Japan’s security reliance on US ‘insane’

The Barack Obama administration is “making noise” about its commitment to defending Japan but Tokyo would be insane to depend on a bankrupt US government, a political analyst and writer in Philadelphia says.

“The US is making noise about its commitment to defending Japan, and it is backing this up, somewhat, with delivery of more sophisticated weapons to Okinawa,” Linh Dinh said in an interview with Press TV on Saturday. “But Japan would be insane to depend on a bankrupt, incoherent and delusional USA.”

“Because of its weakened position and its past failure to back up its words, the US will find itself more isolated in the future,” he said. “Current American allies such as Brazil and India are already moving closer to China and Russia, and others will undoubtedly do the same.”

On Saturday, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel attempted to reassure Japan of America’s commitment to its security, amid territorial disputes in the region.

Japan is currently locked in a dispute with China over a group of uninhabited islands, called the Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu by China, in the East China Sea.

Addressing US and Japanese forces at Yokota Air Base, a US Air Force base in Western Tokyo, Hagel said one of the goals of his trip to the region was to assure allies of America’s commitment to “our treaty obligations.”

However, it is unclear if US reassurance can on its own relieve worries in Japan that Washington might one day be unable or unwilling to militarily defend the country, despite President Barack Obama’s strategic “pivot” toward the Asia-Pacific region.