(Financial Times Editorial) Okinawa outcry

Okinawa outcry

Published: November 11 2009 20:09 | Last updated: November 11 2009 20:09

A decision by the new government of Japan to re-examine the location of a US marine helicopter base on the southern island of Okinawa has prompted talk of a dangerous rift in the US-Japan alliance. Robert Gates, US defence secretary, offended his Japanese hosts last month when he lectured them about foot-dragging, telling the new government it must stick to the deal made by its predecessor. A senior state department figure apparently went one stage further, telling the Washington Post that Japan, not China, was now the US’s most problematic relationship in Asia. That is nonsense.

To be fair, Jeff Bader, the senior director for East Asian affairs at the National Security Council, called the anonymous comments asinine. Yet Washington has clearly been taken aback by the Democratic Party of Japan’s decision to act on its election pledge of seeking to make the US-Japan alliance “more equal”. In particular, the Pentagon is frustrated at the prospect of having to renegotiate a 1996 deal, not yet implemented, to move the Futenma helicopter base.

The US has over-reacted and President Barack Obama, who arrives in Tokyo on Friday, would do well to admit as much. It is only natural the new Japanese government, having unseated the conservative Liberal Democratic party from half a century of virtually uninterrupted power, should conduct a thorough policy review.

Its stated ambition to forge a less dependent US relationship is actually to be welcomed. Old Japan hands in Washington seem to have forgotten that the LDP promised much but delivered little in the way of the support for US military operations that they wanted.

Nor is Mr Gates’ assertion credible that all previous agreements are sacrosanct. Only a few months ago the Obama administration dropped Bush-era plans for missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Certainly, the DPJ’s determination to look again at the Futenma base move is annoying for military strategists who spent years hammering out the previous deal. But talk that this somehow rattles the foundations of the US-Japan alliance, which has been crucial to postwar stability in the Pacific, is ludicrous. By being so impatient and pushing the new government into a corner, Washington is in danger of producing precisely the result it is trying to avoid. Given some time, the DPJ will reach a workable compromise. Mr Obama should use his rhetorical skills to give Japan’s government the space to do just that.

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Something wrong with the International Herald Tribune?

Today I could not believe my own eyes. The International Herald Tribune (IHT), published by the Asahi newspaper in Tokyo, placed Rolex’s full-page ads on the front page and the back page. Please see the above pictures.
The ordinary news section virtually begins with page 3.
The IHT may say it just wrapped up the newspaper itself in full-page ads.

Have you seen this type of newspaper ad before in your place?
Is this only happening at the International Herald Tribune/ The Asahi Shimbun published in Tokyo? Is this a new trend in newspaper ads?

I just wonder.