Word: tokyo
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While more police officers patrol Tokyo's subway and train stations in preparation for U.S. President Barack Obama's two-day trip to Japan this week, people in other parts of the country have already sent the American President a message. On Sunday, thousands of Japanese - with estimates ranging from 6,000 to 21,000 - gathered in the Okinawan city of Nago to demand that U.S. military personnel, who have been continuously stationed on the island since 1945, find a new place...
...According to a 2006 agreement between Tokyo and Washington, Nago has been selected as the site of a new airfield to replace the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station, located further south on the island in Ginowan city. That - and an agreement to move 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam - would comprise a major restructuring of the American military presence in Japan, and the U.S. hopes that things will proceed according to the 2006 plan - the culmination of 13 years of negotiations between the U.S. and the former Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government. (See pictures of Japan...
...September, Obama called the U.S.-Japan bilateral relationship the "cornerstone of the security of both nations" when he and Hatoyama met in New York City. But with the Obama Administration pressing Tokyo for a decision on military realignment by the year's end, coupled with Hatoyama's desire to wait until next year, discussions later this week could cast a shadow over the alliance. "Hatoyama is reluctant to decide by the end of the year, and [if he doesn't] that will cause a sensitive and difficult situation for the two countries," says Takao Toshikawa, editor of political newsletter Insideline...
...Tokyo, trying to hold fast to its campaign promises to resolve the base issue in step with the needs of Okinawans, has felt diplomatic pressure from the U.S. State Department over the past few weeks to make a firm decision to enable the terms of the 2006 agreement on Futenma. In late October, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pushed Hatoyama to uphold Japan's end of the 2006 agreement. "Secretary Gates played the bad cop so that President Obama won't have to," says Michael Green, senior adviser and Japan chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies...
...television program on Nov. 8, Okada, who canceled his overseas trip to the U.S. this month ahead of Obama's visit, said the issue would not be resolved during this weekend's talks. Recently instated U.S. ambassador John Roos said last month to reporters in Tokyo that the U.S. was willing to work with Japan on the issue: "The solution [on Futenma] is the realignment roadmap that has been agreed to. You have to give the Hatoyama administration time." If that is indeed the solution, Hatoyama might take much longer than the U.S. wants...