China is assho and doesn’t have many friends, if any, in that region. We know how the Vietnamese feel about them. I saw firsthand how they treated Cambodians and behaved in Myanmar (Burma) and it wasn’t appreciated. All of those places are heavily Buddhist and China has done nothing but shit on Buddhists since Tibet. Out of all the foreign cultures and religions I’ve had to deal with, I would never convert, but Buddhists and Buddhism has been my favorite.
And I know, Indonesia is Muslim but has more in common with that region than with Arabs.
Makes you wish sometimes we could have worked with the Imperial Japanese before the hardcore militarists seized control.
It would have been better to have a Japanese “East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” than a Chinese one.