Easing of U.S. tensions with China could also counter the rise of rightists in Japan’s Diet who believe in a Japan that can “say no” to the United States and who are pressing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to confront China in order to expose U.S. unreliability. Realists in Tokyo still support both the U.S. alliance and engagement with China, as do most Japanese and the business community, which depends on China trade.

The only way to head off looming instability in Asia is to try to move toward peace in Korea and rapprochement with China. Sustained diplomacy and political rebalancing may not succeed, but unlike more stringent sanctions, more muscular deterrence, diplomatic disengagement and military rebalancing, they just might work.

Leon V. Sigal is director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York.