Photographs by: Itsuo Inouye/AP (left) and Koji Sasahara/AP (right)
Some American activists have flocked to the side of Okinawans. Robert Naiman, policy director at the Just Foreign Policy NGO, launched a petition last month urging the U.S. to pull out of Japan. “Voters in Japan have spoken,” read a description on Just Foreign Policy’s website. “But instead of respecting the will of the majority of Japanese voters, U.S. officials have tried to bully the newly elected reformist Japanese government.” A number of environmental warriors have also been stepping in: not exactly on behalf of Okinawa, but on behalf of its coral reef, which they claim would be damaged by the construction of a new airstrip.
But others see the standoff in a different light. They point out that much of the U.S.’s geopolitical strength in the region is rooted in Japan. Indeed, base supporters insist that the U.S. troops in Japan have deterred threats from China and North Korea. That might explain why Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, when meeting in January with Japan’s foreign minister to discuss the base relocation plans, stressed that the U.S. was not interested in compromise.
There is also no overlooking the U.S. military’s importance to Japan itself. It isn’t just that the Okinawan economy is dependent on the base. Japan’s postwar constitution forbids the country from building up its own military. That’s why, today, Japan trains troops only for defence and peacekeeping. Added to that is the 1960 security pact, whereby in exchange for military access the U.S. agreed to defend Japan and include it under its nuclear umbrella. Today, says Brad Glosserman, executive director of the Pacific Forum CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), “the Japanese spend less than one per cent of their GDP on the military. They can do that precisely because the Americans are there to provide the bulk of the defence.”
In fact, this very strategic importance is why Glosserman ultimately believes that Hatoyama’s hesitation about the 2006 accord boils down to domestic posturing: a strategy to maintain the support of the left in the lead-up to upper house elections this summer. Will they “get rid of the Americans,” he asks? “The answer is: no way in hell.”
And yet, as Kent Calder, former special adviser to the U.S. ambassador to Japan, has said: “I have never seen this in 30 years. I haven’t heard Japanese talking back to American diplomats that often, especially not publicly. The Americans usually say, ‘We have a deal,’ and the Japanese respond, ‘Ah soo desu ka’—we have a deal—and it’s over.” Already, Hatoyama has taken a baby step away from the U.S.: ending a program that allowed Japanese navy ships to refuel American warships in the Indian Ocean. U.S. officials are paying heed. Clinton’s first trip of the year was to Hawaii, for that meeting with Japanese diplomats. U.S. Sen. Jim Webb travelled to Japan last month to smooth over tensions. And further talks are in the works.
All this underscores the fact that Okinawa remains critical to U.S. security, as tensions between the U.S. and China grow, and as nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea become more troubling. Webb hopes the issue can “be resolved through harmony between the two governments rather than bringing a big stick.” But others are flexing a bit more muscle. If Japan reneges on its pact and the security relationship falters, Defense Secretary Gates warned late last year, things will get “immensely complicated.”
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