TOKYO - Japan and the United States on
Saturday will sign an historic mutual-security
agreement that, among other provisions, will allow
for the first time an American nuclear-powered
navy vessel to be based in a Japanese port.
The deal, which will be signed in
Washington during a meeting of the two countries'
defense and foreign ministers, will also include a
strategy for overall realignment of US forces in
Japan.
Earlier in the week, Tokyo and
Washington struck a deal on the long-running
dispute over the relocation of a key American air
station in the southern Japanese island state of
Okinawa, removing the biggest obstacle to the
realignment agreement.
Both issues will
touch off protest inside Japan, but the presence
of a nuclear-powered navy vessel in the country is
particularly sensitive, even though the ship will
not carry nuclear weapons. Japan is the only
nation ever to be attacked with atomic weapons
- twice by the US in
bombings that ended World War II. While experts
believe American nuclear vessels have moved
through Japanese waters, none has used a port in
the country as a base.
"One of the nine
Nimitz-class aircraft carriers will replace the
USS Kitty Hawk as the forward-deployed carrier in
the Western Pacific, and will arrive in Yokosuka,
Japan in 2008," the US Navy said in a
statement.
Japan and the US are considering
Yokosuka Naval Base as a home for the
nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Japan has no
aircraft carrier of its own, while the US has 12.
Kitty Hawk is the only such warship that has a
home port outside of the US. Only the Kitty Hawk
and the John F Kennedy are conventional vessels,
the others nuclear-powered. Yokosuka, headquarters
of the US 7th Fleet, is Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi's native city and constituency.
Other expected and possible elements of
the realignment deal to be signed Saturday
include:
The headquarters of the US Marine Corps' 3rd
Marine Expeditionary Force and some other
functions will be moved from Camp Courtney in
Uruma, Okinawa prefecture, to Guam. The number of
marines will be cut by several thousand as part of
measures to reduce the burden of US forces in the
prefecture. Offices and houses for the command and
more than 4,000 marines and support staff are
stationed at Camp Courtney. Japan and the US are
discussing reducing the overall number of marines
stationed in Okinawa from a current strength of
about 18,000 by between 3,000 and 5,000.
Japan and the US are considering moving some
exercises conducted by F-15 fighters based at
Kadena Air Base in Okinawa prefecture to Air
Self-Defense Force bases outside of the
prefecture, including those on the main southern
Japanese island of Kyushu. By doing so, the number
of takeoffs and landings of F-15 practices will
decline and noise pollution around the base will
be reduced.
The two countries plan to move a smaller
version of the US Army's 1st Corps headquarters in
Washington state, which is in charge of the
Pacific and Indian Ocean, to Camp Zama in Kanawaga
prefecture, adjacent to Tokyo. It will be in
charge of contingencies on the Korean peninsula.
Japan plans to set up a "central rapid response
corps" of the Ground Self-Defense Force in fiscal
2006 to better cope with the threats of terrorism
and for overseas missions. The two countries are
considering locating the new Japanese corps in the
compound of Camp Zama.
Japan and the US plan to establish a joint
air-defense command center at the US Air Force's
Yokota base in western Tokyo by fiscal 2009.
Creation of the command center is aimed at
strengthening Japan's ability to detect and deal
with enemy missile launches. The 5th Air Force
headquarters at Yokota Air Base are to be
integrated with the 13th Air Force headquarters in
Guam. Yokota will then serve as the air force's
command center for both East Asia and the West
Pacific. Japan will introduce a US
missile-defense, or MD, system in 2007. The two
countries have also agreed on the development and
deployment of a more advanced MD system, starting
in fiscal 2006, to counter the threats of missile
attacks from North Korea, which has deployed an
estimated 200 Rodong missiles capable of striking
almost all of Japanese territory.
Tokyo and Washington are considering moving
the US Navy's carrier-based aircraft from the
Atsugi Naval Air Station in Kanagawa prefecture to
the US Marine Corps Iwakuni Air Station in
Yamaguchi prefecture, western Japan. This transfer
is part of measures to be taken in exchange for
the transfer of the headquarters of US Army's 1st
Corp from the state of Washington to Camp Zama in
the prefecture. Japan and the US are discussing a
plan to relocate some Maritime Self-Defense Force
(MSDF) planes at the Iwakuni Air Station to the
Atsugi Naval Air Station. If the plan is realized,
the Atsugi base, currently used jointly by
Japanese and US forces, will be used mainly by the
MSDF. About 70 planes, including US Navy F/A-18
fighters, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, will be
relocated from the Atsugi base to the Iwakuni
facility. Those planes will move to the Iwakuni
base when a new runway being constructed in waters
off the Iwakuni base is completed in fiscal 2008.
