Asia Pacific poses multiple challenges

Defense communications between China and Japan were interrupted and bilateral ties became tense after a Chinese trawler collided with Japan Coast Guard ships in September last year near Diaoyu Islands. Despite the untoward development, China responded sympathetically, both at the government and non-government levels, to the March 11 earthquake that devastated Japan, warming bilateral relations.

But Japan's white paper on defense, issued recently, has once again hurt bilateral relations by playing up the "China threat" theory.

The March earthquake and the ensuing tsunami and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident (or triple disaster) have not only hurt the Japanese economy, but also have had a deep impact on its strategic role in the region. Japan has territorial disputes with Russia, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and China, but all the three countries offered aid to it after the quake and tsunami. In spite of that, Tokyo has taken policy decisions under the influence of the US-Japan military alliance and according to its energy demand.