As Japan continues to bask in the warmth of unprecedented economic prosperity and domestic stability, Tokyo finds itself confronted with a number of long-term policy questions concerning its role in the evolution of Asian and Pacific countries. Rumors of a Japanese Marshall Plan for the Asia-Pacific region are being heard more and more frequently, and expectations that Japan will divert more of its current account surplus to the development of the region have heightened. In short, Japan faces a problematic and potentially dangerous political future in the region. It currently is struggling to address both U.S. calls for exercising more international responsibility and the fears of other Asian nations that it could become expansionist. So far Japan has relied heavily on the use of a single instrument to dodge the problem: money. Between 1974 and 1984, Japan's aid increased by 380%, and in the 1988 budget an increase of 8.6% is foreseen. Two-thirds of the aid went to countries of Asia and the Pacific. Wary of adverse reaction from Asian countries that still harbor bitter memories of Japan's invasion during World War II, the Japanese leadership stresses that any increase of Japan's presence in the region would be confined to economic assistance and would exclude any form of military or political intervention. In recent years, however, this position has become more and more difficult to maintain as U.S. pressure for Japan to boost its military spending has increased. Japan already plays a military role in the region, particularly with regard to surveillance of its thousand nautical miles of sea lanes and the gathering of intelligence on Soviet military movements from Sovietska Gaven, Petropavlovska, and Vladivostok to Cam Ranh and Da Nang in Vietnam. The Reagan administration's view that the Asia-Pacific region has become a zone of potential confrontation