Okinawa base tests US alliance with Japan
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Washington unwavering
"But there is already a tacit realization by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and members of his ruling Democratic Party of Japan that moving Marine Corps' Air Base Futemma anywhere outside of Japan will compromise the power of U.S. deterrence in Pacific Asia," said Marchesseault
"Furthermore, the U.S. has never wavered from its assertion that after a near-20-year period of research, planning and conclusive bilateral understanding and agreement between the governments of Japan and the United States, there is no viable alternative to moving the base from its present site," he added.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Dr. Robert M. Gates, the Pentagon's top man, was the first U.S. Cabinet member to visit Japan, ahead of President Barack Obama's goodwill visit to the nation, since the DPJ government took office.
Gates left Tokyo adamant that the existing bilateral security arrangements between the two countries should remain in place stating that all the alternatives that have been looked at over the years are either politically untenable or operationally unworkable and no alternatives to the original arrangement that was negotiated exist.
As a deluge of top Japanese officials visit Okinawa, the latest being Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano who earmarked two islands just off mainland Okinawa as possible relocation sites for the base, Washington's position remains utterly unwavering and echoes Gates' sentiments indubitably.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Honolulu, Hawaii on Tuesday maintained Washington's unequivocal stance on the matter to Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, and as much as she praised Japan's role as being "an essential pillar of the Asia-Pacific security architecture," she stated that Washington's position was that the agreed realignment road map presents the best way forward.
The decision to move the facility in and of itself has, according to some U.S. sources close to the matter, sparked fears in Washington that the Futemma issue may just be a pretext to the DPJ's premeditative generating of frosty ties with Washington as part of their well publicized commitment to nurturing and buttressing an East Asian alliance, which a number of political commentators have noted that far from being a diplomatic maneuver to steer Japan towards more equal ties with the U.S., as the rhetoric goes, is a move towards Japan lessening its reliance on the U.S. generally -- which has overt military implications underlined by a serious geopolitical conundrum.
However it would seem the majority of U.S. political commentators are playing down the rift between Tokyo and Washington, claiming that "all is within Washington's design," and the extra leeway being offered to Hatoyama and his government is a simple strategy that costs nothing but time, as the conclusion to the issue has already been decided -- in 2006 in fact.
"The chances are that if Mr. Hatoyama heads too far in that direction, he will face a rebellion from his own party, not to mention Japanese voters," according to The Washington Post's editorial on the subject.
"So the Obama administration would be wise to avoid harsh rhetoric and give the prime minister some space. The reality is that the government cannot go forward with the new basing agreement before an upper-house election, expected late this summer, without endangering its own existence. Japan's nascent two-party system is a democratic achievement, not a diplomatic nuisance; give it a little time to find its course."
