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Cold comfort for Japan-South Korea ties
The intractable issue of compensation for women forced into sexual slavery during Japan's World War II occupation of South Korea looks likely to undermine the US-led united front against China's naval expansion and North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Stirred in part by nationalist pressure in the run-up to presidential elections in the South, the gap between the two sides' perceptions on the sensitive issue remains as wide as it ever was.
- Kosuke Takahashi (May 21, '12)

Cold comfort for Japan-South Korea ties By Kosuke Takahashi

TOKYO - Sixty-seven years after the end of World War II, history is once again beginning to produce heightened diplomatic tensions between Japan and South Korea.

The thorny question of whether or not the Japanese government should meet South Korea's renewed demand that Tokyo pay compensation to "comfort women" forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II, accompanied by an official apology, is likely to show no sign of settlement. Escalating tensions between Tokyo and Seoul could harm the US-led united front against China's naval expansion and North Korea's nuclear and missile ambitions in coming months, especially before the South Korean presidential election is held in December amid rising domestic nationalist pressure.

"Regarding comfort women, there is a wide perception gap between Japan and South Korea," Masao Okonogi, a research professor at the Research Center for Korean Studies of Kyushu University in Fukuoka City, told Asia Times Online. "It's very difficult to bridge that gap, and it's difficult to resolve this issue."

South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin on May 17 canceled a trip to Japan. Kim was expected to visit Tokyo on May 30 and 31 to conclude two bilateral accords on sharing military intelligence and logistics, in what would be the first such pacts since Japan's colonial rule over Korea ended in 1945.

"As public attention is high on a military pact with Japan, I will not handle the matter with more haste than caution but handle it throughout discussions at the National Assembly," Kim was quoted as telling Park Ji-won, the floor leader of the Democratic United Party (DUP), according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

His reservations over bilateral military cooperation with Tokyo came just days after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at a summit in Beijing on May 13 agreed to move forward on concluding the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a pact on the sharing of military intelligence, and the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA), another pact for the exchange of supplies between the South Korean military and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF).

Behind the South Korean defense chief's sudden policy reversal was an opposition party offensive. Park on May 17 urged Kim to be cautious about signing any military pact with Japan as Tokyo had not fully repented on atrocities committed during its colonial rule, Yonhap news agency reported.

This incident became a major setback for the strengthening of the US-led alliance in the Asia-Pacific region to counter the military expansion of China. The foreign ministers of Japan and Australia on May 17 had signed an accord aimed at protecting classified information shared by the two nations, the latest example of bilateral agreements between US allies in the region.

The US also has tightened security ties with Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam in recent years, the US alliance system that Beijing considers a tool of encirclement. Thus, the US has long wanted the agreements between Japan and South Korea, the US's strongest allies in the region, to contribute to enhancing greater cooperation among its alliance partners by filling the missing link, especially when Seoul was about to stomach them politically.

This tinderbox was ignored for years, but the recent dispute first erupted in late August 2011 when the constitutional court of South Korea decided that it was a violation of the constitution for the government to make no tangible effort to resolve the compensation claims from former "comfort women", who were mobilized, or often coerced, as sex slaves during its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. Following the court decision, the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially requested the Japanese government to start negotiations over the issues.

Then, during a summit between the two nations last December in Kyoto, Lee directly also asked Noda to address the issue of comfort women. Meanwhile, a couple days earlier, a statue of a comfort woman was set up in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, reigniting diplomatic tensions between the two nations.

Most recently, a museum called the War and Women's Human Rights Museum opened on May 5 in Seoul. The museum records the turbulent history of comfort women through photographs, videos, documents and clothes detailing the history of their victimization. Placed in the exhibition is the same bronze statue of a demure teenage girl in traditional Korean hanbok that was implanted across the narrow street from the rear of the Japanese Embassy.

"The life I've lived is like a dream, but even dreams come as terrible nightmares," one engraving of a comfort woman says. Another says, "I am the very evidence alive. Why does Japan say they have no evidence?"

When I visited the museum on May 14, a South Korean resident in Osaka welcomed me as a volunteer guide and toured me throughout the museum, which has two stories and a basement level.

"Harumoni just hope this kind of tragedy will never happen again," Oh Woog-yeon, 40, who lives in the Ikuno district of Osaka, said at the museum. Harumoni means grandmothers in Korea. She said there are now only 61 survivors left out of the 234 "comfort women" registered with the South Korean government.

