The flaring of tensions between China and Japan is a pointer that life might be more difficult in the long term for nations like Australia and the US, which both see a secure relationship with China as critical, but which are also rock solid in support of their traditional ally, Japan. Australia is rightly refusing to take sides in the dispute over the interpretation of the events of modern history and China's angst about Japan's increasingly expansionist view of its security role in the Asian region. But the emergence of China as a new superpower alongside the economically powerful and strategically critical Japan is a new dynamic with which Australia and the US have to contend. So last week, when Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer met US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington, the two agreed that their annual security talks with Japan would be upgraded to the ministerial level. Mr Downer said he anticipated that the trilateral talks would deal with security issues generally and that there 'are no issues that we would foresee being off limits in a discussion between allies'. Dr Rice said that the talks would look at a 'region that is changing a great deal'. She added: 'Part of that, obviously, is China, but there are other changes that are going on in the region as well and I'm certain that we will have discussions.' China is the main item for these three powers, and their trilateral relationship - in existence for 50 years - faces a very different regional scenario. In a paper for the Australia-Japan Conference earlier this year, two leading regional strategists described just why Dr Rice, Mr Downer and their Japanese counterparts feel the need to beef up their dialogue. Kiki Fukushima, director of policy studies at Tokyo's National Institute for Research Advancement, and Hugh White, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, reckon that the impact of a resurgent China on the region is still relatively unknown. They argue that if the 'China-centred dynamism should create a prosperous and stable East Asia, there is much to be welcomed in it'. But, they warn, 'Chinese arguments about the emerging East Asian order tend to exclude the US, and sometimes even seem to see East Asian regionalism as a counter to a US policy to 'encircle' China'. It is not desirable, they say, to exclude the US from a new East Asian order. And it is in Japanese and Australian interests to 'keep any East Asian regionalism as open as possible towards the United States and others'. But are Japanese and Australian attitudes towards China diverging to the point where their trilateral relationship with the US is becoming untenable? While Australia is the first nation to sign up to negotiate a bilateral free-trade deal with China, Japan and China's latest tensions reflect an increasing unease about the influence of each other in the region. In short, while Australia and China are swimming together in a warm current, Japan and China are competing in ice-cold, stormy waters. The seeds of a breakdown in US-Japan-Australia relations are examined by the two experts, who note that the key to this dynamic is the unfolding Sino-US relationship. How Australia and Japan react to that evolution will be critical. If China and the US find equilibrium, then Australia and Japan will not have to make difficult choices between the two superpowers. One question as yet unanswered is how Beijing views the statements of Dr Rice and Mr Downer. In escalating the trilateral relationship between the US, Australia and Japan, has China been alarmed? If it has, then the first series of ministerial trilateral talks might take place sooner rather than later. Greg Barns is a political commentator in Australia and a former Australian government adviser