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Okinawa vote to test US-Japan alliance
Source: Agencies |
November 29, 2010, Monday
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VOTERS headed to the polls on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa yesterday to choose between two gubernatorial candidates campaigning for a United States Marine base there to be removed.
The Marine Corps Air Station Futenma has been on Okinawa island since 1945, and residents have long complained of noise and crime.
A 2006 deal between the US and Japan to move the base to a less crowded part of Okinawa has stalled over public opposition. The controversy even toppled a prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, earlier this year.
The two candidates for Okinawan governor oppose the relocation plan, and the alliance between Washington and Tokyo will likely be tested no matter the outcome of the vote.
Okinawa, home to about half of the some 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan, is a strategically important island close to China and not far from the Korean peninsula.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has said the US military presence in Okinawa is crucial deterrence of regional security threats, an argument perhaps driven home by North Korea's artillery strike on a South Korean island last Tuesday as well as worries over China's growing military power.
A half-century security alliance allows the US to station military forces in Japan, while guaranteeing the US will defend Japan from any attack.
But local opposition to the troops' presence is vocal, and the relocation will need the governor's approval.
Incumbent Hirokazu Nakaima, 71, had once accepted the base relocation plan but now wants it moved from Okinawa.
The Marine Corps Air Station Futenma has been on Okinawa island since 1945, and residents have long complained of noise and crime.
A 2006 deal between the US and Japan to move the base to a less crowded part of Okinawa has stalled over public opposition. The controversy even toppled a prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, earlier this year.
The two candidates for Okinawan governor oppose the relocation plan, and the alliance between Washington and Tokyo will likely be tested no matter the outcome of the vote.
Okinawa, home to about half of the some 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan, is a strategically important island close to China and not far from the Korean peninsula.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has said the US military presence in Okinawa is crucial deterrence of regional security threats, an argument perhaps driven home by North Korea's artillery strike on a South Korean island last Tuesday as well as worries over China's growing military power.
A half-century security alliance allows the US to station military forces in Japan, while guaranteeing the US will defend Japan from any attack.
But local opposition to the troops' presence is vocal, and the relocation will need the governor's approval.
Incumbent Hirokazu Nakaima, 71, had once accepted the base relocation plan but now wants it moved from Okinawa.
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