In Asia, growth has not brought trust, and it might yet bring conflict A few years on, things look more complicated. China, overplaying its hand in territorial disputes with regional rivals, made a series of unforced errors. In 2010, the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain near the disputed, Japanese-controlled Senkaku/Diaoyu islands spiralled into a larger crisis. China retaliated by cutting off the supply of rare earths to Japan - materials that are crucial to high-technology manufacturing. That dispute flared up again in September, after the Japanese government, in an effort to pre-empt the nationalist mayor of Tokyo, effectively nationalised the islands, prompting riots in China. Japan's ambassador to Britain, writing for this newspaper, spoke of "a grave challenge to the established international order and to the peace and stability of the region." We should be careful not to demonise China. These are complex legal and diplomatic disputes, and neither side is blameless. But China is frequently its own worst enemy. This year, it printed passports with a map depicting the entirety of the South China Sea, Taiwan and even parts of India as its properties. This month also saw the first incursion by a Chinese government aircraft into Japanese airspace since 1958. Claiming territory is one thing, but rubbing it in your neighbours" faces is another. Deng Xiaoping, China's former leader, famously advised his country to "coolly observe, calmly deal with things, hold your position, hide your capacities, bide your time." China, in disregarding these maxims, has accomplished what no single one of its rivals could have managed single-handedly: to unite an extraordinarily diverse range of countries in suspicion of Chinese intentions. There is no more remarkable example of this phenomenon than this month's statement by the Philippines, subject to brutal wartime occupation by Japan, that it would welcome any decision by Tokyo to remove the pacifist strictures in its constitution. This is a historic shift in policy, comparable to France's acceptance in 1954 of West German rearmament. The US is also being pulled closer to its allies, and has initiated a so-called "pivot" to Asia, one which will see 60 per cent of US naval power shift to the Pacific as against 40 per cent in the Atlantic (the ratio is presently 50-50). Meanwhile, Asia has seen a string of elections (in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea) and transitions (in China) this year. The incoming Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, governed as a pragmatist when last in office, but refuses to acknowledge some of Japan's most egregious wartime atrocities, such as forced prostitution. This week, Abe promised to move closer to Washington, in defence of "Japanese territory and its beautiful oceans." In China, the Communist Party's new leader, Xi Jinping, declared that: "The revival of the Chinese nation is the greatest dream of the nation since modern times." The purpose of this tour d'horizon is not to suggest that Asia lies on the cusp of war, Senkakus in place of the Sudetenland, but that growth has not brought trust. Moreover, any major crisis would unavoidably impinge on British concerns. Our geography gives us an abiding interest in asserting the right of freedom of navigation against anyone who might threaten international waterways. And, while we may long ago have withdrawn from East of Suez, we remain party to the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) with Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore. We retain a garrison in Brunei and facilities in Singapore, and have made strides in our defence relationship with Japan. For several years, the attention of our Armed Forces and diplomats has been on a band stretching from Tunis in the west to Islamabad in the east, taking in hotspots such as Libya, Somalia and Afghanistan. Yet, in 2013 and the years to come, it might be the ripples in Asia which make greater waves.