With regards to the article East Asia: A time of geopolitical flux, one must understand why the US wants Japan to revise its constitution and rename its Self-Defence Forces to Armed Forces.

The US has all along viewed China as a security threat. For that matter, any country that does not practice democracy like how the US does is viewed unfavourably by them and considered a security threat. Or some sort of wayward child that needs to be disciplined and brought into line.

Hence, towards this aim of containing China, the US views Japan as its strongest ace card and thus is encouraging Japan to re-arm (not that it hasn't) and be the Britain of the East. It wants Japan to be strong enough to counter the perceived threat from China.

The US doesn't consider a militarily strong Japan a threat to the US as the US is too strong for any country to want to attack it. Hence, the US insistence on asking Japan to re-arm and assume a more aggressive role in defence and UN Security Council affairs.

The US may now have second thoughts on relying on Taiwan as its other ally, as 'using Chinese against Chinese' may not pay off in the end and the effort would be viewed with animosity by the Chinese worldwide. Using the Japanese would be a more effective strategy in the long-term.

However, much of the blame for the present predicament the Japanese are in now lie with the Japanese themselves. If Japan had followed Germany's steps in atoning for its wartime aggression, the current situation where animosity and anger still exist would not have happened.

But the Japanese government, and even well-known Japanese writers and politicians, only serve to keep this animosity and anger simmering on by denying any wrongdoing and even giving justifications for their aggression.