Rudd needed to address this issue. He should have assured Tokyo that we see a strong, active, respected and responsible Japan as essential to the future peace and stability of Asia, and that, after 60 years of exemplary international citizenship, we believe Japan deserves to be trusted as a major power.

He should have said that Australia understands Japan’s anxiety about how China might use its growing power. But he also needed to explain that, from Australia’s perspective, Japan’s approach to Asia’s future seems untenable. Terrified that better Sino-US relations may leave them unprotected, Japan now believes that its security depends on suspicion and hostility between Washington and Beijing. But the US and China are also Japan’s two biggest trading partners, and a peaceful and stable relationship between them is vital for Japan, as it is for everyone else in the Western Pacific, especially Australia.

Rudd needed to make clear that Australia sees things differently. For us, there is no alternative but to work towards a new political and strategic order in Asia based on the maximum convergence between Washington and Beijing. But that new order must also provide a substantial and secure place for Japan.

To reach that, Washington will need to concede some increased power and influence to China, and China will need to concede more power and influence to Japan.

It is far from clear whether this new order can be achieved, but it offers the best hope for a peaceful and prosperous Asian Century.

The alternative – Tokyo’s vision of a regional alliance to constrain China – carries immense risks for all of us. But events are already trending that way. Without a major change of heart in Tokyo, Washington and Beijing, the drift towards a more divided and contested Asia may become unstoppable.

Hugh says that this is the issue Rudd should have had at the top of his agenda this week in Tokyo and reckons he flubbed it (his assessment in full). For an alternative view see The Economist and my piece.