The Japanese Embassy in Seoul has lodged a complaint on South Korea’s funding of the museum, claiming that exhibition regarding the so-called “comfort women” did not comply with Japan’s stance.

Takashi Kurai, minister and deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in South Korea, on May 7 visited Korea’s foreign ministry to lodge a protest, expressing regret that the South Korea government had provided 500 million won (about US$427,000) towards building the museum, Japan’s conservative Sankei newspaper reported on May 18.

The newspaper said the museum’s exhibition did not recognize Japan’s efforts to solve the issue of comfort women.

Although Seoul has urged Japan to take a positive stance on solving the issue, Tokyo has made no concrete response. Japan has maintained the issue was settled by a 1965 treaty that normalized bilateral ties.

While many South Koreans think the Japanese government continues to delay issuing official apologies or compensation from government coffers, many Japanese feel that they have already repeatedly apologized and expressed regret.

Moreover, although many Japanese think Tokyo has no legal obligation to compensate war victims, including those forced to become laborers and comfort women, Japan has already tried to make its best efforts to make amends in some way for their ancestors' crimes on humanitarian grounds. The Asian Women's Fund (AWF), which was privately established in 1995 to follow Germany's "Germany-Poland Reconciliation Fund", collected money from the Japanese public and distributed it to former comfort women.

South Koreans and their government had repeatedly criticized the fund after Japan started paying atonement money to South Korean women in January 1997. The objecting South Koreans said the money should come from directly from the Japanese government treasury, accompanied by an official apology.

Right-wing Japanese lawmakers and neo-conservative nationalists have also exasperated elderly Korean female survivors of the enslavement of comfort women by claiming many Korean women during the war were merely sex workers for money. Those reactionaries have always bitterly disputed that it was Japan's official policy of centralized recruiting and dispatching of comfort women to carefully administered comfort station under military control.

For South Korea's part, some supporters are, consciously or subconsciously, using those women to stir up the so-called victim-based Korean nationalism. The issue has been assimilated to national history, sometimes ignoring the women's real feeling and experiences. Many experts have pointed out the women were not often given freedom of speech because they were expected to become symbols of the Japanese colonial exploitation of Korea, although each woman had different relations with Japanese people.

Japan has amnesia about past wrongs generally, while Seoul is failing to accommodate the victims' feelings.

"Both governments need to decide whether they will seriously work together by building up domestic consensus, or decide to mothball this issue once and for all as it seems impossible to solve," Okonogi said.

Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based Japanese journalist. His twitter is @TakahashiKosuke

(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Japan–USA: Dynamic, Bilateral Defence Cooperation - World - The Ukrainian Week

Japan–USA: Dynamic, Bilateral Defence Cooperation - World - The Ukrainian Week

May 17, 2012 ▪ Interviewed by: Viktor Kaspruk

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Japan–USA: Dynamic, Bilateral Defence Cooperation

Political analyst Kosuke Takahashi, a former staff writer at Asahi Shimbun and Bloomberg News, is a Tokyo-based expert who writes in both English and Japanese.

 

He currently works as Tokyo correspondent for Asia Times Online and IHS Jane's Defence Weekly. He also served as TV commentator for Nikkei CNBC (news television channel broadcast in Japan) from March 2009 to March 2012. He graduated from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and the School of International and Public Affairs as a dual master's degree student.

U.W.: Mr. Takahashi, in your latest article "US, Japan: Not quite 20-20 vision" you write, that "United States President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda pledged to boost their security alliance to maintain peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region - a move intended to counter China's military buildup and North Korea's erratic belligerence. After their 60-minute summit, the two leaders issued a joint statement titled A Shared Vision for the Future". What does this agreement mean for Japan?

For Japan, the agreement means further military integration with the US, which started in the late 1990s.

When you look back over the history of US-Japan relations, the bilateral alliance once drifted in the early 1990's in the wake of the end of the Cold War era without a new common policy goal.

But since the late 1990s, the alliance has undergone significant changes to enhance bilateral defence and security cooperation. Particularly in 1996, US President Bill Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto issued the "US-Japan Joint Declaration on Security." This declaration reconfirmed for the first time that a stronger US-Japan security alliance helps ensure peace and security not only in Japan and the Far East, but also in the Asia-Pacific region. The 1960 Japan-US Security Treaty is just aimed at contributing to the security of Japan and the Far East, so the 1996 joint declaration expanded the range of Japan’s defence virtually.

