Yves here. American abuse of its supposed strategic allies has gotten to be so severe and inexcusable that some are having debates in political circles and the media about why they are continuing to accept this treatment. It’s as if the abusive husband intensified his wife-beating even as his income was shrinking due to bad career moves.
Admittedly, the US has been engaged in a stunning show of disrespect and preening sense of entitlement towards Europe, so there’s every reason to see if the US can pull the same stunt on the Pacific Rim. The US harmed all of Europe by promising it would do whatever it takes to beat Russia in Ukraine in a conflict the US sought, drained NATO members of weapons stocks and EU states via non-military Ukraine assistance, and harmed Europe and most of all Germany by blowing up the Nordstream pipeline. But to add insult to injury, the Trump team has threatened the EU with further harm via sanctions while acting as if Europe should further subsidize the US by buying US weapons to continue Project Ukraine, rather than let them derive some modest benefit from continued war-mongering by fabricating their own arms.
Now this pattern is obviously self-destructive, but there’s at least an explanation, which is the Iron Law of Institutions. The US exerts considerable influence in EU institutions and the NGOs that are career ladders and safety nets for pols and bureaucrats. So they see upside in playing nicely with the US and risk if they don’t.
My sense is that while there is, or was, fear of crossing the US among its soi-disant Asian and antipodean allies, the upside is more limited. The Andrew Korybko piece below focuses on a fresh bit of US cheek, in the barely-coded demand by Under Secretary of Defense Eldridge Colby to Japanese and Australian official to pre-commit to assisting the US if things get ugly in its planned escalation with China.
Although space prevents us from giving the full context, Japan and Australia were already souring on the US before the latest demand, Renegotiating such complicated relationships won’t happen quickly, but the fact that both countries are debating whether the US is worth its ever rising price is a seismic shift.
For Japan, Trump’s trade thuggery has been a slap in the face, and the US shows no interest in repairing the damage. Alienating Japan is even more epically stupid than alienating Canada, since Japan is richer and in a more geopolitically important location. Unlike the EU, Japan has also been uncomfortable with its status as a military protectorate1 but has lacked an internal consensus as to what if anything to do about it.
When Trump announced his Liberation Day tariffs, Japan made a point of being one of the first to enter into talks. As former ambassador Chas Freeman recounted it, the Japanese were shocked to find the US completely unprepared, with no proposals as to what it might provide Japan and what it might expect in return, and instead thuggishly asked Japan what it was prepared to offer to escape US tariff punishment.
If you have ever worked with the Japanese, they are extremely loath to complain or argue. The fact that many officials are now sharply criticizing US conduct means they are incandescent. The depth of the souring on the US is confirmed by media reports that Japan, China, and the Republic of Korea were discussing how to coordinate trade talk strategies against the US.
I am pretty sure the translation below was sanitized. The key word reported elsewhere was “gangster”. Note that this was the head of the opposition party and the ruling LPD just suffered its biggest setback in 70 years in upper house elections, with the government’s poor performance in the trade negotiations cited as a big, if not the, reason:
This Japanese MP (whose name is Shinji Oguma) absolutely nails it, and reflects what pretty all countries in Asia are thinking: pic.twitter.com/U1jZahc5Sh
“When Japan negotiates with what [Trump] is saying it’s akin to being extorted by a delinquent.
If Japan gives in, thinking…
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 18, 2025
And there are signs of spine-stiffening:
Japan draws a red line in trade talks with the U.S., rejecting any deal that doesn’t include relief from harsh automobile tariffs. As Washington threatens 25% duties on Japanese goods starting August 1, Tokyo stands firm, refusing to trade away its auto sector or make rushed… pic.twitter.com/wdo4qhfzu9
— Asia Fact-Check (@AsiaFactCheck) July 21, 2025
All is not well in Asia. Japan’s PM called the trade talks “a battle” and urged reduced US dependence.
