At the security forum in Singapore, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, Japan's defense minister Shinjiro Koizumi dismissed Chinese accusations of Japanese militarism - and immediately turned the ball back. For him, the real concern isn't the Japanese military, but "a country with a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons." Diplomatic vocabulary for: China.

Behind the words are the numbers. Japan's military budget exceeds 9 trillion yen, or about 57 billion dollars - with record growth for twelve years straight, bringing Tokyo close to NATO's target of 2 percent of GDP. The money goes into anti-ship missiles, drones and underwater vehicles. For a country that committed to pacifism after the Second World War, that's a quiet but clear change of course.

Koizumi insisted Japan operates with "high transparency" and that the goal is defense, not war. But the history between the two countries is heavy - China's memory of the Japanese invasion of the last century is alive, and Beijing constantly warns against Japanese "remilitarization." Tensions escalated when Japan's prime minister suggested the country could defend itself on its own in the event of an attack on Taiwan.

What's interesting is that there's resistance within Japan itself. Anti-war protests are being held across the country, and the domestic debate over abandoning postwar pacifism is getting ever sharper. Not all Japanese want their country to be a military power again - the memories of where that path leads are still passed down through generations.

For us in the Balkans, the sight of two powerful states accusing each other of militarism while both pile up weapons is painfully familiar. Everyone arms "for defense," everyone is "transparent," and everyone sees the other as a threat. And when everyone arms in the name of peace, the only question is who loses patience first.