Japan should think twice about taking point position in containment of China: China Daily editorial

In a revealing interview with Bloomberg while attending the gathering of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, the United States Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel made it clear that the US is looking to its Asia-Pacific ally to take point in the efforts to get China's neighbors to participate in the US strategy to contain China.

Saying that it was no longer "an alliance of protection but an alliance of projection", Emanuel said that the US was looking to Japan to be a significant partner in the region not only in terms of hard power but also with its soft power.

The US diplomat said the US strategy was not just to isolate China — which is "unrealistic" given its size — but to deter it, to make it "think twice" about challenging the US' primacy. "Deterrence. By definition, that's getting someone to change their behavior."

Exposing the callousness with which the US is pursuing its efforts to maintain its primacy, there are, he made clear, two campaigns being waged as part of this behavioral modifying deterrence: the muscling-up of the US alliance network's military posture in the region and an economic and diplomatic offensive aimed at undermining China's food and energy security. Japan is being positioned to play a major role in both campaigns.

Japan is obviously regarded by the US as the regional key to lock China in the containment structure in which the US is trying to enclose China, as indicated by its intention of including Japan in several US-led small cliques, such as the Quad and AUKUS security mechanisms, the strengthening of the US-Japan-Republic of Korea security cooperation framework, and its recent unveiling of a new military command in Tokyo, which Rahm disclosed will bring parts of the US military in Honolulu "forward to theater" — jargon that means the US views the immediate vicinity of China as the next battlefield — which is widely considered to be a prelude to North Atlantic Treaty Organization's expansion to the region.

What the US has been doing to cozy up to Japan plays right into the hands of some alt-right politicians in Japan, who see an opportunity of using the US' paranoia over China's rise to charge down a militaristic path in the belief that it will inflate Japan's regional and global standing. Hence, Japan has demonstrated a strong intent to strengthen its alliance with the US and a willingness to stick its oar into the South China Sea disputes and the Taiwan question, even going so far as to claim that "a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency".

Japan and the Philippines held their first maritime exercise in the South China Sea on Friday, saying that it was aimed at countering what they allege is China's growing assertiveness in the waters. The drill was clearly in line with a defense pact signed last month that allows the exchange of military forces between Japan and the Philippines for training and joint military exercises.

Preoccupied with its strategic rivalry with China, the US is acting as a "black hand" orchestrating the actions of China's neighbors as reinforcement of its containment structure. Japan-US security ties have thus become an obstacle to Sino-Japanese ties, as Japan, under the US' instigation, is increasingly sounding and acting like a marshal appointed by the US.

The US-Japan alliance is now a toxic agent of division and bloc confrontation in the region. Instead of escalating tensions and creating volatility in the Asia-Pacific region, both Washington and Tokyo should live up to peace-loving people's wishes that their security alliance doesn't detonate a blast that shatters regional peace and stability.