Tokyo: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim visited Tokyo this week at a moment when Japan is looking south with greater urgency. China has pushed into industries where Japanese firms once seemed almost unassailable. Its navy and coast guard operate more often in nearby waters. While America remains an indispensable ally geopolitically, in trade, it is at best transactional and on a cloudy day, capricious. In Takaichi Sanae, Japan has a Prime Minister who sees engagement with Southeast Asia as a strategic imperative.

According to BERNAMA News Agency, Malaysia owes much of its modern industry to Japan. Malaysia's electronics base and decades of Japanese investment all left their mark. For years, the bargain was easy to understand: Japan brought capital, technology and manufacturing know-how; Malaysia offered a platform for export production. That bargain still matters. But Tokyo now wants more: markets as well as partners whose diplomatic and security roles carry weight in the region. Both sides will attempt to squeeze every last drop of value from the deals, and it's fine if the outcome is mutually beneficial.

Anwar, for his part, worked the full circuit. He lectured at the University of Tokyo, met corporate leaders, spoke at the Nikkei Forum on the Future of Asia and held talks with Takaichi. Trade was present throughout, but it was no longer the whole story. At the university, the Prime Minister treated artificial intelligence as a human question before an economic one. Anwar was also clear about Malaysia's concern over the power now concentrated in AI, noting that a small number of firms control many of the models, chips and standards on which others must depend.

He doubled down on this at the Nikkei Forum, using even stronger language: 'Whether it be in the guise of a new 'civilising mission' or 'digital colonisation', we must reject any new-fangled manifestation of technological fascism.' The corporate roundtable gave the visit its industrial edge. Japanese firms still care about cost and whether a partner will be reliable in ten years' time. For Malaysia, the prize is better jobs, greater skills, and a bigger place in high-value manufacturing. Chips are the sharpest case, with Malaysia handling about 13 per cent of the world's semiconductor assembly, testing and packaging.

Energy was another serious theme. Japan imports most of what powers it. Malaysia produces energy but uses more at home and feels every jump in world prices. Both want to cut emissions without stalling industry or leaving households poorer. The real work lies in hydrogen and ammonia, batteries, waste-to-energy, and cleaner industrial plants. At the Nikkei Forum, Prime Minister Anwar reached for the larger question of what Asia becomes once openness can no longer be assumed. Leaders are still incarcerated within the old paradigm in geopolitics, where the dictates of hegemony goad them 'to strive for power, constantly building up their military and economic might in the name of strategic security.'

The meeting with Prime Minister Takaichi was the strategic heart of the trip. Defence, maritime security, energy, finance, and people-to-people links all came up. A relationship built largely around commerce now has to carry more weight. At sea, Malaysia's trade and much of its energy arrive by ship. The memorandum signed by the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency and the Japan Coast Guard is modest in wording: joint drills, training, and information-sharing. Finance has its part too, with more than a quarter of Malaysia-Japan trade now settling in ringgit and yen rather than dollars.

Both sides recognise that resilience depends on payment systems as much as ships at sea. More memoranda of understanding followed, on the environment, medical devices, energy, and academic exchange. But useful diplomacy often begins in such unglamorous places. For Malaysia, the task is to see Japan plainly: a country of real strengths and real anxieties, and a partner with which to build a more strategic relationship in Southeast Asia.