Barack Obama sought to reassure Japan on Thursday that it could count on US help as it attempts to deal with an increasingly assertive China.

巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)周四寻求让日本放心：该国在试图应对日益强硬的中国之际，可以依靠美国的帮助。

At the same time, the visiting US president backed efforts by Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, to make his country less dependent on such support by easing restrictions on its military.

与此同时，正在访日的美国总统支持日本首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)的努力——安倍有意放松日本宪法对军队的限制，从而降低日本对美国支持的依赖度。

The paradox at the heart of the “sushi summit” – as the encounter was dubbed after the two leaders dined at a renowned restaurant – is that Mr Abe looked to the US both for a renewed promise of security and a licence to become more independent.

这场“寿司峰会”（因两位领导人在一间知名餐厅共进晚餐而得名）的核心矛盾在于：安倍一方面希望美国重申安保承诺，另一方面希望美国赞成日本变得更加独立。

It is a delicate demand. But it is one that suits Washington’s circumstances as it copes with constrained military budgets and the challenge of countering an increasingly well-funded and sophisticated Chinese military.

这是一个微妙的要求，但也是一个对当前处境下的美国正中下怀的要求，因为美国正在一方面应对受到约束的军费预算，另一方面要应对日趋资金雄厚且装备先进的中国军队的挑战。

In the first stop on his four-country Asian tour, Mr Obama offered reassurance by making clear that the US considered a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea to fall within the scope of the US-Japan military alliance, meaning the US would be obliged to come to Japan’s aid should China try to seize them by force.

在亚洲四国之行的第一站，奥巴马向日本提供了定心丸，明确表示美国认为东中国海一个争议岛群处于美日军事同盟的范围内，这意味着如果中国试图通过武力夺岛，美国将有义务援助日本。

“Our treaty commitment to Japan is absolute,” he said on Thursday at a joint news conference with Mr Abe.

“我们对日本的条约承诺是绝对的，”奥巴马周四在与安倍晋三联合举行的新闻发布会上表示。

However, he emphasised that the US took no position on the issue of who had the stronger underlying claim to the islands, called the Senkaku by Japan, which administers them, and the Diaoyu by China, which accuses Japan of stealing them in the 19th century.

不过，他强调，在哪一国对争议岛屿的主权主张更有根据的问题上，美国并无立场。对这些岛屿实施管辖的日本称其为尖阁诸岛(Senkaku)，中国称其为钓鱼岛及其附属岛屿，中国指控日本在19世纪窃取了这些岛屿。

Mr Obama’s comments mirrored longstanding US policy, previously expressed by defence secretaries and secretaries of state. But it is the first time a US president has weighed in publicly on the issue.

奥巴马的言论反映了美国的长期政策，此前美国历任国防部长和国务卿都表明了这项政策。但这是美国总统第一次在这个问题上公开表态。

Beijing took the comments as unwelcome meddling. After Mr Obama spoke about the islands to a Japanese newspaper on Wednesday, before the summit, the official Xinhua news agency said the US and Japan were engaged in “a carefully calculated scheme to cage the rapidly developing Asian giant”.

北京方面把奥巴马的言论视为不受欢迎的干涉。在奥巴马周三对一家日本报纸谈到争议岛屿之后，“寿司峰会”之前，中国官方的新华社称，美国和日本在搞一个精心策划的计划，目的是把快速发展的亚洲巨人关进笼子。

The US has carefully avoided any talk of containing China, let alone caging it. But Mr Obama’s trip, which will also take him to South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines, has been designed to shore up confidence among US allies about Washington’s commitment to the region.

美国一直谨慎地避免谈论遏制中国，更别提把中国关进笼子了。但奥巴马此行（他还将访问韩国、马来西亚和菲律宾）的宗旨是增强美国的盟友对于美方对亚洲承诺的信心。

A strategic “pivot” to Asia, announced during the president’s first term, has been complicated by crises in Syria and Ukraine, cuts to US defence spending and the White House’s often paralysing battles with Congress, which caused Mr Obama to cancel an Asian trip last year.

奥巴马第一个总统任期内宣布的重返亚洲战略，受到各种复杂因素的干扰，包括叙利亚和乌克兰的危机、美国国防开支的削减，以及白宫与国会之间往往导致一切瘫痪的争斗（此类争斗去年曾导致奥巴马取消出访亚洲）。

The importance of the trip for Mr Abe was reflected in his decision to elevate it to a pomp-filled state visit – the first for a US president since Bill Clinton.

对于安倍来说，奥巴马此行的重要性促使他决定将其升格为一次摆足排场的国事访问——上一个对日本进行国事访问的美国总统是比尔•克林顿(Bill Clinton)。

One challenge has been to overcome doubts among some in Mr Obama’s administration that the conservative Mr Abe is the right Japanese leader to manage a transition to a more active military role.

挑战之一是克服奥巴马政府内部一些人的疑虑，他们担心，立场保守的安倍也许不是带领日本走上转型之路、最终扮演更活跃军事角色的合适领导人。

His rightwing views on history and visit in December to Tokyo’s Yasukuni war shrine have worsened relations not only with China but also with South Korea, another key east Asian ally of the US.

安倍晋三的右翼历史观，以及他在去年12月参拜东京靖国神社(Yasukuni shrine)之举，不仅导致日中关系恶化，也导致日韩关系恶化，而韩国是美国在东亚的另一个关键盟友。

Mr Obama did not take up historical controversies at the news conference, and he was broadly supportive of Mr Abe’s efforts to bolster Japan’s military, whose activities have been restricted by the pacifist constitution adopted under US occupation after the second world war.

奥巴马在新闻发布会上没有提到历史争议，他大体上支持安倍增强日本军力的努力。目前日本的军事活动受到二战后美国占领期间出台的和平宪法的限制。

Those efforts, which include more military spending, the lifting of a ban on arms exports and a push to widen the range of contingencies in which Japan’s defence-oriented armed forces could be deployed, would help Japan make “even greater contributions to peace and stability around the world, which the US very much welcomes”, said Mr Obama.

奥巴马表示，安倍的各项努力（包括增加军费、解除武器出口禁令，以及推动扩大可以动用日本的防御性武装力量的突发事件的范围）将有助于日本对“世界各地的和平与稳定做出更大的贡献，这是美国非常欢迎的”。

Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Tokyo Foundation think-tank, said it was likely that Japan would increasingly take on regional security projects that might once have been led by the US, such as supporting military modernisation programmes in southeast Asian countries and India.

智库东京基金会(Tokyo Foundation)的高级研究员渡边恒雄(Tsuneo Watanabe)表示，日本很有可能将越来越多地承担以往由美国主导的地区安全项目，比如支持东南亚国家和印度的军事现代化计划。

“Japan will continue to co-ordinate with the US, but both sides are looking for a new division of labour,” he said.

“日本将继续与美国协调，但双方都在寻找新的分工方式，”他说。