Changes in Asia

Taipei Times :

In the coming months, US and Japanese military officers and defense officials will be sitting down in Tokyo, the Pacific Command in Hawaii and Washington to determine ways to put muscle into the swiftly maturing alliance between the US and Japan. If all goes well, those efforts will produce a joint declaration by US President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi next autumn that will reflect the most fundamental and far-reaching revision of the alliance since the US-Japan Security Treaty was rewritten in 1960. The critical feature: The US and Japan will transform their security bond from one of senior partner-junior partner to one of more nearly equals in policy and strategy, even if the military power of the US still overshadows that of Japan.

My read on this is that is a very clear message to China: Hands off Taiwan. I think there may be a message for North Korea as well.