Behind the move have been North Korea’s unstoppable nuclear and missile development programmes, which became evident in the early 1990s. To cope with the North Korean threat, the US and Japan, for example, have jointly developed Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) systems up to the present.

Although on April 30 US President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda stressed developing a shared vision for the future, there still appear to be some differences in their positions.

While the US still cares about the so-called asymmetric threats like terrorism, unconventional guerrilla warfare, cyber-attacks and laser attacks from a long-term strategic standpoint in its global defence posture, Japan is tactically trying to solve individual problems such as the burden of US military bases carried mostly by the people in Okinawa without its own national strategy.

U.W.: The new concept of "bilateral dynamic defence cooperation" was introduced for the first time. How will this affect the level of cooperation between Japan and America?

The new concept of "bilateral dynamic defence cooperation" includes timely and effective joint training, joint surveillance and reconnaissance activities, as well as joint and shared use of facilities for US forces and the Japanese Self-Defence Forces (JSDF).

Specifically, the two governments affirmed to consider co-developing training areas in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, such as Tinian and Pagan islands, for US forces and the JSDF. Both governments plan to identify specific areas of cooperation by the end of this year.

This new defence cooperation will bring the bilateral alliance to a higher level of integration, paving the way for the SDF to intensify activities abroad, in addition to its UN PKO activities such as in Haiti and South Sudan.

However, the JSDF working routinely with US forces in other parts of the Asia-Pacific region could lead to the use of forces outside Japan, which the nation's pacifist constitution strictly prohibits.

Despite such concerns, there has been no national debate in the Diet (parliament) on dynamic defence cooperation, and no effort by the Noda administration to build a people's consensus. The “bilateral dynamic defence cooperation” is likely to chip away at the principle of the postwar "Peace Constitution" without sparking a national debate on it.

A recent move to integrate the Japan Air Self-Defence Force (JASDF)'s main command with the US Yokota Air Base in late March, which is home to the US Forces Japan (USFJ) headquarters and the US 5th Air Force, also represents enhanced bilateral military cooperation. The move is part of a 2006 agreement on the realignment of USFJ.

The Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) has also already relocated its command centre to Yokosuka Naval Base: also home to the US Navy's 7th Fleet. The Japan Ground Self-Defence Force (JGSDF)'s Central Readiness Force, which is currently based at Camp Asaka in Saitama Prefecture, is also scheduled to move to Camp Zama, the home of US Army Japan, in March 2013. These moves are highly likely to further strengthen the two nations' defence collaboration against North Korea and China.

U.W.: Was Washington's request for Tokyo to increase its security role made partly because the United States will be forced to cut its defence spending in the face of worsening federal deficits?

Yes, that’s the number one reason. Faced with mounting fiscal difficulties, the US has to reduce the US military presence in Japan, particularly in Okinawa, whether it likes it or not.

The number two reason is China’s growing military might. How to deal with a rising China is the US and Japan's biggest common interest. China's growing naval power and its enhanced strike capabilities are reshaping the security dynamic in the region. This has caused the US to shift its security pivot toward the Asia-Pacific by expanding its military footprint in Australia, the Philippines and Singapore. With the Pentagon well aware of China's "anti-access/area denial" strategy and its focus on the so-called AirSea battle concept, it aims to move US Marines currently stationed on Japan's Okinawa Island to other areas out of China's missile strike range.

In addition, the new military strategy of "offshore balancing" is becoming widespread in Washington, which would reduce US troops in Japan and lead Japan to counter China. Offshore balancing is convenient to the US in that it could avoid direct confrontation with China, and also it can drive a wedge between Beijing and Tokyo in order for them not to unite in East Asia, excluding the US. The US has been against the establishment of an East Asian Community, or an economic and political bloc equivalent to the European Union, which was proposed by a former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

U.W.: Does the new plan help the allies work around the central but still-unresolved dispute over moving the Futenma air base from a crowded part of Okinawa to a new site?

The new agreement already drew ire from Okinawans for a couple of reasons. In the first place, the US and Japan decided to stick to the existing plan to relocate the controversial US Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma to Henoko, Nago, in northern Okinawa by constructing a new sea-based replacement facility off Camp Schwab.

