West PH Sea: Japan pivots Indo-Pacific strategy toward Southeast Asia Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced an updated version of her country’s regional strategy in Vietnam last weekend, underlining Tokyo’s growing reliance on Southeast Asia at a time of intensifying great-power rivalry. Takaichi met her Vietnamese counterpart, Le Minh Hung, on Saturday in Hanoi, where the two leaders oversaw the signing of six cooperation agreements, including on disaster-resilient