It would force countries in the region to choose between the United States and Japan -- or maybe between Japan and China . And it would collapse whatever promise the newly born Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) holds as a vehicle to assure American commercial access to the booming Pacific markets . To risk all of this in the name of a flawed concept is foolish . This is not to deny the Administration 's understandable frustration with a persistently huge Japanese trade surplus.