Japan balking at huge bill for hosting U.S. military

By Joseph Coleman

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan (AP): It's a piece of America on the edge of Tokyo: Students play football after school. Mothers drive their kids to the neighborhood pool. Weekends mean barbecues in the backyard.

But there's a big difference -- the schools, homes and pools are paid for by the Japanese government.

Japan lays out more money as host to American military bases than any other country in the world, a distinction that is coming under more scrutiny these days in Japan as it faces persistent economic problems.

The U.S.-Japan agreement governing a major chunk of the annual bill -- which totals about US$5 billion -- expires in April 2001, and Tokyo is mounting a campaign for a discount during renewal talks that began Jan. 21.

Japan's reasoning is economic: When Tokyo started paying a larger share of the U.S. military's bills in the late 1970s, Japan's economy was on the rise while the United States was mired in financial troubles.

"But now it's the other way around, and some are beginning to wonder if it's necessary for us to maintain the same level as in the past," said Mikio Tsubokura, a spokesman for Japan's Defense Agency.

Defense chief Tsutomu Kawara broached the idea of a cut during a visit in early January by Defense Secretary William Cohen, but Washington is resisting any decrease.

As home to about 47,000 American servicemen and women, including the largest contingent of Marines overseas, Japan is the linchpin in the U.S. military posture in the western Pacific and Asia.

The bases also play a direct role in defending Japan. The country's postwar constitution limits its military, and Japan would have to bolster its defenses substantially if the Americans pulled out.

In return, Tokyo provides the U.S. military with large tracts of land rent-free, pays nearly all the salaries of civilian employees and most of the utility bills, and builds multimillion- dollar facilities like schools, housing and shopping centers.

Japan will also have to pay for a new U.S. helicopter base planned for Okinawa as part of a deal to close an air station on the island. That project could cost up to a reported 800 billion yen ($7.5 billion), because of the high costs for land in Japan.

"Cost sharing in support of stationed U.S. forces remains Japan's most significant ... contribution," a U.S. Department of Defense report told Congress last year. "Its host nation support is the most generous of any U.S. ally."

That contribution has also grown exponentially -- from 6.2 billion yen ($58.5 million) in 1978 to 267.8 billion yen ($2.53 billion) last year, according to Defense Agency numbers.

With indirect costs like rent-free land included, U.S. officials in Japan say Tokyo's support totaled just under $5 billion in 1998. That was about 75 percent of the cost of the bases, the Pentagon says.

At the sprawling U.S. air base at Yokota, which houses 3,000 American personnel, 7,000 dependents and others, talk of cutting Japanese funds is a sensitive issue.

Officials at Yokota would like to see Japan pay for more. They say money is needed to maintain a robust U.S. presence in Asia, and Tokyo's financing is just its part of a bargain that guarantees Japan an American security cover.

"This is a bilateral agreement," said Lt. Col. Billy Birdwell, spokesman for U.S. Forces, Japan. "It is mutual: They do something; we do something."

Besides, the U.S. military says, the part of Japan's funding earmarked by the Japanese parliament annually for construction and other projects -- about $1.3 billion a year -- is starting to decline significantly.

"Host nation support probably reached its zenith in 1995," said Col. Kirk M. Bergner, an engineer for the U.S. Army. "Overall, the trend is down."

Judging from the plentiful Japan-financed construction sites at Yokota, however, cash is still flowing in -- and buying a quality of life out of the reach of many Japanese.

Building has already begun on a $72.5 million shopping center to house a new commissary and other shops. Also planned is a $15.9 million recreation center with tennis courts and a swimming pool, and a $21.5 million middle school with an all-weather running track and football field.

A new duplex housing complex was recently finished. After school, American children splash in a 50-yard-long (50-meter- long) indoor pool, the centerpiece of a $7.5 million recreation project completed in 1996.

The whole base has an American feel to it, with wide streets, plentiful parking and lawns around housing complexes, a sharp contrast to the narrow streets and cramped quarters in the rest of Japan.

American military officers say they have to make the base as comfortable as the average soldier would find back home -- or risk losing recruits.

"It's an all-volunteer force," said Birdwell. "They'll just pack up and leave."