Japan has now joined Australia and refused to allow the Chinese People’s Armed Police guard the Olympic torch while it is in Japan.

“We should not violate the principle that the Japanese police will firmly maintain security,” Kyodo news agency quoted Shinya Izumi, head of the National Public Safety Commission, as saying.

“We do not know what position the people who escorted the relay are in,” Izumi was quoted as saying. “If they are for the consideration of security, it is our role.”

Security is the province of a sovereign nation? What a radical idea. It’s a shame that no one thought of it in the US, the United Kingdom or France.