Sub crash may damage Japan-U.S. ties

By Jon Herskovitz

TOKYO (Reuters): The accidental sinking of a trawler by a U.S. submarine off Hawaii has left Japanese bewildered and may give further pause for thought over the need to station tens of thousands of U.S. troops on their soil.

While hopes fade for the nine missing Japanese, including four 17-year-old fisheries students believed entombed in their sunken vessel, recriminations against the U.S. military are stirring back home.

"I am waiting for answers from the United States as to how this accident happened," said a grandmother of one of the missing boys.

The timing of last Friday's accident could not have been worse. It came days after the chief of U.S. military forces on Japan's southern island of Okinawa apologized to his hosts for calling them "nuts" and "wimps".

"No one on the Japanese side has actually defended the U.S. military exercises and presence," said Yoichi Funabashi, chief diplomatic correspondent for the national daily Asahi Shimbun, speaking of Japan's response since the tragedy late on Friday.

In fact the accident may help to spread sentiment against the U.S. bases further across Japan and beyond the narrow confines of southernmost Okinawa where most of the resentment -- and the troops -- have so far been concentrated.

The "nuts" and "wimps" remark has sparked anger among Okinawa islanders who still remember the rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. servicemen in 1995 that led to a strong backlash against the U.S. military.

"The strong resentment against the bases has been confined to Okinawans in the past, but over the last decade or so it has expanded to the Japanese on the mainland," Funabashi said.

Okinawa is home to 26,000 of the 48,000 U.S. military based in Japan, the backbone of a presence that helps project U.S. forces half way around the world to the Gulf and the Middle East.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who began his term by pledging to strengthen military ties with Japan, instead finds himself having to issue a round of apologies for the submarine tragedy.

It was his first major contact with their main Asian ally.

The apologies will be accepted, but will hardly allay the sense of outrage and bewilderment that many Japanese feel.

How could the world's most advanced military nation allow such an accident to happen, many ask.

One image of the accident played repeatedly on Japanese television is that of the captain of the training trawler, Hisao Onishi, breaking down in tears at a news conference in Hawaii.

Onishi fired a volley at the U.S. military when he said the crew of the Greenville did "little to help" while his Ehime Maru sank within minutes after being struck by the submarine.

An hour after his ship was sunk, the only rescue efforts offered by the Greenville came when it lowered a rope ladder.

"We waited for the Coast Guard," he said.

The financial daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said in an editorial on Monday that, with the apologies tendered and investigations under way, U.S.-Japan relations will be put to the test over how the two countries handle the accident from now on.

"There is no doubt that the U.S. submarine is at fault," it said. "It is important how both countries handle the incident."

"While there is the tragedy of the event, even more than this the U.S. and Japan must build their relations and their crisis management."

First to hear an outpouring of criticism may not be the U.S. military but Japan's highly unpopular Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, already under fire from politicians and the press for deciding to finish a game of golf after hearing of the accident.

Editorials accused Mori of failing to understand or to manage a crisis. Newspapers noted that Japanese prime ministers during the 1990-1991 Gulf War, the devastating earthquake in Kobe in 1995 and up to today had failed to show effective crisis management.

"People are so sick and tired of this (Mori's) amateuristic and nonchalant way of governing," Funabashi said.

While Mori was golfing, the United States was quick in offering its apologies, analysts said. Bush, key members of his cabinet and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Foley all expressed remorse to Japan within hours.

Washington and Tokyo have said their relationship stands on three legs -- security, economics and politics -- which must be balanced to keep the relationship level.

Former President Bill Clinton was often criticized by policy makers in Tokyo -- and by Bush when he was a presidential candidate -- for tilting ties by emphasizing the economic leg.

Last October, a bipartisan group of senior U.S. foreign policy experts concluded the relationship between the United States and Japan had "wandered, losing its focus and coherence".

Expectations were high in Japan that security ties would be given a boost under Bush.

Now he must not only build up the security leg of ties with Japan, but win support from the public for the U.S. military presence. He must win over people such as Kazumitsu Joko, a vice principal of the fisheries school whose students are lost.

"I have not heard of any anti-U.S. feelings (among people at the school). But the investigation is just starting and there are still many details we don't know," Joko said.