The Hormuz Crisis Is Driving a Geopolitical Shift Across Asia

For years, policymakers in Washington have viewed Asia primarily through the lens of Taiwan, the South China Sea, and China’s military rise. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has only reinforced that perspective, cementing Europe and East Asia as the principal arenas of geopolitical competition. But security experts in Southeast Asia increasingly argue that another crisis thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East may ultimately reshape the regional balance of power far more profoundly than either Ukraine or Taiwan. The strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes, has become impossible…