I've never really understood the line of reasoning that compares one country's possible past misdeeds with another country's possible present misdeeds. I don't

I've never really understood the line of reasoning that compares one country's possible past misdeeds with another country's possible present misdeeds. I don't think a nation exists with a spotless historical record, the US is obviously not exempt from this criticism, but beyond hoping to acknowledge, learn from, and possibly offer redress for past wrongs, I'm not sure that pointing out historical misdeeds has much to do with discussing the situation at present. The issue at hand isn't China's possible hostility towards neighboring countries centuries or decades ago but rather their fairly hostile posturing with regards to territorial claims today. With regards to your second point, from what I've read the Philippines and Japan view China's currently expanding territorial claims to be an aggressive military expansion. I'm not sure the act of US ships being present in the harbors of Japan and the Philippines is analogous to China's military activities in the South China Sea and Western Pacific, particularly as I assume both of those countries have given explicit permission to the US Navy to enter their territorial waters.