Seeking more from allies is fine, even appropriate. But how one does it matters because allies have domestic politics, face, agency — and yes, choices. pic.twitter.com/LIC1KgC5fQ
— Rush Doshi (@RushDoshi) July 12, 2025
Now to Australia. The disgraceful AUKUS submarine deal was a massive sellout to the US. For an overview, a section from a 2023 cross post by Prabir Purkayastha:
The recent Australia, U.S., and UK $368 billion deal on buying nuclear submarines has been termed by Paul Keating, a former Australian prime minister, as the “worst deal in all history.” It commits Australia to buy conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines that will be delivered in the early 2040s. These will be based on new nuclear reactor designs yet to be developed by the UK. Meanwhile, starting from the 2030s, “pending approval from the U.S. Congress, the United States intends to sell Australia three Virginia class submarines, with the potential to sell up to two more if needed” (Trilateral Australia-UK-U.S. Partnership on Nuclear-Powered Submarines, March 13, 2023; emphasis mine). According to the details, it appears that this agreement commits Australia to buy from the U.S. eight new nuclear submarines, to be delivered from the 2040s through the end of the 2050s. If nuclear submarines were so crucial for Australia’s security, for which it broke its existing diesel-powered submarine deal with France, this agreement provides no credible answers.
For those who have been following the nuclear proliferation issues, the deal raises a different red flag. If submarine nuclear reactor technology and weapons-grade (highly enriched) uranium are shared with Australia, it is a breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to which Australia is a signatory as a non-nuclear power. Even the supplying of such nuclear reactors by the U.S. and the UK would constitute a breach of the NPT. This is even if such submarines do not carry nuclear but conventional weapons as stated in this agreement.
So why did Australia renege on its contract with France, which was to buy 12 diesel submarines from France at a cost of $67 billion, a small fraction of its gargantuan $368 billion deal with the U.S.? What does it gain, and what does the U.S. gain by annoying France, one of its close NATO allies?
American willingness or ability to support allies, other than with financial assistance and low risk stand-off weaponry, is questionable. Outside of minor affairs like Panama and Granada, the US record in military combat is unimpressive. For Australians tied to the US and UK through the opaque 2021 AUKUS defence agreement, the possibility of being drawn into a military conflict with China and the prospect of the American cavalry not reporting for duty is a clear concern. The parallel to Great Britain’s abandonment of Australia during the World War 2 is striking.
The criticism has become even more fierce as new bad facts are coming out, including a campaign to exit AUKUS:
Australia “could sacrifice sovereignty” in AUKUS alignment, says Former FM #opinions pic.twitter.com/QVf3kdPVHb
— T-House (@thouse_opinions) July 15, 2025
You thought the toxic nuclear submarines were the worst part of AUKUS. It gets worse… much worse. pic.twitter.com/DEsX0fQn8y
— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) July 10, 2025
Nuclear waste costs are expected to double the already nosebleed level price tag. As the Michael West site explains (which ample detail):
Everything about AUKUS nuclear waste is a political secret, including the cost, which will more than double the $368B announced AUKUS price tag. Former submariner Rex Patrick with the story.
If we ever get these subs, the total price tag may well be over $1 trillion. I’m in the Federal Court at present, trying to pry open a November 2023 report into how the Government intends to deal with the high-level nuclear waste from AUKUS submarines.
But there’s already a lot we can deduce by combining what has been extracted from the Government using Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, from Senate testimony and also looking at how the United States does and doesn’t take care of its naval nuclear waste.
For starters, there was a short but insightful exchange in Senate Estimates last year between Senator Lidia Thorpe and the head of the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA), Admiral Jonathon Mead.
After making quick reference to the cost of nuclear waste facilities overseas, Senator Thorpe asked about the waste costs for AUKUS, “There’s no costing as yet; is that right?” Mead responded, “That’s correct”.
