Japan threatens Asian stability

Japan threatens Asian stability

Opposition to the United States' military bases in Japan
continues to escalate, particularly in Okinawa -- and Japanese
politicians have made an inadequate response to it. Our Asia
correspondent Harvey Stockwin suggests that, as was once the case
in the Philippines, so now in Japan, the political foundations
for the U.S. presence, thought by many to be vital for regional
security, are weakening.

HONG KONG (JP): To the ongoing Taiwan Straits Crisis, and the
ongoing Korean Crisis, add another: the crisis which threatens
regional security in East Asia because of the absence of
leadership within Japan.

The anti-bases movement in Japan, and particularly in Okinawa,
where the majority of U.S. military installations in Japan are
sited, is once again flourishing. Japanese politicians are doing
a poor job explaining to the electorate why such agitation is
scarcely in Japan's interests right now. In fact, they are doing
nothing, even though it remains official Japanese security policy
that the U.S. military presence is essential.

The latest maneuvers by the anti-bases movement are aimed at
disrupting the very large circular signals antenna in Yomitan,
central Okinawa, run by the U.S. Navy. Once the U.S. military
had a similar intelligence-gathering antenna, called an "elephant
cage" because of its size, at Clark Air Base in the Philippines
but that was lost when the U.S. was forced to withdraw from the
Philippines in 1993.

On March 31, the lease ran out on one small 236-square-meter
plot of land among the many such plots which comprise the
530,000-square-meter area upon which the Yomitan facility is
built. The small plot belongs to Shoichi Chibana, one of the
leaders of those opposing the continuance of U.S. bases in
Okinawa. He refuses to renew the lease on this small plot. He
will not take payment for it. Instead he wants to "visit" his
property. So far, he has been prevented from doing so.

Anxious to avoid a growing headache, on March 26 the Japanese
authorities charged with helping the Americans sustain their
bases, the Defense Facilities Administration Agency and the
police arrived at the elephant cage in force, and hurriedly
constructed a high fence around it.

This essentially defensive action was coupled with equally
defensive legal maneuverings. As a result of a case brought by
the Japanese government, the Naha branch of the Fukuoka High
Court ordered the Okinawa prefectural governor to sign the
extension of the leases of base lands. The Governor refused.
He has not been charged with contempt of court. Instead, Prime
Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto signed the renewed leases.

Whether these compulsory extensions will enable the Yomitan
facility to go on doing its work, or will only grant temporary
legal relief is not yet clear. The controversy over U.S. land
use in Okinawa, because of the bases, seems certain to escalate.
Apart from Chibana, there are 2,900 other landowners who are
reportedly refusing to accept lease extensions and are instead
demanding that their property, dotted around many U.S. bases, be
given back.

The potential seriousness of this situation can be gauged from
the fact that until recently the conventional wisdom was that the
landowners would do no such thing. While anti-bases feeling has
long been considerable in Okinawa, the bases were sustained by
the fact that the landowners grew relatively rich earning
substantial rents from their often small plots. It was thought
that they would therefore not be inclined to rock the boat.

But now they are rocking it. On the surface, the controversy
gained renewed thrust in the middle of 1995 when three U.S.
Marines raped a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl, thereby reviving
and reinvigorating the anti-bases movement in Japan.

Beneath the surface, the political foundations of regional
security in East Asia are cracking. Since the closure of the two
giant U.S. bases in the Philippines, the East Asian power balance
has become peculiarly dependent on the U.S. bases in Japan.

This is a responsibility which Japanese politicians have, so
far, been unable to bear. So the U.S. military presence in East
Asia rests on weak political foundations.

On the one hand, the importance and utility of the bases is
increasing. On the other hand, Japanese prime ministers and
politicians seem incapable of explaining that importance to the
Japanese people.

To take only one small but vital example. The prime minister
could request 20 minutes of air-time from all Japanese television
and radio stations, and use it to explain the wider ramifications
of the bases issue.

The trouble is that speaking directly to the electorate on
crucial issues is not something that Japanese prime ministers do
very often. In fact, I cannot recall any Japanese prime minister
using such channels since Gen. Douglas MacArthur revived
democratic forms within Japan exactly 50 years ago.

Of course, Japanese prime ministers make speeches in the Diet,
and elsewhere, which are sometimes broadcast -- but that is
different from a prime minister speaking straight to the whole
electorate, in order to secure a greater degree of national
consensus on a vital issue.

A Japanese prime ministerial "fireside chat" would have been
particularly relevant in the last two weeks. Without any
exaggeration, the prime minister could have started off his
remarks by stating that it is matter of deep concern in Japan
that a Chinese ballistic missile recently landed to the north of
Japanese territory.

The Chinese missile which test-landed to the east of the
Taiwan port of Keelung was generally thought to have landed well
to the south of Japan. Actually it splashed down north of Japan's
southernmost Sakishima Islands, which end to the east of Taiwan.

Whatever else this meant, it clearly signaled that the
Japanese could no longer afford to be ostriches in relation to
regional security matters. But these wider issues are apparently
of no concern to those Japanese opposing the U.S. bases.

The regional stability, which Japan has taken for granted for
so long, is now much less certain.

For a start, 50 years after the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, nuclear weapons are still being tested in the region.
France belatedly heeded the protests of Japan and other nations,
and brought its reduced series of tests at Mururoa Atoll to a
permanent conclusion.

China, to the contrary, is not merely insisting that it must
continue nuclear testing. Beijing is also jeopardizing the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, now being negotiated in Geneva, by
insisting that it should have the right to indulge in "peaceful
nuclear explosions" even after any such treaty comes into effect.

Secondly, there is the continuing Cold War on the Korean
peninsula, long after the Cold War was supposed to have ended.
Additionally, there is the uncertain state of affairs in North
Korea which, like communist countries in Eastern Europe a few
years ago, could be in danger of collapse. North Korea may be
facing famine but it is still trying to demolish the Korean
armistice agreement under which peace has been maintained since
1953.

Third, there is the increased tension in the Taiwan Straits,
plus the unusual measures recently adopted by China in an effort
to intimidate Taiwan immediately prior to its first popular
presidential election.

At one level, increased regional uncertainty means that the
U.S.-Japan Security Treaty is more vital than ever. The
overwhelming majority of the Japanese ruling elite believe it is
essential that the U.S.-Japan security treaty should be
maintained.

At another level, Japan's political leaders have done very
little to defend that treaty against the attacks of those many
Japanese isolationists in the anti-bases movement. Despite some
U.S. pleas for leadership, there has been none. Political
momentum lies, by default, with the anti-bases movement, composed
of leftists, who could never win a majority in a general
election, and Okinawans who hate the disdainful way in which they
are often treated by mainland Japanese.

A worst-case scenario could leave the Americans trying to
sustain military operations in both the Taiwan Straits and Korea
from their bases in Japan, while Japan's indecisive politicians
hesitate to allow them to do so, and the anti-bases movement
tries to hamper the use of those bases.

A recent headline in the Daily Yomiuri raised an as yet
unanswered doubt --- "Taiwan Crisis Raises Question: What Kind Of
Alliance Do Japan, U.S. have?"

The simple answer is -- nothing as strong as it should be.

Window: The regional stability, which Japan has taken for granted for
so long, is now much less certain.