Secondly, the Japanese government has pledged to pay refurbishment costs for the MCAS Futenma on Okinawa until that sea-based replacement facility is constructed on the north of the island. The local government has demanded the immediate closure of the Futenma site, which is situated in a built-up area, instead of performing maintenance and repairs on it. Okinawans are worried that maintenance and repair work on MCAS Futenma will mean its continued use and they fear the air station will become a permanent fixture.

MCAS Futenma base is currently located in the heart of the densely populated Ginowan City creating a dangerous situation. In recent years, in August 2004, a US Marine Corps CH-53D transport helicopter crashed into Okinawa International University’s school building without any casualties. (Thanks to summer vacation, most students were off-campus.)

In addition, the US is reportedly planning to deploy the MV-22 Osprey vertical take-off and landing transport aircraft to the MCAS Futenma in July. Okinawans cite concerns about safety and noise pollution from the aircraft; during its development the Osprey suffered a series of accidents. Also, in April a Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey crashed in Morocco, raising safety concerns about the aircraft again.

U.W.: The U.S. alliance with Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is at the heart of Obama’s expanded engagement in Asia — is this diplomatic thrust motivated in part by a desire to counter the growing economic and military clout of strategic rival China?

Yes, China is changing this region’s security dynamic rapidly. Militarily, the US still wants to maintain a presence in Japan to the extent allowed by local citizens, just like it is sticking to the Henoko relocation plan. Especially, it will maintain key US troops and bases in Japan at all costs, including the US Navy's 7th Fleet at Yokosuka Naval Base and the US Kadena Air Base. Meanwhile, it is likely to employ the offshore balancing strategy, by gradually letting Japan, South Korea, Australia and other nations manage their own problems against China without direct US involvement. Fiscal constraints will certainly force the US to do so.

U.W.: Is the U.S.-Japan alliance the cornerstone of peace, security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region?

I think so. But the problem is both governments are facing a massive budget deficit and it is becoming hard to sustain the current level of security alliance. This is why both governments are stepping up joint efforts to move their troops effectively.

For Japan, which is in the poorest financial shape among developed countries - its government debt has reaching 230% of gross domestic product - the ever-increasing burden of the realignment of US forces is becoming a big problem in Tokyo. The disastrous March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accidents have also imposed an enormous financial burden on Japan.

On April 30, the two governments said the total cost of relocating marines and their dependents from Okinawa to Guam would be lowered to US$8.6 billion from the original $10.27 billion. However, the cost to Japan has risen from a maximum of $2.8 billion to $3.1 billion, compensating for inflation.

The Japanese share of costs includes building expenses for land, housing, schools and other facilities in Guam as well as the costs of developing the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, such as Tinian Island, where, as an historical irony, two B-29s took off to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

If those facilities were to be created inside its own territory, Japanese people would be content to incur such huge costs. But now, as if Tokyo had become an automated teller machine for the US, the facilities are being built outside of Japan.

Thanks in part to Japan's money, Guam will have its largest military presence since the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s when US Air Force B-52s made daily bombing runs from bases on the island.

(My latest for Asia Times Online) When ping-pong diplomacy stirred Korea

For the first time I wrote a movie review in English. I reviewed a Korean movie titled “KOREA”.

 

英語で初めて映画批評記事を書きました。筆力を上げるための良い訓練になりました。

 

한국의 친구의 여러분, 한국 영화 『KOREA』의 비평 기사를 영어로 썼습니다. 별이 5개가 좋은 영화입니다! (^^)

 

FILM REVIEWWhen ping-pong
diplomacy stirred Korea
KOREA, directed by Moon Hyun-sung

A traditional underdog sports film that sees unlikely bedfellows unite for victory, this movie tells the true story of how a North and South Korean table tennis team overcame inner tensions to defeat China and win the world title. An anecdote to increasing tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang, the film could serve to remind younger audiences of the positives of Korean solidarity.
- Kosuke Takahashi (May 8, '12)

 

FILM REVIEW
When ping-pong diplomacy stirred Korea
KOREA, directed by Moon Hyun-sung

Reviewed by Kosuke Takahashi

TOKYO - Two decades have passed since the end of the Cold War, but Korea still remains divided at the 38th parallel. Without having signed a peace treaty after the Korean War ended in 1953, North and South Korea are still technically at war.

