How US is ‘rediscovering’ Japan to check China

The article argues that the United States is strategically “rediscovering” Japan as a key counterweight to China amid shifting global power dynamics. As China reduces its exposure to US Treasuries and expands its global ambitions, Washington is recalibrating alliances, demanding greater burden-sharing and abandoning postwar ideological restraints. Japan, long constrained by pacifism, is rearming rapidly and assuming a larger security role in the Indo-Pacific through defence spending, the Quad, and regional security assistance. This shift has alarmed China, which sees Japan’s remilitarisation as a threat to regional stability and the postwar international order.