Japan’s trouble

If there is even minor trouble between the US and China, Japan can barely avoid the consequences. Following the American lead, Japan too had recently initiated military confidence building measures with China.

As part of the new bonhomie, a Chinese warship, Shenzhen, had docked in at Tokyo late last month. This is the first visit by a Chinese ship to Japan since the Second World War.

The Chinese visitors were expecting to go on a guided tour of a Japanese warship belonging to the very special Aegis class. At the last minute the Japanese hosts called off the visit. The Japanese media reported that the tour was abandoned under the pressure of the US navy, which was smarting under Hong Kong’s rejection of the Kitty Hawk.

Although the US and Japanese officials denied these reports, the US navy has been concerned about leaks of classified information on the Aegis ships from Japan to China.

The writer is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore iscrmohan@ntu.edu.sg