For an organisation that is required to cost its capability from cradle to grave, including support facilities, it’s a huge omission. It might be the case that they’re too frightened to do the math
We’ll see if the backbenchers have enough support to move the leadership:
Rank-and-file Labor members in Victoria are preparing to launch a blistering attack on US president Donald Trump and demand the Albanese government withdraw from AUKUS.https://t.co/gBfNxeG8Xe
— Financial Review (@FinancialReview) July 22, 2025
Now to the main event.
By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website
Playing any role in a Sino-US war over Taiwan, even a logistical one, could provoke Chinese retaliation.
The Financial Times reported that US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby recently asked Australian and Japanese defense officials how their countries would respond to a war over Taiwan. He also asked them to boost defense spending after NATO just agreed to do so during its latest summit. Colby lent credence to this report by tweeting that he’s “focused on implementing the President’s America First, common sense agenda of restoring deterrence and achieving peace through strength.”
This sequence shows that Trump 2.0 is serious about “Pivoting (back) to (East) Asia” in order to more robustly contain China. This requires freezing the Ukrainian Conflict and assembling a de facto Asian NATO, however, both of which are uncertain. As regards the first, Trump is being drawn into “mission creep”, while the latter is challenged by Australia’s and Japan’s reluctance to step up. To elaborate, they seemingly expected the US to do all the “heavy lifting”, just like NATO expected till recently as well.
That would explain why they didn’t have a clear answer to Colby’s inquiry about how their countries would respond to a war over Taiwan. Simply put, they likely never planned to do anything at all, thus exposing the shallowness of the de facto Asian NATO that the US has sought to assemble in recent years via the AUKUS+ format. This refers to the AUKUS trilateral of Australia, the UK, and the US alongside what can be described as the honorary members of Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Australia and Japan are correspondingly envisaged as this informal bloc’s Southeast and Northeast Asian anchors, yet they’re evidently unwilling to fulfill the military roles that their US senior partner expects. What it apparently had in mind was them at the very least playing supportive logistical roles in the scenario of a Sino-US war but their representatives reportedly didn’t even suggest as much to Colby. This in turn reveals that they fear retaliation from China even if they don’t participate in combat.
Japan’s population and resultant economic density make it extremely vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes while unconventional warfare could be waged against Australia through sabotage and the like. Moreover, China is their top trade partner, which opens up additional avenues for retaliation. At the same time, however, neither of them wants China to seize control of Taiwan’s TSMC (if it even survives a speculative conflict) and obtain a monopoly over the global semiconductor industry.
The US doesn’t want that either, but the problem is that the two envisaged anchors of its de facto Asian NATO aren’t willing to boost defense spending nor seemingly assist America in a war over Taiwan. That’s unacceptable from Trump 2.0’s perspective so tariff and other forms of pressure could be applied for coercing Australia and Japan into at least spending more on their armed forces. The endgame, however, is for them to agree to play some sort of role (whether logistical or ideally combative) in that scenario.
Seeing as how the US won’t relent on its “Pivot (back) to (East) Asia”, it’ll likely coerce the aforesaid concessions from Australia and Japan one way or another. The same goes for the other members of AUKUS+, namely South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan, albeit with perhaps a little less defense spending from the last two. All in all, “The US Is Rounding Up Allies Ahead Of A Possible War With China” as was assessed in May 2023, but it’s anyone’s guess whether it actually plans to spark a major conflict.
____
1 Depending on who is doing the grading, Japan’s self defense force ranks between number five and number 8 in military power. An important white paper argued for increasing defense spending from 1% of GDP to 2% by 2027.
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That damned stupid nuke sub deal. Of course that happened when Scotty from Marketing was Prime Minister and I think that he got a kick from doing the dirty on the French. Last I heard, he got a job with an American think tank. For both Japan and Oz – as well as all those other Asian countries – is that the demands never stop. The US wants logistical support which is fair enough. But then it wants those nations to confront China. Then it wants all those countries to hand over 5% of their GDP to the MIC which would mean buying US weaponry, even if it means all those countries will have their economies wrecked. Now the US is demanding that if the US goes to war against China, that it wants Japan and Oz to sign up as well. And that would mean that we would be dependent on an erratic, mercurial and unpredictable Trump regime to decide for us if we go to war or not. Maybe that is why our present PM went on that trade mission to China. Trying to get some sort of balance and smooth relations. So what other demands will Washington be making the next three and a half years? I hate to think.
