He was alluding to Asakai Koichuri, to Japan’s ambassador to the US in the late 1950 at the height of the US-Japan relationship. He had a recurring nightmare — which he did not keep secret — that one day he would wake up and find the US reversing its policy on China without telling any of its allies. The Japanese were furious and humiliated. It became known as the shokku.

It would, of course, be a great exaggeration to say that Japan felt the same way about President Barack Obama’s trip to China after a sojourn in Tokyo, his first stop on the Asian trip. In both places he was warm to the hosts and was warmly received. Yet there was no mistaking the greater importance he attached to China, which has surpassed the US as Japan’s major trading partner. Japan was an ally already. China had to be wooed.

It is unlikely that the difference went unnoticed in Tokyo or that its implications will not be considered closely in one of the most accomplished foreign ministries in the world. The episode provides a fine case study of how great powers treat allies.

The US has been none too sensitive or tactful in responding to Japan’s expectations ever since Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama came to office in September. His Democratic Party was the first opposition party to take over power in half a century. As Hatoyama’s widely read article in The New York Times made plain, he sought a relationship of equality, but not an end to the alliance with the US.

‘How should Japan maintain its political and economic independence and protect its national interest when caught between the United States, which is fighting to retain its position as the world’s dominant power, and China, which is seeking ways to become dominant?’

As happens in relations between states and individuals, a single dispute of a limited character comes to symbolise the stirrings beneath of a more fundamental nature. In this case it was the dispute over the US Marine Corps Air Station at Futenma in Okinawa. In 2006 the US and Japan agreed that this base should be shifted out of its urban setting to a less populated part of the island by 2014 to be followed by relocation of 8,000 of US Marines from Okinawa to Guam, at Japan’s expense mostly and return to Japanese control other bases on Okinawa.

Prime Minister Hatoyama had promised during the election campaign to reopen that agreement and move the air base out of Okinawa altogether. Americans dismissed it all as campaign rhetoric little realising that Hatoyama was not creating a new demand of his own to win votes but was merely responding to strong popular opinion.

There was another issue besides. The new government declared its intention to withdraw from an eight-year-old mission in the Indian Ocean to refuel warships supporting the US efforts in Afghanistan.

Despite the Obama-Hatoyama meeting in New York in September, the atmosphere was not improved thanks to two personal incidents. There was a ‘spat’ in September between Japan’s ambassador to the US Ichiro Fujisaki and the military brass at the Pentagon, who are not exactly famous for tact or excessive civility.

But neither is Robert M. Gates, the defence secretary, who had also served under George W. Bush. On a visit to Japan last month, in preparation for the president’s trip, he lectured to his hosts about the sanctity of agreements and asserted that the issue was enforcement of the 2006 agreement and not its review. He turned down invitations to dine with defence ministry officials or even to attend a welcome ceremony at the ministry.

The Obama-Hatoyama meeting in Tokyo on Nov 13 resulted in a predictable compromise. Japan ‘will not be taking part in the refuelling’ the prime minister announced at their joint press conference. On Okinawa a ‘high-level working group’ was set up to resolve the issue. They agreed to differ, evidently. Hatoyama stood by his campaign pledge and remarked ‘as time passes by I think it will become even more difficult to resolve the issue.’ Obama insisted that the working group ‘will focus on implementation of the agreement’ of 2006.

At the press conference the very first question was asked by Matsuyama of Fuji Television on Okinawa, refuelling, North Korea and one more which Obama deftly avoided answering after a humorous sally at journalists’ ‘multiple questions.’

The question he evaded was ‘what is your understanding of the historical meaning of the A-bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Do you think that it was the right decision?’

The president evaded the question, but his country will find it increasingly difficult to do so. As Nassrine Azimi of UNITAR wrote from Hiroshima early this week, the Japanese are determined ‘to contemplate the next century fully on their own terms.’ They will not be deflected from the course on which they have set themselves.

The writer is an author and a lawyer.