While Chapter 6 in ‘The Grand Chessboard’ (1997) by Zbigniew Brzezinski talks a lot about China, it actually talks a lot more about Japan.

The author has a rather clear idea why Japan is isolated in the Asia region. The dilemma of Japan: if Japan tries to assert its regional leadership role to counter China, it will find itself surrounded by a hosTILe Russia, a distrusting Korea and South East Asia, and a China that will play a rapid catch-up. Basically the only way forward, as seen by Zbigniew, is for Japan to leverage its alliance with America to gain influence on International stage.