Putting my tin foil hat on, I would make an observation about those nuclear wastes. I think that in the end that they will store those nuclear wastes here in Oz. More than that, the US will lean on Oz to store their nuclear wastes too for a nominal rent as it is contentious subject in the US. I once read this American official suggest that as the uranium came from Oz originally, then Oz had a responsibility to take it back in its end form for long term storage. That argument goes nowhere. That is like saying that if the US imports coal from Canada to burn in the US, then Canada has a responsibility to take back that coal ash and any pollution as well. But you can bet that there are some in DC eyeing Oz as a destination for all that nuclear waste accumulating in the US.
I think the US and UK subs will ‘just happen to be in Australia’ when it’s time to dump their waste. There’s tons of waste stuck in Portsmouth the UK doesn’t know what to do with for their useless subs.
I always thought it was all about the nuclear waste disposal. The rest was face-saving window dressing for the Australian public. The date for delivery of these subs is so far away, that if it happens, I will be very surprised.
Morrison allowed the US to white ant our security organisations while our minds were on COVID, this was on purpose. This was at the time he and Hurley tried to finagle the Federal Executive Council on the quiet. US defence installations here are visible to all but their security takeover is not.
The US is on the wrong side of history and our deep state intends for us to go down this road with them, the only real impediment is the Gaza genocide, Marles and others are supporting the Israelis on the quiet but there is a huge resistance to this here which could derail their plans.
Make no mistake, the US is sizing up Australia and Japan to be the next US proxies in a war against China – just as Ukraine has been used and abused as a proxy in a US war against Russia. Australians need to learn a lesson from Germany and the destruction of the Nordstream Pipeline. THIS is how America treats a loyal ally. And don’t think this situation is especially bad because it is Trump. Nordstream was planned and executed by the Biden Administration, as was the war in Ukraine. Take it from an American, neither party is trustworthy. If we don’t have a nuclear war, China will continue to rise and the US and Europe will continue to decline. Australia needs to hitch its horse to the winning team and its best trading partner. And for the record, China has no interest in invading Australia unless the US starts shooting nuclear weapons from its shores.
The neocons and other Washington elite seem to taken the American allies (really vassal states) for granted.
It was inevitable that there would be some type of backlash, owing to the abuse that they were taking. The AUKUS deal occurred during Biden and burned both the French, but later as they learned the hard way, also the Australians themselves. Not discussed in the article in as much depth is how AUKUS is worsening tensions with China.
I think that many other nations are going to realize that they are not junior partners for the US, but just another colony for the US elites to exploit. Trump’s tariffs may have been the last straw for some, on top of the neocons before him that made various demands of the US vassals, such as joining the US in Iraq.
The same is true about the war in Ukraine, which the US provoked to try to break up Russia. The Europeans thought that they would be a junior partner and get some part of looting Russia, once it got regime changed. Of course Russia is winning in Ukraine, while Europe suffers from loss of industry, international reputation, and living standards. The war in Ukraine was never in Europe’s interests, but their corrupt leaders went along with it. They should have done a rapprochement with Russia at the end of the Cold War.
On the morality front, the US wars in Iraq, when the US lied about Saddam having WMDs, and now genocide in Palestine, by backing its proxy Israel, have damaged America’s image irreparably. I suspect that the truth about Ukraine will as well someday. It’s a loss of soft power.
As the US continues to decline, and the upside of complying with US demands becomes smaller, we are going to see more of this. The US doesn’t have the industrial base, nor the military strength, and increasingly does not have the world’s best technologies to offer other nations. As the US middle class declines, the US consumer market is not as lucrative an export market anymore.
The world no longer aspires to be like the US. That’s a function of the evil actions that the American elite have done around the world and the falling living standards within the US itself.
