BEIJING, April 30 -- The revised U.S.-Japan defense cooperation agreement is a worry for all nations with direct experience of these countries' previous overseas military escapades.

Updated for the first time since 1997, Japan will now be allowed to send troops into battle on foreign soil to defend itself and its allies.

The Japanese government's decision to reinterpret its post-WWII pacifist Constitution in July last year sparked protests around the world. Now, Japan has made successful use of the U.S. pivot to Asia strategy, a trademark policy of the Obama administration that seems largely designed to contain China's rising influence in the Asia-Pacific.

For a nation notorious for sneaky attacks, most famously against Pearl Harbor, the new arrangement will resurrect the ghosts of Japan's militaristic past in the region.

Japan commissioned a large helicopter-capable navy ship, Izumo, in March, just one aspect of its rising military expenditure. The 248 meter destroyer, equal to the Japanese carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor, is named after a warship used in the invasion of China in the early 20th century. Such coincidences evoke painful memories in the Chinese people of Japan's atrocities.

And then there is Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ritual offering at the Yasukuni Shrine and visits there by his cabinet members. Yasukuni honors Japan's war dead, and Japan's war criminals.

Washington's expectation that Japan will fight for U.S. interests worldwide and its support for Japan's stance in territorial claims do not just hamper Japan's reconciliation and healing with its neighbors: Japan now feels fully justified in lying about wartime atrocities.

Taken together, these actions blatantly challenge the international order set at the end of WWII, which has guaranteed regional peace and stability for decades.

On Wednesday, the Japanese leader once again expressed "deep remorse" over WWII in his speech to a joint session of U.S. Congress, but stopped short of apologizing to Japan's victims, including China and the Republic of Korea. Similar weasel words were used in the Asian-African Summit in Jakarta last week.

Such an attitude is disappointing. The 70th anniversary of the end of WWII should be an opportunity to send positive signals, mend fences and become part of huge regional cooperation through honest reflection.

For regional good, Japan should stop issuing one wrong signal after another. The U.S.-Japan bilateral alliance, forged during the Cold War, should not be strengthened; it should be dumped.