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| U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station |
By Yuki Tatsumi
The deadlock between Tokyo and Okinawa is a vulnerability for the U.S.-Japan alliance writ large.
On June 23, a memorial ceremony to remember the civilians whose lives were lost in the Battle of Okinawa was held in Naha. While the ceremony was supposed to be a day of remembrance, this year’s ceremony impressed the seriousness of the problem Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his government have vis-à-vis Okinawa.
During the ceremony, Governor Takeshi Onaga broke from tradition by explicitly reiterating his opposition to the government’s plan of relocating U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station to the less populated northern part of Okinawa Prefecture to a location off of Camp Schwab in Henoko. Abe, while continuing the practice of attending the ceremony as he has since 2013, expressed his displeasure by meeting Onaga for only five minutes before returning to Tokyo. In 2013 and 2014, Abe attended the memorial ceremony and met then-Governor Hirokazu Nakaima over lunch before returning to Tokyo.
The reason of Abe’s frustration with Onaga is clear. Onaga, formerly a member of ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who used to support Futenma’s relocation to Henoko when he was the mayor of Naha City, has not softened his stance against the existing plan to relocate Futenma Air Station. Onaga even visited Hawaii and Washington D.C. between May 27 and June 5, accompanied by a delegation of Diet and prefectural assembly members from Okinawa, to voice the prefecture’s opposition to the current government plan to U.S. lawmakers and government officials. If anything, the cool treatment he received in the United States — he could not get any official whom he met during his trip to sympathize with his position — seems to have hardened his opposition to the current plan.
Read the full story at The Diplomat