Japan emerges as America's deputy sheriff in the Pacific

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Simon Tisdall
Tuesday April 19, 2005
The Guardian

Escalating tension with China, violently illustrated by renewed anti-Japanese protests in Shanghai and other big cities at the weekend, is increasing pressure on Tokyo to expand its military capabilities and back a deepening strategic alliance with the US reaching from east Asia to the Gulf.

Japan's pacifist postwar constitution restricts its armed forces to self-defence. About 50,000 US troops in Okinawa and other bases guarantee the country's security in return for a $5bn (£2.6bn) Japanese cash contribution.

But defence analysts say the perceived Chinese threat, a more assertive, nationalistic Japanese mindset, and Washington's wish to use Japan as a command post for operations extending to the Middle East are transforming Japan's formerly semi-detached defence posture.
In other words, after 60 years largely spent keeping its head down, Japan appears destined to supplant Australia as Washington's "deputy sheriff" in the Asia-Pacific region and become a pillar of America's 21st-century security architecture.

According to Kazuya Sakamoto of Osaka University, Japan and Britain are central to a far-reaching, post-9/11 US review of its overseas force deployments.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,7369,1463078,00.html