaders interviewed in the Asean countries by the Singapore-based Iseas Yusof Ishak Institute, China is now the most influential economic power in the area. It is followed by the United States with about 10 per cent and Japan with 2.6 per cent - in 2019 the figure for Tokyo was 6.2 per cent.

However, the Iseas survey reveals that 54% of the sample appreciate Japan's efforts to promote peace, security and prosperity in the world. Only 27% singled out China on this point, an opinion influenced by Beijing's increasing military activism in the South China Sea and other parts of Asia.