On April 29 Shinzo Abe will make history as the first Japanese premier to speak to a joint session of Congress. In fact, Abe is making history in more ways than one. His appearance before Congress offers the perfect opportunity for the U.S. to strengthen its strategic ties to its longest-standing democratic ally in East Asia, and to show support for a friend in need.

During his three-year tenure in office, Abe has managed to shake Japan out of its decades-long pacifist stupor, and gotten it to wake up to the fact that it faces not one but three nuclear armed neighbors — China, North Korea and Russia. In particular, China’s increasingly provocative moves against Japan’s Senkaku Islands, which the Chinese claim belong to them, have generated a security threat on the threshold of the Japanese homeland, which could easily spark into full-scale conflict.