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No support for key U.S. base in Japan

SINGAPORE: Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Saturday failed to win popular support for the planned relocation of a key United States military base within the Okinawa prefecture. Mr. Kan's failure came just a day after his Cabinet approved Japan's “national defence programme guidelines” for a period of 10 years from 2011.

The new defence blueprint, designed to transform pacifist Japan's self-defence forces into a “dynamic” outfit, calls for a “further enhancement” of Tokyo's decades-long “indispensable alliance with the U.S.” And, the two countries had agreed to in May that the plan to relocate the Futenma base within Okinawa would drive their efforts to sustain this military alliance into the future.

However, the people of Okinawa have consistently opposed the daily inconveniences they suffer because of the prolonged U.S. military presence on their home turf.

During his visit to Okinawa on Saturday, his first since becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Kan made an aerial inspection of the existing Futenma base and the site chosen for its proposed relocation in a less-densely populated area in Okinawa itself. As he flew by helicopter over the proposed site, a group of local protesters demanded that the relocation plan be scrapped.

Before the aerial inspection, Mr. Kan met Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima and requested him to reconsider the prefecture's opposition by looking at the recent international developments. Mr. Nakaima responded by urging Mr. Kan to move the base outside Okinawa altogether. However, Mr. Kan argued that the base relocation plan was a package deal under which some U.S. Marines would leave Japan and the people of Okinawa would face a reduced burden.

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