As Japan’s needs mount in the aftermath of its earthquake, tsunami and radiological disasters, the United States and China are putting aside their regional differences to help the Japanese recover, offering up military and emergency services for assistance.

Japan and the United States have had their share of tensions with China lately, thanks to feuds over U.S.-Korean exercises near China’s borders and disputes between China and Japan over where those borders actually lie, among other issues.

But since the earthquake hit on Friday, tensions have given way to cooperation, as Japan’s closest ally and biggest rival have pitched in to help. While the two big Pacific powers aren’t launching any joint relief operations in Japan at the moment, their aid efforts point to the hopeful prospect for some regional confidence-building in the future — or, at the least, what Pacific disaster assistance looks like in an age where both China and the United States dominate the area.

At the moment, the U.S. Navy has a number of ships operating off the coast of Japan, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, its carrier group and the destroyers Fitzgerald, McCain, McCampbell and Wilbur off the coast of Japan. Four more ships, the Blue Ridge, Essex, Harper’s Ferry and Germantown are set to arrive tomorrow.

The military also dispatched a Global Hawk spy drone to Japan ”at the request of the Japanese government,” according to an Air Force representative.

That fits a pattern of drone deployment during natural disasters: Last year, the Air Force diverted a Global Hawk from Afghanistan to provide imagery and surveillance after Haiti’s earthquake. The drone, able to fly for 30 hours at a time, provides imagery and reconnaissance — helpful to disaster managers and emergency services personnel looking to assess damage.

Marines stationed at Okinawa have also begun coordinating assistance on the mainland as part of Operation Tomadachi and another 2,200 are set to arrive in Japan shortly.

It’s not just the military that’s lending an American helping hand. Elite Los Angeles and Fairfax county search and rescue teams arrived in Japan Sunday and reached the stricken coastal city of Ofunato on Monday. Thus far, they’ve found no survivors. Iwate prefecture, on Japan’s northeast coast, suffered particular devastation from the quake and subsequent tsunami, with 200 dead and 191 missing as of today.

In Ofunato, the L.A. and Fairfax teams are joined by their counterparts from China. China reached out to Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami and sent a search-and-rescue team by charter plane on Sunday.The 15 member Chinese team arrived in hard-hit Ofunato on Sunday night and has since been conducting search operations.

In a statement from its defense ministry released Tuesday, China also floated the possibility that it could send a hospital ship to Japan. China has a number of such ships – basically floating hospitals — including the purpose-built “Peace Ark,” a 10,000-ton vessel with a crew of 428 capable of rendering medical assistance anywhere it docks.

And it’s not just the two superpowers. A number of countries from the region and outside have sent search-and-rescue teams. Germany sent a group of 40 search-and-rescue specialists with dogs the day after the earthquake.

This weekend, Australia dispatched a team of 76 rescue personnel complete with structural engineers and medial staff. France, Great Britain, Hungary, Switzerland Russia, South Korea and Taiwan have sent rescue personnel, as well.

China’s 15-member team is hardly the largest international contribution to relief efforts in Japan. And the forces that have driven Sino-Japanese conflict in the region certainly aren’t going away overnight because of their presence. Still, gestures can still be important. Maybe in the future it won’t take a massive human tragedy to compel great-power cooperation in the Pacific.

Photo: Defense.gov

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