Hopefully in the future, the corrupt politicians who betrayed their nations by bending the knee to Washington will be held to account in their nations and face trials, along with other legal consequences.
What’s astounding is how self-inflicted America’s problems are. The US elite of this generation will go down as some of the least competent leaders in history. They were as incompetent as they were evil. That will be their final historical judgement.
Can guarantee the UK won’t bandon the US. The entire political class (including Reform) are completely beholding to them. I think a part of the british elite actually lives vicariously through the american elite and their empire.
You have read my mind.
I got that idea from reading Churchill. Some of his post war writings give the strong impression he felt Britain was “passing” on responsibility for the world to America. And as the USA was really a descendent of Britain in his view then that meant Britain wasn’t really losing it’s place. Self induldgent nonsense really, but I think that is a view that the british elite have, at least subconsciously.
Part of it might have come from the fact that he had an American mother.
The right wing LNP coalition, often thought of as simply the political wing of Newscorp in Australia, immediately demanded that the centrist ruling ALP commit to fighting in Taiwan. This without the USA itself committing to it.
Australians have suffered 40 years of propaganda and social engineering to make it US militarism-friendly. Australians are isolated from their political system and riven by mindless culture wars. We are prime fodder for a proxy war.
The ALP has a history of internal coups to create US-friendly administrations, the first in the mid 70s and the last in 2010 where the wikileaks showed that the prime minister was ousted for not being US friendly enough in refusing to join the quad or to have a US garrison in our northernmost port. His replacement, duly signed off on by the US embassy, immediately joined the quad and let the marines in. Australians are so divorced from reality that when told that the marines were simply a ‘rotational force’ they accepted it, obviously thinking other US bases have the troops sent there for life.
The AUKUS deal has just as much to do with giving our military bases to the USA as it has to do with subs. Since 1996 massive emphasis has been placed in the Australian Defence Force on ‘interoperability’ to the point it is now a provincial arm of the US military with funny accents. Doctrine, equipment and logistics is steadily being replaced with US versions. Ask an member of the military.
Australians will line up for their war, they believe the newspapers. They’ll especially line up for it if the happens to be a serendipitous and precipitous downturn in the economy as has happened in Europe to create a pool of ready (hungry) recruits.
Australia is the stationary aircraft carrier in the S-W Pacific wholly owned by the USA. The only real essential to its US masters being Pine Gap. The other US bases and infrastructure are just performative and for a show of strength to Asia, as any next war is, as we are seeing in the Middle East, about rocketry delivering “kinetic” payloads.
A consideration that rarely gets mentioned is the obscurely named Force Posture Agreement (FPA) https://johnmenadue.com/post/2023/05/what-is-the-us-australia-force-posture-agreement-fpa/. Vassalisation complete.
94% of Australians polled as opposed to the war in Iraq, a number that simply does not exist in poling.
250,000 protested in Sydney, as in over 5% of its population then of 4 million.
But to your point, when Australia (liberal John Howard) joined the coalition of the willing, Australia fell in line. The continued grumbling was minimal, although ABC and SBS did cover in great detail how horrific conditions were for Iraqis, like the looting of hospitals and severe limits on electricity (only a few hours a day).
These days watching SBS is like watching a cross between Fox News and CNN. I use to watch them for the news. These days I watch it to see what the agreed upon narrative is.
Australia has dutifully followed the US into every war it could since WWII. And never gets tired of reminding them.
Woe betide the 1st PM not to commit to the next one.
Former PM Morrison’s AUKUS brain fart was, for him first and foremost an election ploy.
It was intended that he would sign the docs in person alongside a US President then call an election.
Unfortunately Covid meant he got a Zoom meeting instead.
Still he got a job out of it. Lobbying with fellow evangelical and neocon & former director of the CIA Mike Pompeo.
Oh, so *that’s* why they pushed out Rudd, the best Prime Minister you’ve had in ages. Thanks for explaining. (Rudd speaks fluent Mandarin.)
