President Bush has begun a fence-mending trip to Europe this week, in the hope of assuaging the angst of some European nations that have been growing wary of the arbitrary behavior of the United States following the Sept 11 attacks.

However, as the president is all smiling to his European friends (and perhaps some foes too), his administration is burning bridges on another side of the globe.

After the end of World War II, the US sought to tame Japan, the perpetrator of the Pacific War, by first occupying the country and then putting it under US security aegis, resulting in the US-Japan Security Treaty in 1960 that allows for Washington to maintain military presence in Japan for the sake of the latter's security as well as for the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East.

(Incidentally, this treaty triggered the first massive student movement against the officialdom in Tokyo - what a contrast to the feeble and sporadic protests against the decision of the Koizumi government to send troops to Iraq in recent years.)

This 'abnormal', almost dominant-subservient relationship between Washington and Tokyo, has made Japanese sovereignty all but in name; it has nevertheless allayed to some extent the fear of East Asian countries for a return of militarism, and ensured that Japan focus on socio-economic reconstruction for the first few decades after the war.

Now, this is set to change.