Relocation of MSDF planes will be done at the same
time. Tokyo and Washington also are studying a
plan to construct a giant floating runway about
four kilometers offshore from the Iwakuni Air
Station. Construction of the megafloat is
considered a means of appeasing local residents on
the relocation by significantly reducing noise
pollution caused by night-landing practices of the
carrier-borne aircraft.
Agreement on
Futenma Apart from these issues, a key
element of Saturday's meeting will be Futenma Air
Station. Yoshinori Ono, chief of Japan's Defense
Agency, told reporters Wednesday that the US has
agreed on Japan's proposal for the relocation of
the US Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in
Ginowan City, Okinawa prefecture, to Nago City,
also in Okinawa prefecture. Japan's proposal
features the use of part of existing land at the
US Marine Corps' Camp Schwab in Nago.
Under the deal reached Wednesday, a
substitute airport for Futenma will be built in
the coastal area of Camp Swab. Washington complied
with the demand that part of the runway that will
stick out to sea be built in Oura Bay northeast of
the camp. In return for the US compromise, Tokyo
agreed to extend the runway to 1,800 meters from
the planned 1,500 meters.
Other changes in
Okinawa include port facilities at Naha Naval Port
in Naha and the Makimoto Service Area in Urasoe,
both in Okinawa prefecture, being returned to
Japan. The functions of the two facilities will be
integrated with those at Camp Courtney in Uruma in
the prefecture. Naha port is in the west of the
Okinawa prefecture capital and is used for
unloading and storing military supplies, while the
Makimoto supply base is used for storing and
controlling military goods. Air tankers deployed
at Futenma Air Station will be moved to the
Maritime Self-Defense Force's Kanoya base in
Kanoya City, Kagoshima prefecture.
The
Okinawa realignment is part of the Pentagon's
global "transformation" of its military with a
view to streamlining its overseas bases and
creating a leaner, more flexible and mobile
military. But the repositioning in Japan is also
meant to ease tensions caused by the US military
presence. The US bases some 47,000 troops in
Japan, and residents in Okinawa prefecture - where
many of the troops are based - have long
complained of crime, crowding and noise linked to
the military. Okinawa is about 1,600 kilometers
southwest of Tokyo. Japan and the US had agreed to
move the air station but had clashed over the new
location.
The agreement this week paved
the way for Saturday's foreign and defense
ministers's Security Consultative Committee or
"two-plus-two" meeting.
Despite
Wednesday's agreement on Okinawa, there is no
guarantee that the relocation of Futenma Air
Station will go ahead smoothly. It is still
possible that the relocation could run aground
again due to opposition from local residents and
environmental activists, as it has done in the
past several years.
The Japanese
government is expected to pull out all the stops
to provide understanding of the agreement for
locals.
A survey conducted jointly by the
Okinawa Times and Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting Corp
in August showed that 83% of eligible voters in
Okinawa were opposed to the original plan to
relocate Futenma Air Station to the waters off the
Henoko district of Nago City. Of those polled, 71%
said they want the American bases in the
prefecture to be reduced or consolidated, while
24% said the local bases should be withdrawn
immediately and completely. Only 4% of those
polled supported the status quo of the bases.
The survey also showed that 80% do not
approve of the Koizumi government's efforts to
reduce the burden of the bases on Okinawa, while
only 14% said they do. Asked about what is the
best way to resolve the Futenma relocation issue,
72% answered that the air base should be moved to
Hawaii, Guam or somewhere else in the US, and only
4% said they want the base to be moved to the
waters off the Henoko district of Nago City.
On October 21, the 10th anniversary of a
massive rally by 85,000 Okinawans held in protest
against the US military presence following the
rape of three elementary school girls by US
servicemen in 1995, some 300 people gathered in
front of the gate to Futenma Air Station and held
up fists in a show of opposition to the continued
existence of the base.
Expect protest to
be as strong after Saturday's deal is done.
Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based
journalist, commentator and scholar on
international politics and economy. Masaki's
e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com
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