The foreign minister of the Philippines, which is also currently engaged in a heated territorial conflict with China, called on Japan to rearm itself to balance China militarily, notwithstanding his country s bitter legacy of Japanese occupation. The landslide election of Shinzo Abe, who campaigned on a robust defense platform, may well lead to a serious Japanese push to invigorate the country s military capabilities.

A number of American strategists are eager to ring China with a NATO like defensive barrier, building outward from the US Japan Security Treaty. Since the final days of the Cold War, the US has been pushing Japan to rearm, and has officially supported a proposed revision of Article 9 of the postwar constitution, which bans Japan from having a military or waging war.