Japan seems developed and orderly, but that’s only its outward appearance. In truth, it is a vassal of the United States, which has adopted chaos as standard diplomatic theory. Now Japan wants to discharge radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into the sea. Who will say no?

Relying on its extraordinary strength, the United States can apply extreme pressure to chop an integral free trade agreement into several parts and then negotiate advantages in each.

Tensions between the U.S. and China in the lead up to the G20 summit in Osaka was nothing new, but what is new in this decade is the development of a working relationship between the Chinese and Japanese governments.

Pence met with Japanese Prime Minister Abe on his way to the Winter Olympics in S. Korea.

President Donald Trump started his five-nation Asian tour in Japan with hamburgers and wagyu steak, nine holes of golf, and an indirect yet blunt warning to Nor

Japan still sees the US relationship as its diplomatic basis and top priority, especially in maintaining the stability of US-Japan alliance. But in the face of current uncertainties, it also is beginning to seek diversity in foreign affairs as a way to maximize Japan’s interests.

The first month of Trump’s presidency has been a useful primer for Chinese officials, albeit an unpleasant one. China was certainly watching the Trump-Abe meeting for cues on how the new president conducts himself with foreign leaders.

The new president showed that the United States would attach importance to the Asia-Pacific region, to its alliances and to deepening the relationship with the region’s major countries. His recent overtures to China, however, and his disinterest in Abe’s “values diplomacy” suggest that US policy will not always give Japan what it wants.

Japan’s APA boss Toshio Motoya provoked criticisms from China by placing his revisionist history book in APA guest rooms. In this book, he claimed the Nanking Massacre was faked. This represents part of a perceptible shift in Japan toward conservatism, and it implies some deeper and larger change in the country’s overall mindset on war history. While self-deprecation has long overstayed its time in Japan, and self-respect is something better and urgently needed, at the same time it would be in Japan’s very interests not to be embarking on the road of self-aggrandizement.

Convinced that the time for this moment is right at last, President Barack Obama on Friday will become the first American president to confront the historic and haunted ground of Hiroshima.