ABSTRACT
Ichiro Ozawa and other Japanese leaders had been shaken by the first post-Cold War test of security policy during the Gulf crisis after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Japan had vital security interests at stake in the Gulf, the source of most of its energy imports. The first Abe administration marked a further development in another realm of Japan's security policy—;;the embrace of a regional approach. The Democratic Party of Japan came to power with a clearly different view of collective security than had been promoted by the Liberal Democratic Party, particularly under the first Abe administration. A far better test of Japan's new assertion of a security role in Asia may be Southeast Asia and the waters of the South China Sea (SCS). The Philippines occupies a frontline position in the contest for the SCS due to its claims on strategic formations also sought by China. The Southeast Asian archipelagic nation is a battleground for influence between Japan and China.
