Australia enters a jealous threesome The World The Australian

AUSTRALIA and Japan are evolving a new trilateral relationship involving China but nothing like their secure and supportive affiliation with the US.
Japanese policymakers are taking a close and worried interest in the Howard Government's strategy of building a positive political association with China alongside the growing trade relationship.
If this trend continues, Japanese governments will be obliged to accommodate that relationship in their dealings with both countries. At worst, Japanese strategists fear a strong Beijing-Canberra link could hurt Japan in competition for Australian commodity exports -- even food, of which Australia is Japan's main foreign supplier.
Australian diplomats and senior businesspeople have been made aware of Tokyo's concerns. But they regard Japan's discomfort as a useful spur to deepening and broadening the bilateral relationship, which the Japanese have been reluctant to do at a government level.
The Australians have noted, for instance, a recent warming among Japanese diplomats towards a Japan-Australia free trade agreement. Canberra views this initiative as crucial to invigorating the relationship but the Tokyo policy establishment fears an FTA that eliminates agricultural trade barriers will destroy domestic farming and damage the Liberal Democratic Party's rural base.
The change of attitude does not necessarily foreshadow an FTA breakthrough, because the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Forests maintains its primitive grip on this area of trade policy, but it does show Japan is beginning to worry about food in the context of competition with China for worldwide resources.
Japan and China fret incessantly about energy security and they compete fiercely to control or develop new oil and natural gas supplies around the world. This competition is quickly spreading to uranium fuel for their nuclear power industries.
But the concern about "food security" surfaced at the recent Australia-Japan Conference in Tokyo when a Japanese official used the term to mean the safe and reliable supply of agricultural goods from abroad.
The MAFF concept of food security, which usually dominates policy discussion here, is that Japan must strive by every possible means to foster indigenous agriculture and limit dependence on imports.
Friday's conference was part of the year of exchange, which marks the 30th anniversary of Japan and Australia signing their Basic Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation. Under the rules of the discussion, journalists agreed not to identify speakers.
The conference between senior government, political, business and academic figures from the two countries was dominated by the China question and -- though Japanese delegates were careful not to criticise -- the vigour of Canberra's political and diplomatic rapport with Beijing.
One delegate noted the symbolism of John Howard and Premier Wen Jiabao power-walking around Lake Burley Griffin, compared with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni shrine, with their corrosive effect on Sino-Japanese relations. The Japanese side generally seemed to envy the Australians that their Prime Minister is capable of maintaining constructive relations with both his Japanese and Chinese counterparts and to hope Koizumi's successor after September will see an overriding national interest in staying away from Yasukuni.
However, they also believe the shrine problem manifests China's underlying ill-will towards Japan. They believe China's political leadership has manipulated the controversy to channel aggressive domestic nationalism and to alienate other Asian governments from Japan.
Japanese diplomacy, which seems to have been thoroughly purged by Koizumi of its previous "panda-hugging" tendencies, regards Chinese diplomacy as obsessed with supplanting Japanese influence throughout Asia and the Pacific.
Some Tokyo officials, though certainly not at the conference, complain that the Australians naively underestimate their increased vulnerability to Chinese manipulation as their economic and political links tighten.