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TOKYO -- There are new frictions looming just over the horizon in
United States-Japan
relations, based mainly on a perceived growing nationalist sentiment.
The main signal of this new mood was the appointment last month of a
parliamentary panel to study the feasibility of amending Japan's
American-written postwar "peace constitution."
There is no urgency to the controversial development, but it s
significant in that such an overture has never been officially sanctioned
before. The timetable for a report is "three to five years" but there is
no mandatory action called for after its completion.
Subtle pressures by opposition political parties, more clamor for
return of American bases on Okinawa and at Yokota near Tokyo, and public
awareness that Japan should do more internationally, such as enhanced
peacekeeping, are part of the syndrome.
Some of the issues will come to a head by the time Japan hosts the G-8
Summit of industrialized nations in July on Okinawa. The choice of location
was made ostensibly to promote development of Japan's poorest province but
may turn out to be the center of debates and even demonstrations over the
continued presence of U.S. bases.
For the short run, the symbolism of U.S.-Japan relations might be
characterized as "tea and sympathy."
"Tea" because of a series of high-level dialogs will be held here his
month, marking a departure from the traffic of working-level trade and
bureaucratic officials.
The U.S. government plans to send Deputy Secretary of State Strobe
Talbott, Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, and Under Secretary of
Defense Walter Slocombe to Japan in sequence.
Japanese hosts will serve plenty of tea and ambiguities and maybe even
some substance.
One substantive issue is counted as "sympathy" by Japanese public
opinion and officialdom.
This concerns the so-called "omoiyari yosan" or compassionate budget
paid to subsidize the U.S. forces stationed in Japan.
Some US$ 2.42 billion (Yen 253.8 billion) as spent by Japan in
fiscal 1998 to support U.S. military personnel, their families, and
Japanese employees at the bases and the costs of building and maintaining
the facilities and utility charges.
This is included in Japan's defense budget of US$47.8 billion in a
category called base countermeasures (kichi taisaku keihi). Japan's defense
budget is among the five largest in the world.
Recently Japan has suggested that this support should be reduced
because of the deterioration in Japan's financial and economic condition
in recent years.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Foley bristles at the suggestion that
host-nation support is a "sympathy" budget for U.S. troops based in the
country.
"I want to get away from this notion of sympathy," Foley told an audience
at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan last month.
"It is not one where we should think of (host-nation) support in terms
of being a budgetary item. This is a strategic contribution of great
importance," he said.
Foley described the Japan-U.S. security alliance as an equal
relationship, but not a symmetrical one.
"The United States agrees to defend the integrity of Japanese territory
and defend against an armed attack on Japan. Japan does not make any
undertaking to defend U.S. territories anywhere in the world."
One of the constitutional revisions talked about is that of Article
9--the so-callded "no war" clause--which states Japan will forego the use
of force, and not maintain an army.
Japan uses semantics to evade the issue and has maintained a well-heeled
and well-equipped Self-Defense Force since 1954. Current manpower level is
242,000 including 1,400 central staff personnel.
There are 46,000 American forces in Japan, mainly a 19,264 -marine
contingent on Okinawa, and 13,766 air force personnel
The forces for change also are stirred by recent North Korean missile
threat and the realization that U.S. defense support cannot be perpetuated.
The U.S. dilemma is that it wants more Japanese military contribution in
the Asia region, but does not want to be seen by Asian nations, many with
painful World War II memories, as encouraging the "rearming of Japan."
Edward Neilan (eneilan@crisscross.com) is a veteran journalist, based in Tokyo, who covers East Asia and writes weekly for World Tribune.com.