For Pyongyang, the head of its neighboring state is a key target in its smear campaigns. In recent months, North Korean state media has even stepped up its rhetoric against the "traitorous" South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, branding him a "rabid dog" or a "rat" or a "tiger moth".

Meanwhile, on May 5 - Children's Day - Lee likened the North to a "bad and disobedient child" for ignoring voices in the international community calling for a halt to its launch of a long-range rocket last month.

Though North Korea is ramping up the war of words amid suspicions it is gearing up for a third nuclear test , young people in Seoul seem not too interested in North-South issues. They hardly feel a sense of solidarity and kinship with North Korea in their daily lives.

Wanting to make a difference in this regard and raise questions about such mutual mistrust within the same race, Moon Hyun-sung has made the movie known as As One in English and KOREA in Korean. Moon's directorial debut, the film hit theaters in South Korea on May 3.

Based on a real event, the film retells how South and North Korea formed a unified national sports team for the 41st world table tennis championships held in Chiba, near Tokyo in 1991.

Defying expectations, the joint team beat the most likely champions, China, which was trying to win the world title for the ninth consecutive year.

"I thought the only beautiful event in North-South relations was the story of those athletes [in the table tennis championships in 1991]," said Moon of his motivations to make film at a sneak preview in Chiba on April 20. "I have been interested in table tennis since my childhood and I was a fan of Hyun Jung-hwa." Hyun is the legendary South Korean female table tennis player on whom the movie is centered around.

The film is not just a sports flick or underdog's tale, rather it's closer to famous South Korean movies Shiri and JSA, which focused on human relationships between the South and the North. It draws on strong Korean national sentiment and revives North-South solidarity by dramatizing a human-interest story of the top athletes of the two nations, who had great conflicts, tensions and suspense during the 46 days when the team was temporarily formed for the tournament.

In the movie, one North Korean male player became subject to serious punishment by the ruling Korean Workers' Party (KWP), simply because he received a name card from the team coach of a Western team. North Korea's dominant party viewed it as an asylum bid.

Also, North Korea's athletes were forcibly ordered to leave Chiba and go back to Pyongyang immediately by the KWP just one day before their final match with China, because the government's "minders," or surveillance agents, who always escorted their athletes, said the players had become too immersed in Western culture, drinking alcohol and interacting with South Korean players privately.

Two of South Korea's du jour marquee actresses in their early 30s enrich a heartwarming masterpiece based on a true story. Ha Ji-won, a sexy action star who is often compared with American actress Angelina Jolie, played the role of South Koreans national sports heroine Hyun Jung-hwa. And actress Bae Doo-na, known for her sublime performances, represents North Korea's top female table tennis player Li Bun-hui.

Asked whether the movie would have an impact on young South Koreans, who are often indifferent about relations with the North, Ha said, "I was very impressed by the process of how the two became one in the 46 days. I think the young people will be also impressed by it."

Bae echoed Ha's views. "It's true the younger generation are not interested in North Korea, but I believe this movie could change things," said Bae, who skillfully recreated the blank expressions of the North's top player and uses North Korean language in the movie.

Thanks to South Korean table tennis player Hyun Jung-hwa's actual coaching, the portrayal of the athletes is unerringly accurate. Ha said she practiced table tennis 12 hours a day for a month in a sweltering gymnasium.

It's notable that behind the success of the unified Korean team was the late Ichiro Ogimura, a former Japanese table tennis player who visited South Korea 20 times and North Korea 14 times for negotiations to help realize the much-anticipated Korean joint team. He was president of the International Table Tennis Federation and died in 1994. Without Ogimura, this movie would have never had a tale to tell.

In some respects the film reminds of the "ping pong diplomacy" in the early 1970s, which saw the exchange of table tennis players between the United States and the People's Republic of China. This marked a thaw in US-China relations that paved the way for a visit to Beijing by president Richard Nixon.

Perhaps it would be asking too much to expect KOREA to have such a far-reaching impact as a thaw in ties between North and South Korea, bit its a small step in the right direction.

Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based Japanese journalist. His twitter is @TakahashiKosuke

(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

 

 

(My latest for Jane's Defence Weekly) Obama and Noda commit to improving space co-operation

ASIA PACIFIC

Date Posted: 02-May-2012

Jane's Defence Weekly

---

Obama and Noda commit to improving space co-operation

Kosuke Takahashi JDW Correspondent
Tokyo

The joint development of GPS capabilities and cyber-security co-operation were the notable outcomes of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's first official visit to Washington DC.

