To ease tensions, the United States and Japan agreed in 2006 to relocate Futenma to a less populated area of Okinawa and move eight thousand Marines to Guam. But the agreement has not yet been reached. Many residents and local officials are opposed to keeping the base in Okinawa and voted against the relocation plan in early 2019. However, Abe insisted that relocation is imminent and that some Marines could be transferred in the coming years. The Trump administration has made a similar strategic adjustment with its free and open Indo-Pacific strategy, which analysts say is a recognition and response to China`s ambitions. The strategy includes the maintenance of peace and the rule of law, the strengthening of freedom of navigation at sea, respect for national sovereignty and the protection of open markets. Japan and the United States reaffirmed their commitment to these principles in a joint statement of April 2019 [PDF]. The UNITED States has also pushed for the revival of a security deal with Australia, India and Japan – the so-called quad – and has approved $1.5 billion a year for programs in Asia. The United States and Japan have also begun negotiations on a free trade agreement. A central issue in the debate over the continued U.S. military presence is the concentration of troops in the small Japanese prefecture of Okinawa. U.S.
military bases cover about one-fifth of Okinawa and serve about 75% of U.S. forces in Japan (Packard, 2010, Sumida, 2009). This has made many Okinawans feel that the security deal could be beneficial for the United States and Japan as a whole, but it`s stressful for residents of the small subtropical island. [Notice] Despite Okinawa`s strong opposition to the U.S. military presence on the island, the agreement also enjoyed strong support. Fear of a new imperialist Japan led its lawmakers to prohibit the maintenance of more than one self-defense force when they drafted the post-war constitution. As a result, Japan has never spent more than 1% of its GDP on military spending (Englehardt, 2010). In exchange for allowing the U.S. military presence in Japan, the U.S. agrees to defend Japan against foreign adversaries such as North Korea. In a 2006 agreement between the George W. Bush administration and the Japanese government, MCAS Futenma was to be transferred to the northern Okinawan city of Nago and 8,000 Marines and their dependents transferred to Guam (Packard, 2010).
However, the agreement received very little support from Okinawans. After spending several months thinking about the new location of the base, Yukio Hatoyama admitted to authorizing the initial deal and resigned immediately after saying he had not kept one of his promises. In 1960, the U.S.-Japan Agreement was revised, which gave the United States the right to establish bases on the archipelago in exchange for a commitment to defend Japan in the event of an attack. The bases gave the U.S. military its first permanent grip in Asia. Years later, the United States sparked protests in Japan using the bases to support combat operations during the Vietnam War. The 1954 Pact of Mutual Security Assistance initially included a military aid program that provided for Japan`s purchase of funds, materials and services for the nation`s essential defense. Although Japan stopped receiving aid from the United States in the 1960s, the agreement continued to serve as the basis for purchase and licensing agreements that ensured the interoperability of weapons from the two countries, and for the disclosure of secret data to Japan, including international intelligence reports and secret technical information. When the treaty was first signed, it contained provisions that allowed the United States to act to maintain peace in East Asia and even exercise power over Japanese disputes at home.
The latter part has been deleted in the revised version of the Treaty. The amended treaty included articles outlining mutual defense obligations and U.S. obligations to inform Japan prior to the mobilization of U.S. forces to mitigate the unequal status proposed in the 1952 treaty. [2] The Mutual Security Treaty between the United States and Japan, signed in 1951 with the Treaty of San Francisco, which officially ended World War II, was a ten-year renewable agreement that outlined how Japan, given its pacifist constitution, would allow U.S. forces to remain on its soil after Japan regained its sovereignty. This early pact was in line with the Yoshida Doctrine – a post-war strategy of Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida in which Japan relied on the United States for its security needs so that the country could focus on rebuilding its economy. According to a 2007 Okinawa Times poll, 73.4 percent of Japanese citizens valued the mutual security treaty with the United States and the presence of U.S. forces.
[10] In 2015, Japan, under the leadership of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, reinterpreted its constitution in a historic move that allowed its military to defend its allies for the first time, but under limited circumstances. .