Obama announced the United States’ strategic “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region in January 2012, and a whirlwind of activity there – from Australia to Indonesia to India – marked America’s security diplomacy throughout the year. In Japan, too, worries about Chinese assertiveness have become so powerful that a government that showed considerable hostility to the US-Japan alliance when it came to power three years ago had, by November, begun to trumpet the alliance’s mutual-defense commitments as it confronted China’s claim to the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands.
2012年1月奥巴马宣布美国战略“支点”向亚洲转移，以及从澳大利亚到印尼再到印度的一系列旋风式活动突显出贯穿全年的美国安全外交政策。同样在日本，由中国自信所引发的忧虑变得如此强大，以致在三年前执政期间曾对美日同盟表现出相当大敌意的日本政府在面对中国对尖阁群岛（钓鱼岛）的主权要求时也开始四处宣扬同盟的共同防御承诺。