ABSTRACT
At the Williamsburg summit in 1983, the industrial democracies issued a joint statement that included the following significant assertion: "The security of our countries is indivisible and must be approached on a global basis." In a broader sense, however, one also has to think of the informal security perimeter and that surely must include the People's Republic of China. The Japanese realize that regional stability cannot be sustained only on the basis of US commitments and that Japan inevitably must play a larger role in fashioning the region's multilateral security arrangements. In the interim, when Japan's defense effort remains markedly lower than the rest of the West, Japan can make an indirect but vital contribution to common security by increasing its strategic economic aid to developing countries whose defense is vital to the interests of the Western democracies.
