From a Chinese perspective, the US – Japan alliance in some respects had become more troubling, because it had been reinvigorated by the New Guidelines agreed between the two in 1996 – 97 as they allowed the Japanese to play a more active strategic role in the region. Nevertheless, the alliance was still considered to be preferable to the alternative of a Japan that was let loose to develop independent security policies. But once the Chinese accepted that they were stuck with a unipolar United States for the immediate future, they stopped harassing the Southeast Asians on this issue, accepting that they had found ways of securing various arrangements with the US as a means of hedging against China. Indeed, the Chinese accepted that the Southeast Asians preferred to engage all the great powers, including also Japan, Russia and India, so as to maximize their manoeuvrability against each. One advantage to the Chinese was that they were less feared under such circumstances, making their growing influence in the region more acceptable.