Japan Archives - Page 17 of 40 - Foreign Policy In Focus

The Battle of Okinawa 2010: Japan-U.S. Relations at a Crossroad

by Gavan McCormack | Nov 17, 2010

Five decades after the adoption of the (revised) US-Japan Security Treaty, and two decades after the end of the Cold War, Cold War assumptions still underpin the relationship between the world’s leading industrial democracies. A belated Japanese attempt to change and reform the relationship in 2009-2010 ended in failure and the collapse of the Hatoyama government. Whether the Kan government can do better, remains to be seen. The “Client state” relationship proves difficult to transcend. The “Okinawa problem” has emerged as a crucial bone of contention, not only between the US and Japanese governments but between the people of Okinawa and both governments.

Resolving the China-Japan Conflict Over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands

by Wada Haruki | Oct 28, 2010

On September 7 Japanese patrol boats intercepted a Chinese fishing trawler near Kubashima, one of the Senkaku [Chinese: Diaoyu] Islands in the East China Sea. After it repeatedly rammed the patrol boats in attempting to escape, the fishing boat was detained and its captain arrested and charged with interference in the execution of official duties. The incident would come to have enormous repercussions, shaking up Sino-Japanese relations.

American Base Town in Northern Japan

by Saito Mitsumasa | Oct 15, 2010

According to the 2006 report, 14 of the 38 most valuable large bases in the world are concentrated in Japan. This includes the top three: the Navy base at Yokosuka, home port for a nuclear aircraft carrier ($3.88 billion); the Air Force base at Kadena, the largest air terminal in Asia ($3.82 billion); and the airbase at Misawa ($3.71 billion).

60 Second Expert: Okinawa and the Alliance

by Greg Chaffin | Oct 6, 2010

Despite claims by Washington and Tokyo that the controversy over the relocation of a Marine Air Base in Okinawa has been resolved, it seems increasingly likely that this will become a recurring crisis, threatening to undermine the U.S.-Japan relationship, unless addressed appropriately.

Postcard from…Takae

by Jon Mitchell | Oct 5, 2010

The residents of Takae, a small village in the hills of northern Okinawa, are no strangers to the American military. Since 1957, they’ve been living next to the world’s largest jungle warfare training center – and many of them are old enough to remember the days when the U.S. Marine Corps hired locals to dress up as Vietcong for its war games.

Okinawa and the Changing U.S.-Japan Alliance

by Greg Chaffin | Oct 5, 2010

Although the clash between Washington and Tokyo over U.S. military bases on Okinawa has been officially treated as a relatively minor dispute, it has laid bare very serious underlying problems that will continue to plague the alliance. The United States expects greater Japanese engagement and cost-sharing to ensure regional security. To maintain regional stability, Japan must either become more engaged (requiring increases in military spending, and the political and social will to change existing laws and norms) or the alliance must remain asymmetric. Both of these alternatives face perhaps insurmountable obstacles in the local opposition to base expansion and the financial realities facing Japan and the United States.

Rekindling China-Japan Conflict: The Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands Clash

by Tanaka Sakai | Sep 29, 2010

Why did the Japan Coast Guard, on September 7th, arrest a Chinese fishing boat captain and detain his ship, setting off the most serious China-Japan conflict in decades? Investigative journalist Tanaka Sakai offers no definitive answer in the following historically-and geopolitically-informed analysis of the roots of the conflict. He does show, definitively, that the Japanese action marked a striking departure from policies that have been in effect since at least 1978 when China and Japan resumed diplomatic relations and Deng Xiaoping crafted an agreement to defer action on competing claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyutai islands.

Japan’s Three Elections

by John Feffer | Sep 14, 2010

Prime Minister Kan is on board with the U.S. military presence in Okinawa, but the island’s residents and politicians are considerably less sanguine about it.

The US-Japan ‘Alliance’, Okinawa, and Three Looming Elections

by Gavan McCormack | Sep 10, 2010

World attention through the early months of 2010 focused on the tiny hamlet of Henoko in Northern Okinawa as Prime Minister Hatoyama struggled to find a way to meet his (and the Democratic Party of Japan’s) electoral commitment to see that no substitute for the existing Futenma Marine Air Station be constructed in Okinawa. Confronted by adamantine pressures from the US government, and surrounded by uncooperative (some would say even traitorous) bureaucrats who insisted there was no other way but to submit to the US-Japan agreement to construct a new base negotiated by the former LDP government.

The US-Japan Alliance Must Evolve: The Futenma Flip-Flop, the Hatoyama Failure and the Future

by Terashima Jitsuro | Aug 20, 2010

In the raging currents of world history, the framework of Cold War-style “alliance diplomacy” has reached its limit. In particular, the mechanism of the US-Japan alliance that has become fixed by inertia and vested interests in the 65 years since the end of the war has clearly begun to squeak, and the need for the rejuvenation of this alliance is becoming sharply visible.