Are fiefdoms near the Capital assigned to trusted allies or the opposite, and why?

TL;DR Chinese and Japanese feudal lords are very different in origin. The King of Zhou is tied to his subjects over trust and ritualistic relationships and had to assume most subjects are trustworthy, but the Japanese shogun ruled more by military might had better assume that many subjects are rebellious.

Chinese feudal lords are, well, closer to the feudal lords in the European sense. When the King Wu of Zhou (周武王) defeated the Shang and established the Zhou kingdom, he gave out feudal fiefs to a bunch of people. He gave the Prince of Shang a fief around the former Shang capital of Yin, and gave his brothers nearby fiefs to deter former Shang royals from uprising.

封商紂子祿父殷之餘民。武王為殷初定未集，乃使其弟管叔鮮、蔡叔度相祿父治殷。

(He) granted to the son of King Ch'ou of Shang, Lu-Fu, the remaining people of Yin. As the King Wu had just taken Yin and not solidified his rule, he made his brothers Kuan Shu-hsien and Ts'ai Shu-tu assist Lu-Fu in ruling Yin.

(Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, Annals of Zhou 史記/周本紀）

He also granted land to the descendants of the legendary leaders of the antique, his other relatives, and his generals/statesmen:

武王追思先聖王，乃褒封神農之後於焦，黃帝之後於祝，帝堯之後於薊，帝舜之後於陳，大禹之後於杞。於是封功臣謀士，而師尚父為首封。封尚父於營丘，曰齊。封弟周公旦於曲阜，曰魯。封召公奭於燕。封弟叔鮮于管，弟叔度於蔡。餘各以次受封。

The King Wu remembers of the ancient wise kings, and thus awarded Chiao to the descendant of Shen-nung, Chu to the descendant of the Yellow Emperor, Chi to the descendant of the Emperor Yao, Ch'ên to the descendant of the Emperor Shun, and Ch'i to the descendant of the Emperor Yü. Then, he granted (land) to his honored statesmen and counsellors, and Shih Shang Fu was the first of them. He granted Ying-ch'iu to Shang Fu, and gave (his fief) the title Ch'i. He granted Ch'ü-fu to his brother Chou Kung Tan, and gave the title Lu. He granted Yen to Chao Kung Shih, Kuan to his brother Shu Hsien, and Ts'ai to his brother Shu Tu. Others were also granted land.

(ibid)

It was not necessarily true that all fiefs close to the Zhou capital (in modern Xi'an) were given to his relatives. To the south of his royal fief lies Ch'u (楚), which was granted to the descendants of the Yellow Emperor. Many of King Wu's close relatives, however, were actually given land far away from the royal capital, such as Yen (modern Beijing) and Lu (centered around the northeast of modern Shandong).

Moreover, it's hard to determine trustworthiness just based on kinship. In the early days of Zhou, King Wu's brothers, who were supposed to deter the former Shang royals, actually rebelled against King Wu's heir, King Ch'eng (周成王) - later known as the Rebellion of the Three Guards (三監之亂).

It was exactly this impossibility to determine trustworthiness in feudal Zhou that led to the demise of the feudal system in China. Kinships, trust relationships, and ritualistic/religious ties binds the feudal system, but those ties are simply untrustworthy. Of course the Kings of Zhou tried to grant fiefdoms close to the capital (or, actually, all fiefdoms) to trusted allies (e.g., brothers) so that his subjects would protect him, but how does he know if they will remain trustworthy? The King Zhou had little military capability of his own, and had to rely on his subjects to protect him and suppress rebellions. What if his subjects refuse to do so, or even worse, what if his own subjects decide to march on him? This eventually led to the end of the Zhou dynasty.

On the other hand, the feudal system in Japan was much different from the Zhou system. It had little to do with kinship relations and ritualistic ties, and were much less reliant on trust relationships. Instead, it was, to a large extent, based directly on military (and economic) might. The shogun was nothing divine or paternal; he was just a very powerful military leader, and so were the daimyos. Instead of relying on (not so) trustworthy subjects, he had to maintain his own military - by literally having the largest military and a large enough economic base to fund that military.

To stop rebellions, the shogun could not depend on trust relationships at all, as many subjects can be quite overtly rebellious (e.g., the Satsuma Shimazu clan 薩摩島津氏). What he had to do is to assert his dominance - by defeating his enemies. Minamoto no Yoritomo (源頼朝) had to defeat his archenemies, the Fujiwara Clan, in the Battle of Ohshu (奥州合戦), before controlling all of Japan under the Kamakura Shogunate. Tokugawa Ieyasu had to defeat the West Army at Sekigahara to establish his leadership. Later, the Tokugawa clan remained the most powerful clan - because he was so powerful, daimyos had to think twice before rebelling.

On the other hand, in the rare case that a rebellion really happened, the shogun would want that rebellion to be as far from his capital as possible, so that rebel armies don't march into his capital easily. Instead, he would have more time to prepare his army and quash the rebels, as he is the strongest military power. Many Tokugawa policies like sankin-kōtai (参勤交代) and ikkoku-ichijō (一国一城, "one castle per fief") were also based on this logic. The King of Zhou though would probably never announce such policies: even if his subjects listened to him, such policies would be undesirable as such policies would render him unprotected and even weaker.

What if the shogun is no longer the strongest military power? Well, then he's no longer shogun. This happened thrice in Japanese history (the Genkō War 元弘の乱, the Sengoku Era and the Boshin War 戊辰戦争), which led to the end of the shogunate, and in the former two cases the establishment of a new one.

China is a large country with even larger borders. Enemies are likely to come from far away, and they are likely to be people that are "unlike" you. So you want your "last line of defense," nearest the capital, to be manned by your closest friends, to give you the best chance to survive when the external enemy comes. On the other hand, a distant enemy can be a "good" enemy because they may have other targets in mind.

Japan is a small,crowded place with a limited land area. "Everyone" (of consequence) knows everyone else. There is no place to hide. All enemies will be "internal."

If you are the Emperor, and you are overthrown, it will likely be by someone you know, not by some unknown Mongol or Manchurian tribal leader from someplace in the vast wilderness. In that case, "the best defense is a good offense." Keep your enemies in a position where you can watch them, and kill them before they can kill you. The further away they are, the easier it is for them to plot or otherwise hide their evil intent.

Both ideologies made sense for their respective countries.