Noda, the first Japanese leader to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington since his Democratic Party of Japan took power in September 2009, arrived days after the two countries agreed on a revised realignment plan for US forces in Japan.

Speaking at the White House, Obama reiterated that "the US-Japan alliance will remain the foundation of the security and prosperity of our two nations [and] also a cornerstone of regional peace and security". A joint statement added: "We must also work to protect and develop the tremendous potential of critical areas such as the high seas, space, and cyberspace, ensuring their use is responsible and rule-based."     

Although the statement was short on details on how the two countries would achieve this, Obama and Noda did announce plans to enhance space co-operation through the US's GPS and Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), which is designed to improve GPS-based navigation in the Asia-Pacific region.

The US has about 30 GPS satellites in orbit. Japan launched its first QZSS satellite in September 2010.

---

Copyright © IHS Global Limited, 2012

(My latest for Asia Times) US, Japan: Not quite 20-20 vision

US, Japan: Not quite 20-20 vision
With United States President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda pledging to boost their security alliance to maintain peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region, the leaders have taken their "shared vision" a step further. However, the picture becomes blurred over the hefty bill Tokyo will have to foot in the relocation of US forces from Japan to Guam. - Kosuke Takahashi (May 1, '12)


Asia Times Online :: US, Japan: Not quite 20-20 vision
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - United States President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Monday pledged to boost their security alliance to maintain peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region - a move intended to counter China's military buildup and North Korea's erratic belligerence.

Noda became Japan's first premier to formally meet with Obama in Washington since the Democratic Party of Japan took power in September 2009. Amid Japan's revolving door of prime ministers who tend to resign after very short tenures, Noda is the sixth national leader in as many years - he assumed office in September 2011.

After their 60-minute summit, the two leaders issued a joint statement titled "A Shared Vision for the Future", [1] the first of its kind since June 2006 when then-US president George W Bush and prime minister Junichiro Koizumi issued a joint statement titled "The Japan-US Alliance of the New Century".

"Our joint vision lays out the future we seek in the Asia-Pacific - a region where international rules and norms are upheld, where nations contribute to regional security, where commerce and freedom of navigation is not impeded and where disputes are resolved peacefully," Obama said at a press conference, apparently aiming to keep in check fast-growing China's naval power.

Although the two governments have stressed to develop a shared vision for the future, there appear to be some differences in their positions.

While the US still cares about the so-called asymmetric threats such as terrorism, unconventional guerrilla warfare and cyber-attacks from a long-term strategic standpoint of its global defense posture, Japan is tactically trying to solve individual problems such as the burden of US military bases carried mostly by the people in Okinawa.

On the defense front, the two leaders particularly hailed last week's new agreement [2] to realign American forces in Japan.

The US and Japan on April 26 unveiled a revised agreement to transfer 9,000 US Marine Corps troops from Okinawa prefecture to Guam and other bases in the western Pacific: a move intended to reduce the impact of US bases on the southern Japanese island chain.

The accord, which updates a 2006 agreement on the realignment of US forces in Japan, will relocate about 5,000 marines from Okinawa to Guam - a US territory - and the remaining 2,500 to Darwin of Australia, and 1,500 to Hawaii. About 10,000 troops will remain in Okinawa.

"This reflects our effort to modernize America's defense posture in the Asia-Pacific with forces that are more broadly distributed, more flexible and more sustainable," Obama said at the White House on Monday. "At the same time, it will reduce the impact on local communities, like Okinawa."

Last week's agreement for the first time introduced the new concept of "bilateral dynamic defense cooperation", which includes timely and effective joint training, joint surveillance and reconnaissance activities, as well as joint and shared use of facilities for US forces and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF).

Specifically, the two governments affirmed to consider co-developing training areas in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, such as Tinian and Pagan islands, for US forces and the JSDF. Both governments plan to identify specific areas of cooperation by the end of this year.

However, the JSDF working routinely with US forces in other parts of the Asia-Pacific region could lead to the use of forces outside Japan, which the nation's pacifist constitution strictly prohibits.

Despite such concerns, there has been no national debate in the Diet (parliament) on dynamic defense cooperation, and no effort by the Noda administration to build a people's consensus.

