America's Big Opportunity to Lower Tensions in Asia

Lyle J. Goldstein

Diplomacy, Asia

The United States must help to broker a sustainable peace between the two leading powers of East Asia: China and Japan. 

The confluence of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War with the upcoming Xi-Obama Summit provide the opportunity for musings on the state of the all-important China-Japan-U.S. triangular relationship and its pivotal role in the future of global security. A pattern in this triangle has been visible for some time. Tokyo hems and haws about objectionable Chinese deployments or statements. Washington then sends high-level envoys and dutifully begins planning ever larger joint exercises to yet again reinforce the strength of the Japan-U.S. Alliance. Beijing views these measures as an anti-Chinese conspiracy and proceeds with military programs and new initiatives to cast the Alliance in doubt--setting this vitriolic spiral off all over again. Occasionally, this tedious, and yet perilous geopolitical brew receives an injection of spicy kimchi from the ever volatile Korean Peninsula, but the general triangular dynamic has been in place for well over a decade.