This is more Making Shit Up. I was in Australia for a few years before Rudd became PM. I had been a fan and was shocked at how quickly he imploded.
He had been a brilliant opposition leader and quickly started flailing about as PM. He was a more charismatic and articulate Jimmy Carter, a bad administrator by virtue of being a micromanager. He had less excuse than Carter by virtue of not being an outsider. He was self-destructing all on his own.
The real question is whether, when the shooting starts, these US “allies (with plenty of well-earned hate-America reasons)” show up. My guess is not. Andrew K. doesn’t opine.
China has never been an existential threat to Japan (well at least until that pesky genocide from 1937-45, lol)
The invasion of Japan by “China” was when China was ruled/occupied by a Mongol elite.
Of course PRC wants to expand its sphere of economic influence, but China is never going to “Red Dawn” Japan…even if Japan is involved in a Taiwan conflict.
The US creates the instability it ostensibly seeks to prevent by placing its mlilitary within a lazy 60 min. flight’s radius of China in Korea and Japan
True, but this doesn’t stop the Japanese media from constantly spreading fear about China and especially the DPRK.
I would say that the sources of instability are:
(1) The CCP’s obsession with territorial expansion — with Taiwan, which historically was never Chinese — let it go, guys — with Tibet — with Xinkiang — with Hong Kong — with the South China Sea. You have enough land, dudes, stop being so obsessive about having more. This behavior appears threatening to everyone, including Vietnam, the Phillipines, Japan, South Korea, Myanmar, Laos, literally everyone.
(2) The Kim dynasty’s desire to stay in power in North Korea despite having grotesquely mismanaged the economy to the point where they need repeated bailouts (alternating bailouts from China and Russia), and refusal to normalize relations with anyone or take a South Korean bailout. This is why the US is still stationed in South Korea.
This is serious Making Shit Up, which is a violation of our written site Policies.
Did you miss that Hong Kong was always part of China and only leased to the UK? China DID lose a lot of cred in the international community with their heavy handed takeover. But their right to Hong Kong is not at issue.
As for Taiwan, Xi had expressed only a vague aspiration that Taiwan rejoin China by 2049. The increase in Chinese incomes relative to Taiwan would have led more Taiwanese over time to seek jobs in China (there is already some employment of Taiwanese in China) and could have achieved normalization all on its own. It’s the US that escalated, threatened by China’s ever increasing military and economic power and realizing if it were to act, 2027 was probably the latest time the US had.
I am now in Southeast Asia and have a much better view than before of how aggressive Chinese businessmen very much cut the pie in their favor. The Chinese are hard core mercantilists. But that does not make everything they do unwarranted.
I admit I know too little about this, but I’m wondering if, in case the Australians wanted to push back they could use Pine Gap or the Harold E. Holt joint naval communication station as leverage… somehow.
Last time we tried it Mi6/CIA with the help of our own secret services ASIO overthrew the prime minister in an internal coup.
Ugh, that’s terrible. :-( Thanks, James! Will look into this more.
I did find this website that discusses both sites in some detail:
https://nautilus.org/publications/books/australian-forces-abroad/defence-facilities/pine-gap/pine-gap-intro/
Great stuff this.
It is getting more and more interesting…finally at least a bit of disagreement with the US from the East Asian vassals. Shinji Oguma summed it up. Will it all blow over, or get worse? Looks like the latter.
Just an indulgent thought: what if ROK or Japan politely told the US to piss off and announced the cessation of all future SOFA (Status of Forces) agreements with the US and the eventual evacuation of all US military? What amount of financial and economic pressure could prevent such an event?
That would be a historical event…it might take a while but the writing is on the wall.
The US would undertake covert action against Japan and/or the ROK, to keep them in line, as it has done in the past.
Why do they need covert action if the CIA owns the Liberal Democrats? And I see that extremist nationalist parties are rising in popularity again. Wonder where that came from?
