NOV 14 — “GO HOME Yankee” is not a slogan that I can recall being uttered, publicly at least, in the near 20 years that I have lived in Japan — until this week that is. Admittedly, it was used not by a Japanese, but by a foreign journalist questioning an Okinawa assemblyman about continuation of the US military presence in Japan. The response from the Japanese lawmaker was revealing however.
It suggested that the writing (if not yet 'go home' graffiti) may be on the wall and that the presence of the US military in parts of Asia, Japan especially, is being questioned as the new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama seeks closer ties with East Asia and a “more equal” relationship with the United States.
“Our movement is not going international yet,” said Yonekichi Shinzato, a member of the Okinawa prefectural assembly and one of a group of public officials who want the US Marines out of their island. But he and others are “in touch with citizen movements” in places as far afield as South Korea, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, said the assemblyman.
“Some nations have been able to get US bases out of their country” by popular protest, as in the Philippines where a formerly 'huge' US military presence was ended by such means, added Shinzato, rather politely, after being asked whether Okinawa is yet ready to say “Yankee Go Home” rather than simply calling for a diminished US military presence there.
The assemblyman shared a platform this week with the mayors of two Okinawa cities — Yoichi Iha from Ginowan and Takeshi Onaga from Naha — during a debate at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo this week.
Their immediate demands, which they urged Hatoyama to put to US President Barack Obama when he comes to Tokyo yesterday, are very specific. These relate to the US Marines' Futenma air base in Okinawa, which they say is “the most dangerous in the world” and want closed, and to the proposed new Henoko base, which they want scrapped.
Feelings are running high in Japan's southernmost island over these issues. “Okinawa prefecture was made a battlefield for ground war in the (Second) World War,” said a statement distributed by the three emissaries who came to Tokyo to present their case prior to Obama's visit.
“After the War, (our) abundant land was taken away by the bayonets and bulldozers of the US Army and put under army occupation,” said the statement issued following a mass rally in Okinawa on Nov 8. Some 37 years have passed since Okinawa was returned to Japan by the US, but still it has to host 75 per cent of the special facilities for the US Army in Japan, it added.
Okinawa residents have been emboldened by the stance taken by Hatoyama over where the Futenma base should be relocated once it is closed. He has refused to bow to pressure for a quick decision, despite “seemingly threatening” attempts (as the statement put it) by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to secure a quick decision from Tokyo.
What is at stake is more than the logistics of where US forces in Japan are located: It is the fundamental issue of Japan's relationship with the US and with its Asian neighbours. Under the Liberal Democratic Party that ruled Japan for half a century until a few months ago, it was assumed that Japan would host US forces in return for security and access to the US market.
Okinawa issue
The Okinawa issue has become what assemblyman Shinzato called a ‘touchstone' of future relations between Japan and the US, but it is not the only one. Mr Hatoyama's decision not to renew Japan's refuelling mission for US vessels in the Indian Ocean and to modify Japan's Afghanistan mission are other examples of his desire for a changed Japanese diplomacy.
The LDP wanted Japan to exert more independence by having its Self Defence Forces play a more active role around the world instead of relying upon “aid diplomacy” — financial or otherwise. But there was an assumption under the LDP that the US remained Japan's key ally, while China and North Korea as well as Russia remained potential enemies.
The Hatoyama administration seems to be making a bolder assumption, which is that if Japan stretches out the hand of friendship to China and other East Asian neighbours, these can become key allies too and that Japan will therefore not require to shelter under the US nuclear umbrella, with all the consequences that has for wider dependence upon the US.
It is a mature, and historically inevitable, approach, but it is also one that threatens to create considerable friction between Tokyo and Washington. China and other Asian nations need to make a gesture of support for the Hatoyama initiatives rather than go on hoping to ensure their own security by relying on a balance of competing forces in the region.
It is probably not time to say Yankee Go Home” as yet, but it is time for Asian powers, both large and small, to begin revising their ideas in line with those of the new Japanese administration and to ask whether it is reasonable (let alone mature) to go on relying on a single (and highly indebted) superpower to underwrite their security. — Business Times Singapore
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