[Ever since the Nixon-Mao accommodation in 1972, Chinese strategic analysts have generally viewed the US-Japan security pact as a way to restrain Japanese remilitarization. Some have called it the “cork “in the “bottle,” or a “leash “on a possible new Japanese military threat in a region whose tensions, pivoting on China-Japan conflict, are growing even as its economic bonds expand. Now, however, Koizumi's decision to deploy missile defenses in collaboration with US surveillance and command-and-control — in conjunction Japanese dispatch of Self-Defense Forces to support the US in the Iraq War, the permanent stationing of the Maritime Self-Defense Forces in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, the repositioning of US forces centered on the transfer of I Corps to Japan, and the explicit inclusion of Taiwan within the scope of the alliance — have convinced the Chinese that Japan has become an active participating in a US design to contain China. Japan's substantial commitment to the development of a cooperative Ballistic Missile Defense program coordinated the US thus has important regional and global ramifications. Japan Focus]