Yukio Hatoyama is putting an election ahead of the US alliance, says former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joel Starr.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Security and Cooperation. Yet, rather than engaging in a celebration and reaffirmation of shared values and alliance missions, our leaders find themselves preoccupied with uncertainty—an uncertainty driven by shifting political calculations in Japan rather than changes to the global or regional security environment.
Supporters of the US-Japan alliance in the US Congress are surprised and more than a little disappointed to find such an important relationship seemingly being called into question. This concern has motivated recent visits to Japan by Members of Congress and their staff for consultations, including my own trip there.
But sadly, I came away from those meetings with an unsettling feeling that the administration of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is playing politics with the 2006 US-Japanese agreement that moves US Marines on Okinawa in an effort to ensure that his party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), will gain seats in the upcoming House of Councillors elections slated for mid-July. While this conclusion may not be surprising, what was surprising to me were the numerous unofficial pleas I received from Japanese officials and scholars to pressure the Hatoyama government to honour the 2006 agreement. In addition, our military leadership expressed clear concern about the Hatoyama administration’s ‘mixed signals.’
While we have great respect for the democratic process and the considered views of our ally, on the question of our agreement on the disposition of forces in Okinawa, the facts are not in dispute. After 13 years, through both the Clinton and Bush administrations, and multiple governments in Japan, negotiations were successfully concluded in 2006 to realign and expand our mutual security alliance with Japan beyond its existing framework. A key feature of this new arrangement includes relocating the US Marine’s Futenma Air Station from the crowded city of Ginowan to Camp Schwab, in the less populated part of northern Okinawa. This realignment of US forces in Japan also includes the redeployment of the III Marine Expeditionary Force, which includes 8,000 US personnel and their dependents (when at full capacity), to new facilities in Guam, and will lead to the return of thousands of acres of land to the Japanese. This move will reduce the number of US Marines on Okinawa by nearly half, and Japanese and US officials settled on Camp Schwab because of its far less populated and congested location.
Photo Credit: White House/Pete Souza
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Takahiro Katsumi
As a Japanese national working in the Japanese legislature I cannot condone this remark coming from the current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of our supposedly closest ally, saying that our head of the government is ‘withholding a decision on Futenma’ for the minuscule aim of obtaining ‘the votes of those Okinawans and a vocal minority of other Japanese who are opposed to US troops on Japanese soil.’
First of all, from what position does Mr.Starr make this assertion that only a ‘vocal minority’ of our people are opposed to having ‘US troops on Japanese soil?’ We don’t have an updated, reliable national poll on this one in Japan and neither should your government. I would like to ask the basis of Mr. Starr’s assertion on this point.
Secondly, how could a person working under the foreign service of one state assert publicly the motive of the head of the government of another sovereign state based on such simplistic, personal assumption? I find it very inappropriate, insulting, and destructive in
its nature to make such an assumption.
If there is a clear basis for this argument I would also like to hear it.
Finally, although it is understandable that your government as well as your legislature is ‘more than a little disappointed’ that the ‘important relationship’ may be called into question by the action or inaction of the Hatoyama Administration, I still feel it is inappropriate to assert that the head of the government of your ally is weighting national political realities over the bilateral obligations that both states agreed are ‘important’, unless you are knowingly making such remarks that would present as ‘gaiatsu’ to the foreign as well as domestic press, with the intent to further strain the already strained bilateral relations.
Yair Shachar-Hill
Can we be surprised that a Japanese Prime Minister would call for a reassessment of the cost/benefit ratio of the US alliance? The previous US administration failed to prevent a nuclear North Korea or to exact a price for it and the present administration has been at pains to bow to the Chinese leadership both literally and politically over issues of concern to Japan. Both of these are of deep concern to Japan. Furthermore, Obama has slighted (European nations among others), bullied (Israel) and betrayed (Poland and the Czech republic) US allies worldwide. These actions and inactions send a clear message that Japan can no longer count unquestioningly on the US to keep it safe.
Darrel
When you are allies with everyone, then you are allies with no one. On the bright side, Japan is starting to need China as much as we do so that shouldn’t really matter too much in the future.