For Japan, which is in poor financial shape among developed countries - its government debt has reaching 230% of gross domestic product - the ever-increasing burden of the realignment of US forces is becoming a big problem in Tokyo.

The two governments last week said the total cost of relocating marines and their dependents from Okinawa to Guam would be lowered to US$8.6 billion from the original $10.27 billion. However, the cost to Japan has risen from a maximum of $2.8 billion to $3.1 billion, compensating for inflation.

The Japanese share of costs includes building expenses for land, housing, schools and other facilities in Guam as well as the costs of developing the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, such as Tinian Island, where, as a historical irony, two B-29s took off to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

If those facilities were to be created inside its own territory, Japanese people would be content to incur such huge costs. But now, as if Tokyo had become an automated teller machine for the US, the facilities are being built outside Japan.

Thanks in part to Japan's money, Guam will have its largest military presence since the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s when US Air Force B-52s made daily bombing runs from bases on the island.

In addition, the Japanese government has even pledged to pay refurbishment costs for the controversial Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Okinawa, until a sea-based replacement facility off Camp Schwab is constructed on the north of the island. The local government has demanded the closure of the Futenma site, which is situated in a built-up area, instead of doing maintenance and repairs on it.

"Japan has always shared the financial burden of the US forces innocuously," Japanese military analyst Toshiyuki Shikata told Asia Times Online on Tuesday. "In the past decades, then ruling Liberal Democratic Party also did the same thing, so it also cannot complain about this now. It would be much better if we could use such money for our own defense."

Notes
1. See here.
2. See here.

Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based Japanese journalist. His twitter is @TakahashiKosuke

(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Plan to Move Marines Off Okinawa Faces Challenges

April 27, 2012

Plan to Move Marines Off Okinawa Faces Challenges

Steve Herman | Seoul

Photo: Reuters

FA-18 air fighters prepare to take off on the U.S. carrier George Washington in the Pacific near Minamidaito Island in Okinawa Prefecture, southern Japan, during a joint drill with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. (2010 File)

Friday's announcement by the United States and Japan that 9,000 U.S. Marines will be transferred from a base on the Japanese island of Okinawa is being hailed as a major diplomatic accomplishment. But there are also concerns the actual transfer will be fraught with numerous complications.

The revised realignment plan, agreed to by Japan and the United States, is seen as both a compromise and a work still in progress.

It calls for moving nearly half of the 19,000 U.S. Marines off Okinawa. Up to 5,000 are to be re-deployed to the Pacific island of Guam and 4,000 moved to either Hawaii or rotated in and out of Australia.

No timelines were revealed.
Related story - US, Japan Reach Agreement to Move 9,000 Marines
Political analyst and adjunct senior fellow Richard Baker at the East West Center in Hawaii says the agreement comes after complex negotiations involving political, technical, financial and infrastructural issues.
"And I don't think it was inevitable that they would be able to make a meeting of the minds of that sort, so that is the good news," he said. "Now the bad news is that the public handling of this has got to be as sensitive as the negotiations were and as nuanced."

Still unresolved is what to do with a Marine air station in the middle of a congested community on Okinawa. Most analysts believe that a proposed move to a site farther north on the island is unlikely to occur because of strong opposition locally. But the new airfield plan has officially not been scrapped.

Many Okinawans prefer to see all the Marines permanently vacate the islands. That is also unlikely in an era when concerns about China's rise mean other Asia-Pacific nations want a reassuring presence of U.S. military forces in the immediate neighborhood.

The Obama administration has been telling its allies that the United States is making renewed and long-term military commitments to the region.

Baker, a retired veteran U.S. diplomat, acknowledges that repositioning troops from Okinawa to Guam and Hawaii may be viewed as a move in the wrong geographical direction.
"Critics will be tempted to say that this belies the intended pivot to Asia. I think that would be an unfair criticism given the realities of the negotiations and the realities of the very, very longstanding problem in Okinawa that this is designed to solve," he noted.

Japan is to partly fund the $8.6 billion cost of a buildup on the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

It will be the largest military presence on the island since the Vietnam War when U.S. Air Force B-52s made daily bombing runs from Guam.

Guam, with a population of about 180,000, already hosts more than 7,000 military personnel, primarily assigned to Andersen Air Force Base, and a facility on the western side of the island known as “Big Navy.”

