Suga must expand Abe's assertive Indo-Pacific vision

Japanese inaction risks ceding ground to Beijing

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20200915 Yoshihide Suga LDP election.jpg

As Suga takes over he faces a tricky choice between accepting the reality of rising Chinese influence, or shouldering more of the burden to constrain it. © Pool/AP

James Crabtree is an associate professor in practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He is author of "The Billionaire Raj."

Japan's incoming Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga faces no shortage of domestic challenges following his landslide victory to head the country's ruling Liberal Democratic Party. But as the low-profile, self-made politician readies to succeed Shinzo Abe, he must also prepare not just to continue his predecessor's assertive brand of foreign policy, but to expand it, and in Southeast Asia in particular.

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