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.
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.
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.
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.
A Japanese cult leader took out a Washington Post ad in which false claims were made about leftists seeking to expel the U.S. military from Japan. In truth, protesters are focused on halting the building of a new U.S. base in Okinawa.
With few exceptions, white pundits, politicians, military brass, think tankers, and academics have long dominated foreign-policy debates. We need to expand the diversity of those deemed foreign-policy experts beyond the usual suspects.
The Obama administration never warmed to Hatoyama. But it was the Okinawa base issue that sealed the deal.
The making of an unequal, unconstitutional, illegal, colonial and deceitful U.S.-Japan agreement.
Japan has been a one-party oligarchy for a very long time. This may not be a polite thing to say about a democracy and a U.S. ally. But Japan has been ruled by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for the last 54 years, except for a few nanoseconds after the Cold War when the ruling party temporarily lost its grip on power. Because of this stifling consensus among a small political elite, “Japanese democracy” has an oxymoronic connotation and Japanese politics has been one of the most boring topics in the world.
Japan and South Korea are allies. That means they are constrained from going to war with one another. Despite a long history of conflict — including Japan’s colonization of Korea during the first half of the 20th century — the two countries have had to make nice as part of their anti-communist alliance with the United States. For the better part of the Cold War, the two countries suppressed, or were forced to suppress, their mutual antagonisms.