Japan Echo Web

50 Years of the Japan-US Alliance and the Futenma Controversy

Watanabe Hirotaka

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Japan-US Security Treaty signed in 1960. This milestone, ironically enough, coincided with a raging debate over Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio’s plan to move the US Marine Corps Air Station at Futenma out of Okinawa. Hatoyama’s handling of the debate triggered a political crisis that sank the approval rating of his Democratic Party of Japan–led government and culminated in the prime minister’s dramatic resignation in the buildup to the July upper-house election. The DPJ suffered a major setback in the election, as the Futenma debate ended up as an albatross around its neck. My concern is that the issue of military bases in Okinawa will now increasingly be treated as a taboo subject.

On the surface at least, the prolonged controversy over the Futenma military base seemed to concern Japan-US security arrangements, but ultimately the debate remained within the boundaries of Japan’s domestic political discourse. A straightforward discussion never took place over the idea Hatoyama had once advocated of moving the Futenma base to some location outside Okinawa. This called into question his qualifications as a politician, leading him to step down as prime minister.

The primary aim of moving the base, supposedly, was to have other prefectures host a larger share of US facilities, spreading that burden more evenly among the Japanese people. In this sense, the controversy was a test of national will. Opinion polls show that the majority of the population recognizes that an excessive burden has been placed on Okinawa. Yet there have been no signs of a willingness to accommodate the actual transfer of bases. And the voices calling for some sort of innovative solution have been exceedingly faint. This has demonstrated the contradictory, split mentality of the Japanese people when it comes to the issue of military bases in Okinawa.

The stability of the Japan-US Security Arrangement—having survived half a century—certainly merits celebration, but that does not necessarily mean that the status quo needs to be maintained. Japan will not be able to play the leading role with regard to the issue of military bases in Okinawa as long as those bases remain crucial to the United States’ overall global strategy. This has led many Japanese people to adopt a corresponding attitude of resignation. This comes down to the notion that the solution to the problem lies in simply waiting. The question Prime Minister Hatoyama raised was whether this wait-and-see approach is justified.

It will be necessary for Japan, however, to prepare itself for the arrival of some sort of change in East Asia along the lines of the changes that have occurred in transatlantic relations. The global situation that provided the backdrop to the 1996 bilateral agreement to return the Futenma base to Japan was the end of the Cold War and the resulting change in the transatlantic alliance, which saw a reduction in the American defense burden coupled with a more proactive military stance for European nations.

Needless to say, the international situation in East Asia differs from that of the Atlantic region, but in both cases the dawning of a new era seems inevitable. The discussions within Japan are also likely to reflect the changing situation, but this is a passive, reactive style of diplomacy—not an approach that will enhance the worldwide reputation of Japan’s foreign policy. What Japanese diplomacy needs today is to firmly grasp the international situation and then make its own contributions on the basis of that knowledge. The chaotic Futenma controversy reveals how much we in Japan still have left to learn.