By The relocation nonsense on Okinawa is continuing:
With his self-imposed deadline looming, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is having a tough time selling any plan for relocating air units from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
On Wednesday, he was rebuffed by politicians from Tokunoshima, an island 125 miles north of Okinawa.
During a meeting with Diet member Takeshi Tokuda and his father, Torao, a former Diet member, Hatoyama disclosed he was thinking of proposing 1,000 Marines from Okinawa be stationed at the island’s airport, a spokesman for Tokuda told Stars and Stripes on Wednesday evening.
“Although it was not clear whether the move means the transfer of units or just training, they rejected the prime minister’s idea,” he said.
The meeting took place in Torao Tokuda’s Tokyo home.
Hatoyama has not publicly divulged details of his plan, for which he has set an end-of-May deadline to announce and agree on with the United States. On Tuesday, he said he was putting the “final touches” on it. [Stars & Stripes]
Read the rest of the article at the link, but Hatoyama’s popularity was above 70% when he was elected and has since then slid below 25%. This guy truly is the 2nd coming of Roh Moo-hyun and like Roh I doubt he will resign.
What is really bad about all this is that it was a self imposed headache by Hatoyama. The relocation deal had long been signed between the two countries and he decided not to honor it. Now he is finding how difficult it was to come up with the past agreement and by tearing it up without a better alternative he has not only pissed off the American government, but the Japanese public as well.
6:25 am on May 1st, 2010 1
Just pack up and leave. I guess that just about leaves the US military no where to go in Asia.
9:45 am on May 2nd, 2010 2
Move over Tom comming into you backyard. Make room!!haha. I guess it must suck to be from a country that need a foreign military presence to assert their sovereignty. Its kind of ironic. I guess if these countries really wanted the U.S military out they could do it. It's been done before.
11:11 pm on May 2nd, 2010 3
It was boneheaded populism from Hatoyama.
There’s only so much more room on Guam, and the US brass isn’t going to want all their eggs on one easy-to-nuke Guam-basket anyway.
So if not Futenma, then where; someone is Japan is going to have to put up with the US Air Force as a neighbour, and if not there, then someone in San Francisco! If Hatoyama doesn’t want the US military around then he should just come out and say so, if he does want them around then let the deal go as agreed. Someone is going to end up getting pissed off, no matter what he decides, but by failing to decide he’s just pissing off everyone.
And if he decides he doesn’t want the US military around then Japan better get ready, because Asia will hit full-blown arms race mode.
11:57 pm on May 2nd, 2010 4
Japan became a developed country by opening their country to the west, but it seems that now they are going the opposite direction by isolating themselves from the rest of the world.
Political and commercial xenophobia is going to ruin this country. Good news for Korea.
10:52 pm on May 28th, 2010 5
Japan has many problems but hostility to the United States is not one of them. China is doing very well with no American troops at all