"The key thing, I think, for most people in Guam, is just to make sure that our infrastructure is developed so we can handle the new capacity," stated Senator Judi Guthertz who chairs Guam's legislative committee on the military buildup. "And that everyone has a deep respect for each other here so that we're able to maintain the new identity and the unique tropicalness and beauty of the island. And I think our military partners are aware of that."

Originally there were plans to move twice the number of Marines -- 9,000 in all, to Guam.

That will somewhat ease concerns over the expensive infrastructure upgrades.

Lawmakers and the public in Guam still have many concerns and unanswered questions. Among them: the location for firing ranges and a port where visiting U.S. Navy aircraft carriers will berth.

The indigenous Chamorros have objected to any range site trespassing on ancient grounds while the initial anchorage site in Apra harbor has upset environmentalists and the tourism sector because dredging would destroy or damage more than 25 hectares of coral.

Guam Senator Guthertz supports the move of more Marines to the island but faces other questions from her constituents.
"Questions that remain are will the military be building housing to accommodate the Marines or will they be using housing available in the community? What kind of services will they need in the community from our private sector companies that are anxious and able to provide responses to their requests for proposals? So the economic benefits, I think, will occur but we're not sure in what shape or what form yet," he said.

Several powerful U.S. senators have been concerned about the plan's overall cost and its impact on America's regional military strategy.

The simultaneous announcement Friday in Tokyo and Washington addressed some of their concerns.

After the joint announcement the senators (Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and Jim Webb, both Democrats, along with former Republican presidential candidate John McCain) issued a statement saying they “still have many questions about the specific details” and its implications for force posture in the Asia-Pacific region.

North Korea may not proceed with nuke test in immediate future: Pollack

North Korea may not proceed with nuke test in immediate future: Pollack "They will test it at some point, but not now yet," Jonathan Pollack said. -Korea Herald/ANN Song Sang-ho Mon, Apr 30, 2012 The Korea Herald/Asia News Network North Korea is unlikely to conduct a third nuclear test in the immediate future given that it could infuriate China and make the political tide unfavorable for it ahead of the December presidential vote in the South, a renowned US scholar said. "They will test it at some point, but not now yet," Jonathan Pollack of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, told The Korea Herald. "The reason might not be technical, but political that another nuclear test would probably be damaging to North Korea from the point of view of seeing a future South Korean president more aligned with their interests." Pollack was in Seoul last week to attend the 2012 Asan Plenum, a three-day international forum on global challenges that kicked off last Wednesday. The annual forum was organized by local think tank Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Pyongyang may face a tougher response from its crucial patron China should it take another destabilizing action following the recent rocket launch, he pointed out. In an unusual move, Beijing agreed at the UN Security Council to condemn Pyongyang on April 16, three days after the botched launch. "They may also be weighing the implications. This time, China would really impose some severe costs on them. We have the Chinese vice foreign minister in the forum, giving some very forceful remarks," he said. "He did not say a nuclear test, but you could see what he was talking about to make clear that China's disapproval of any such third test would be very strong, potentially very harsh." Pollack paid particular attention to the fact that Pyongyang has not been explicit yet about its preparation for a nuclear test while it gave some explanation before their past nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. "There has been no explicit threat to test the nuclear weapon. The other thing I want to emphasize that in both 2006 and 2009, they developed almost what we would call an immediate campaign over a period of time," he said. "I don't know, it was perhaps, weeks or months, but it was trying to build the case for why they would then proceed to a nuclear test." Although it would not be easy for Beijing to change its core policy toward its impoverished ally considering that it favors stability on the peninsula, China could make some adjustments in it to protect its national interests, he argued. "The Chinese are not, in my own view, likely to discard North Korea, but under some circumstances, it is possible that they might really try to put limits on the relationship if North Korea is affecting their Chinese vital interests," he said. "China's larger worries concern North Korea undertaking actions to which the ROK (Republic of Korea) would respond this time, and then, this triggers an environment that draws in both the US and China on the peninsula." Regarding concerns here that the US could show some reluctance to intervene militarily should a war break out here as it did in Syria, he said the situation would be different. Given deepening public fatigue in the US after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its recent show of reluctance to engage in a Syrian conflict, some here showed apprehension over how the US would move in case of a war here. "It would be much more that the US has made explicit, time and time again, has invested enormous amount of treasure, financial treasure, human commitments of the ROK. That is not something we would walk away from," he said. "It does have a symbolic meaning (to other US allies) as well without a doubt."

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