"GFJ Commentary" introduces news analyses andopinions in Japan on the relations of Japan with therest of the world, but they do not represent the viewsof GFJ as an institution.

February 26, 2010

Some Thoughts on Futenma Station Relocation
Issue
By OKAWARA Yoshio
On the year-end and new-year social occasions, I had a chance to make small talk with myfriends and acquaintances, and found out that all of them without exception expressed their concerns
over the prospects of the Japan-U.S. relation, saying that it could be seriously damaged by thecurrent foreign policy of the Hatoyama administration toward the U.S. Ever since Mr. Hatoyama’s
article on the Japan-U.S. relation (a reprint from Japanese journal "Voice") appeared on the New
York Times in August 2009, which turned out to be quite anti-American, U.S. newspapers havecarried articles and editorials that bitterly criticize his inconsistent remarks on the Japan-U.S.
relation. On the Futenma relocation issue, for instance, he on the one hand opposes to the Nago
relocation plan, he on the other hand alludes to his support for the U.S. adherence to the agreementalready made between U.S. and Japan, and thus highly frustrated the U.S. who wishes to resolve thematter expeditiously in line with the agreement.
On December 12, 2009, when most public offices in Washington D.C. were closed due tothe heaviest snowfall in years, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton summoned FUJISAKI Ichiro,
Japanese Ambassador to U.S., and reiterated the U.S. stance on the relocation issue of the U.S.
Marine Corps' Futenma Station that it should be implemented basically in line with a bilateralagreement signed 13 years ago. This truly reflects in concrete the frustration of the U.S. over theindecisive response of the Hatoyama administration. Although an agreement on this issue had been
made between then Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and then U.S. President Bill Clinton,
no particular advance has been observed since. The Hatoyama administration, in disregard of theagreement with the U.S. made under the previous government led by the Liberal Democratic Party(LDP), demonstrated its willingness to come in line with the Social Democratic Party's (SDP), aruling coalition partner, that calls for moving the Futemma base outside the prefecture or abroad. If
this goes on, the Hatoyama administration should sooner or later be confronted with most tough andundesirable choices of whether to place more emphasis on the contention of the Social Democratic
Party (SDP) as a coalition partner, or to accept the demand of the U.S. as an ally.
It is quite clear that, once Japan should get into spat with the U.S., it is invincibly difficult
to repair the seriously undermined alliance between Japan and the U.S., which plays a pivotal role intheir bilateral relations. Although Prime Minister Hatoyama reportedly said "Trust me" to President
Obama at the summit meeting in Tokyo on November 13 last year, it is quite unclear if his words
have been born out by any particular concrete measures taken. This situation is quite reminiscent ofthe Japan-US textile negotiations at the end of 1960's. Amid the negotiation process of the reversionof Okinawa to Japan, then President Nixon, badly in need of votes of the textile industry of the Southfor the presidential election in 1968, strongly pressed then Prime Minister Sato Eisaku to encourage
the Japanese textile industry to make concessions in concluding negotiation on restrictions of Japan’s
textile exports to the U.S. And then, Prime Minister Sato reportedly responded "I will do my best."
However, he could not take appropriate domestic measures to live up to his words and fell into
disfavor with Nixon. One of the reasons why Japan had to suffer the Nixon Shock in 1971 is said tohave been Nixon’s personal distrust of Prime Minister Sato.
Another concern about the Hatoyama administration is that there is a discrepancy between
those remarks on the Futenma relocation issue by Prime Minister Hatoyama and those by Foreign
Minister Okada Katsuya and of Defense Minister Kitazawa Toshimi, both in charge of direct
negotiation on the issue. The year 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the revisions of the Japan-U.S.
Security Treaty. At this momentous milestone, Japan should exert her every possible effort to address
the challenge of deepening Japan-US alliance, the linchpin of Japan's foreign policy, thereby
consolidating a relation of trust between the two countries.

(This is the English translation of an article written by Ambassador OKAWARA Yoshio,Chairman of The Global Forum of Japan, which originally appeared on the BBS“Giron-Hyakushutsu” of GFJ on January 8, 2010.)