Demands for Year-End Assessment: Giving in to Threats Is a Mistake

There is an impression that the Okinawan side is being threatened through all possible means. These are the interactions between Japanese and American governments that revolve around the military air base in Futenma. Giving in to the threats is a mistake; wouldn’t you realize this when it keeps happening again and again?

The policy pertaining to the written assessment of the Henoko relocation’s influence seems to be as follows: to demand that the U.S. government oppose the Japanese government and to keep a firm promise to the Okinawa prefecture for a year-end submission.

If that is the truth, then psychological pressure will be applied. The citizens of Japan are impatient and if they get too impatient, then they will press the Okinawan side with questions like, “Why aren’t you accepting the relocation?” This is the picture the American side is drawing: a diagram that constructs the national web of opposition around Okinawa.

The distributors of information concerning the U.S. government’s intentions are likely foreign affairs and defense bureaucrats. We should be looking at how the “U.S.-Japan Security Treaty Mafia” of Japan and America has manipulated information as part of a larger plan. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s “fabrication” confirmed the story of President Obama pressing Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to enact the relocation, but that will also be covered up.

While casting a sidelong glance to former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who looked for solutions to relocation outside the prefecture, Director-General of the Defense Ministry’s Defense Policy Bureau Takamizawa “advised” the American side that “the U.S. government should also refrain from demonstrating flexibility too soon.” It’s as if a bureaucracy that prioritizes American interests over those of the political party in power or its citizens had risen out of the ground.

In the face of deteriorating financial affairs, the U.S. government feels compelled to put this plan into action as the daring reduction of war funds from the Congress approaches. The mutual understanding between Japan and America right now is in a precarious state. Moreover, the determination backing the prefectural citizens’ refusal of the Henoko relocation is firm. Even those in both the Japanese government and the American government who still honestly believe in the implementation of the relocation are a minority.

If the agreement between Japan and American breaks down and relocation outside the prefecture and outside the country is reached, then those involved in the negotiations will no doubt have their own diplomatic incompetence exposed. The “U.S.-Japan Security Treaty Mafia” is afraid of this; enduring the “psychological pressure” borne from their impatience is actually completely unnecessary.

The demands from Okinawa are modest at best. The return of a portion of southern American military bases excluding Kadena should be increased, and even if relocation of Futenma within the prefecture is abandoned, the percentage of private American bases concentrated in Okinawa should be reduced from 74 percent to 73 percent. Decreasing it by just one little point shouldn’t be too much.

Refusing to hear the opinions of the other prefectures of Japan, disregarding the prefectural assembly decision and even the opinion of prefectural governor of Okinawa and deciding to force the relocation are clearly forms of discrimination. If it’s unreasonable to stomp on even the little hope of the percentage of bases decreasing by one point, then I’d like the government to become more self-aware sometime soon.