Good question. There was an attempt, right before the election last weekend, to plant the idea of a link between Russia and Sanseito(aka the Japan First party). Wonder where that came from?
Deteriorating economic conditions typically produce a rise in right wing support.
As you note, the LDP is losing power in the Diet. The Japanese public has become sick of the endless scandals, corruption, dark money, and LDP connections to the whackjob Unification Church. It is entirely possible that Jiminto will become a minority party in the foreseeable future. Some of the other right-wing parties are LDP-adjacent pseudo-opposition, but may not be fully under control of the USian security apparatus. Following an electoral upset, a situation could thus arise in which the mechanisms of control that you suspect are no longer functional.
(Btw, I assume this mechanism is also hypothetical, so we can entertain it as a possibility rather than a fact, but do you by chance have any hard evidence of how this mechanism of influence actually works in the present? I mean documents or credible investigative journalism or other hard evidence, i.e., not handwaving?)
As Yves points out, above, economic conditions in Japan are deteriorating. Commodity prices are increasing. The price of rice has been at the center of a scandal. Ultra-right-wing parties like Sanseito are speaking to people who feel precarious, worry about food security, and want to blame foreigners. They target low information voters, of which there are many in Japan because media literacy is poor and civil society is weak to non-existent. Otherwise, it’s the usual script, nothing terribly new.
This question from JohnnyJames is a hypothetical — i.e., what would happen if the Japanese leadership chose to exit ANPO, and either go it alone or else (another possibility) make peace with China, either of which presupposes that the leadership makes a decision to no longer submit to the American Empire (the “Japan that can say ‘no'”) —, and I submit that the most plausible answer is drawn from history, both in Japan and elsewhere.
As John Mearsheimer has noted, the US today really looks like “the gang that can’t shoot straight” so it would make perfect sense for bureaucrats at Kasumigaseki to be quietly drawing up plans for a post-ANPO Japan, whatever that looks like. The other possibility (noted by Michael Hudson, I believe) would be that Japan becomes the Ukraine of East Asia, fighting a proxy war against China on behalf of the Empire. I assume the Japanese bureaucrats are not stupid enough to go down that path, especially given that the future of Ukraine as a nation is today rather in question, but again, a terror campaign against the Japanese public could change more than a few opinions.
If China wants Taiwan badly enough, China will get Taiwan. You just have to look at a map. A long delaying action (including nominal acknowledgement of the ‘one China’ policy) is the only sensible Western policy on the matter, and to date China has seemed perfectly willing to preserve the status quo and use it as a bargaining chip.
Doing nothing in response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, as opposed to starting a massive war in the Pacific between global powers that could only end in defeat, would be a rational response. Does anybody really think the US would expend resources to protect Australia if it came under threat in the event of a defeat? Or that it could do so successfully enough to change the outcome, even if it would? Look at Ukraine.
Based on past behavior the US would abandon any ally to its fate were it deemed expedient to do so. Given the purely transactional nature of any dealing with Trump and his administration, Japan and Australia … and all the others … should look to their interests. With all those US bases Japan is a big fat target should things get messy. WHat exactly does Australia gain from cozying up to the US?
Stalin has been dead 72 years. The Soviet Union expired more than 30 years ago.
DPRK has the A Bomb and functioning delivery systems. Their main target is US military sites in East Asian.
Local nations should opt for disarmament, including any hint of U.S. nuclear umbrella.
US treaty organization in East Asia would soon set very costly standards of self defense.
Japan, for example, depends in part on U.S. for leaky missile defense which US in a treaty organization, would demand Japan provide.
Japan, ROK and Oz should give non aligned peace a chance.
A good round up on this is whether we could say ‘no’ at all with such a large US security presence in-country.
https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/with-so-much-local-us-military-presence-can-australia-really-say-no-to-a-war-on-china/
These countries can be better allies by telling America to shut down these crazy unwinnable wars or threats of war/trade wars.
But I suspect they cannot, and after a while the only reasonable action for them to take is to reach out to China and form a relationship there more closely aligned to their national interests.