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Two factors have driven the debate over the planned U.S. military realignment in Japan: campaign pledges made by the Democratic Party of Japan and complaints from Okinawans about the presence of the U.S. military. These factors have had a particularly strong impact on efforts to preserve the Marine Corps Air Station on Okinawa. However, other critical factors national interests, regional threats, and the U.S.–Japan alliance’s military requirements are absent from the discussion over the station’s scheduled relocation from Futenma to a more remote locale. The Obama Administration should continue to press Japan for implementation of the military realignment agreement. It is past time for Tokyo to jettison its passive consensus-building approach and take more assertive steps.
JAPAN LOOKS AT NEW BASE RELOCATION OPTION Submitted by admin on Mon, 03/08/2010 - 00:00
Futenma troops would move to new Okinawa site
By Therese Hart HAGATNA, Guam (Pacific Daily News, ) – The Japanese government has conveyed to the United States that Tokyo will not go through with an existing plan to relocate a U.S. Marine base in Okinawa.
Citing several Japanese-U.S. sources, Kyodo News reported that Japan has now begun considering in earnest an alternative plan to reclaim an area between the U.S. Navy facility on White Beach in Uruma and Tsuken Island off the main island of Okinawa.