A decision by the new government of Japan to re-examine the location of a US marine helicopter base on the southern island of Okinawa has prompted talk of a dangerous rift in the US-Japan alliance. Robert Gates, US defence secretary, offended his Japanese hosts last month when he lectured them about foot-dragging, telling the new government it must stick to the deal made by its predecessor. A senior state department figure apparently went one stage further, telling the Washington Post that Japan, not China, was now the US’s most problematic relationship in Asia. That is nonsense.

To be fair, Jeff Bader, the senior director for East Asian affairs at the National Security Council, called the anonymous comments asinine. Yet Washington has clearly been taken aback by the Democratic Party of Japan’s decision to act on its election pledge of seeking to make the US-Japan alliance “more equal”. In particular, the Pentagon is frustrated at the prospect of having to renegotiate a 1996 deal, not yet implemented, to move the Futenma helicopter base.