TOKYO -- The battle over the relocation of a United States Marine Corps base on the Japanese island of Okinawa escalated Tuesday when Okinawa’s governor revoked a permit for the new construction site.
The central government in Tokyo vowed to fight the governor’s decision, but Tuesday’s action marked the latest in a series of complications that has bedeviled the U.S. military’s efforts to build a new base on Okinawa.
| Don't bother. Move the Marine base to Guam -- or Midway... |
“To fulfill my pledge not to let any more bases to be built, I will continue to tackle this issue to the best of my ability,” said Takeshi Onaga, the governor of Okinawa, a series of islands 200 miles south of the Japanese mainland.
Onaga was elected at the end of last year on a promise to stop construction of the new U.S. Marine base at Henoko, on a remote and unspoiled bay in the northern part of the Okinawa islands. It is envisaged as a replacement for the current facility at Futenma, right in the middle of a densely-populated part of the main island.
| Damned if you do, damned if you don't... |
Onaga’s predecessor had given the Okinawa Defense Bureau, part of the central ministry of defense, permission to reclaim land at Henoko for the new base construction, which would involve building runways out into the water.
But Onaga said that an independent report on the legality of the permit had concluded there were legal flaws in the process. “We judged that a revocation of the permit would be appropriate and sent a notice of revocation to the Okinawa Defense Bureau director today,” he said at a press conference Tuesday.
| That's an excuse, not a reason. Onaga is a leftist and anti-American. This is just his big moment to stick it to us, and he's doing so... |
In Tokyo, the government said it would press ahead regardless.
“The Defense Ministry finds that there was no legal flaw with the reclamation permit and our position remains the same: Governor Onaga’s revocation measure is illegal,” said Defense Minister Gen Nakatani.
“We will suspend the relocation operation but will take measures to resume it as soon as possible,” he said.
| Sounds like you've already caved... |
The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to appeal to the Ministry of Land, and it is likely the fight will end up in court.
| Where it will sit for a decade... |
Over the summer, Tokyo and Okinawa had tried to come to some agreement over how to resolve their stand-off over the new base construction.
| There's no political win in that for Onaga -- he was elected for his anti-American stance, so if he backs down he loses in the next election. |
Onaga earlier went to Washington to appeal directly for construction to stop, but the Pentagon insists that it has an agreement with Tokyo and this is an internal dispute for Japan to resolve.
Many Okinawans are fed up with bearing the overwhelming burden of Japan’s military alliance with the U.S., saying that they comprise less than one percent of the country’s land mass but house 75 percent of the American military bases in Japan.
There's another solution to that. Japan is a wealthy, first-world country. It builds aircraft carriers helicopter destroyers. Perhaps the U.S. should back out of the region and Japan, South Korea and Taiwan could bear the brunt of containing China. Perhaps the three could band together in some sort of economic East Asian co-prosperity sphere... |
The Futenma base has been particularly controversial because it is seen as a danger to the surrounding city. A military helicopter crashed onto the nearby campus of Okinawa International University in 2004.
These things happen. It would be great if all the bases could be located somewhere far away. But Japan being what it is, that's not possible, unless we put them in Midway Guam. But if I were president I wouldn't force the Okinawans to accept the base. I would, however, let them live with the consequences... |
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