From The Taipei Times:
Lost in the debates about whether the EU should lift its arms export embargo on China is a much broader and more pressing question: Does the White House once again see China as a strategic competitor, as it did in the early days of George W. Bush’s presidency, before the war on terror forced Bush to seek cooperation with China’s rulers? That Japan has joined the US in standing alongside Taiwan in opposing an end to the EU arms embargo on China suggests that this is so.
Never before has Japan’s government joined a US administration so closely on the Taiwan issue. When the two countries upgraded their alliance relationship in 1996, Japan’s sphere of military operations was expanded far from its main island. But the government remained deliberately vague about its responsibilities.
