Kwan Weng KinThe Straits Times
Publication Date: 26-01-2010
Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has promised not to delay beyond May a decision on the controversial relocation of a United States airbase, although the outcome of an election over the weekend has further complicated the issue.
On Sunday (January 24), Mr Susumu Inamine, 64, was elected the new mayor of Nago - a city in Okinawa where the Futenma Air Station was to be moved to - beating the incumbent mayor who was willing to accept the relocation plan.
Mr Inamine is seeking to pass a resolution in the city assembly calling on the government to call off the relocation plan.
Under a 2006 pact between a previous Liberal Democrat government and the US, Japan agreed to move the Futenma airbase - which is situated in a densely populated area in Ginowan city in Okinawa prefecture - to a new facility to be built at an offshore site near the Henoko district of Nago city, also in Okinawa in southern Japan.
The proposed site adjoins Camp Schwab, a US Marine facility.
Yesterday (January 25), the Hatoyama administration was anxious to assure Washington that Henoko remains an option, despite the election result.
Mr Hatoyama said that a government panel "energetically" studying the relocation issue will consider all options and that the government will reach a conclusion by the end of May.
"We will implement the decision without fail," he stressed.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano, who chairs the panel, said the Nago result does not mean that Henoko was no more in the running. He said the panel will search for the best location from a 'clean slate'.
After Mr Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ousted the Liberal Democrats from power last September, Nago residents sought change.
Although the DPJ's prefectural chapter supported Mr Inamine, officials of the DPJ national headquarters did not openly campaign for him. According to the influential Asahi Shimbun newspaper, some within the government were secretly hoping that a victory for the incumbent Yoshikazu Shimabukuro, 63, would leave open the possibility of transferring Futenma to Nago.
Exit polls on Sunday (January 24) showed that about 70 per cent of residents now favour moving Futenma out of the prefecture.
The three parties in the ruling coalition are due to propose alternative sites for Futenma by mid-February.
Candidates cited so far include two small islands in Okinawa prefecture and even Guam. There is also a suggestion to split up Futenma's functions rather than transfer the entire base to another site. But all these options so far appear unrealistic.
Even if the Hatoyama administration manages to come up with an alternative site by May, it may have difficulty convincing Washington which has repeatedly said that Henoko is the best option.
Failure by both sides to settle on a solution will inevitably lead to a major delay in implementing the broader agreement which they reached in 2006 to transfer 8,000 US Marines to Guam by 2014 and to return some facilities to Japan in southern Okinawa.
The Mainichi Shimbun daily pointed out that the government should address not just the issue of where to relocate Futenma, but also the larger question of whether Japan still needs a military deterrent provided by the US.
While Mr Hatoyama seems to have even less room to manoeuvre in the relocation dispute now, he can take some comfort from the fact that the Lower House yesterday passed an extra budget to fund 7.2 trillion yen (S$111 billion) in stimulus to jump-start the economy. This came after prosecutors last Saturday questioned DPJ kingpin Ichiro Ozawa over a funding scandal, which is clouding the outlook for the annual budget from April 1.
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