Before Christmas, a contingent of 105 American marinas sent to Okinawu were diverted to a new base on the territory of the United States Guam. A little diverting marked a great turning point: this was the first time the Marines had cut their heads on Okinawa as part of the Washington and Tokyo Agreement to reduce the American military presence on the island of the Pacific, dating from World War II.
According to the agreement, 9,000 Marines should be left – just under half of the force currently on the island. But their departure has been behind the original schedule for two decades and may not happen for more than a decade, until the construction of replacement bases is completed.
Their diverting has been agreed in The deal signed 12 years agoThe result of the negotiations and negotiations that are initiated until 1995, when three US soldiers raped a school schoolchild in Okinava. This crime touched the mass protests forced by the United States and Japan to agree on the reduction of US bases, which were built after the United States invaded Okinawa during the bloody battle in 1945.
The first iteration of the Agreement, agreed in 1996, was to reduce the burden within five to seven years by building an air base on the northern end of the island to replace the existing in a crowded city. Generation later, the old airport remains in use, and is new to the end of at least 12 years.
While some islanders become impatient, this state of constant delay seems fine with the governments of the United States and Japan, which have a great geopolitical reason – the rise of China – because they want to keep the marinas.
“So ten years later, only a hundred marinas moved,” he said Christopher B. JohnstoneFormer director of northeast Asia at the Office of Minister of Defense, who helped to conduct negotiations on the current agreement from 2013. “Both sides know that things are not moving forward, but none of the side is stimulated for action.”
The urgency of the movement of the Marines was undermined because China increasingly felt its presence with military exercises. The Japanese Ministry of Defense reported last week tracking four Chinese sailing warships between Okinawa and a nearby island.
The growing Chinese presence is felt in Tokyo and Washington, but also in Naha, the capital of Okinawan, where tourists who speak Chinese language are crowded Kocusai Dori, the main shopping street. Conservatives who take a more favorable view of the US base as a protective presence that also delivers up to the necessary jobs.
While the demonstrations against the base are still attracted to hundreds of shouting protesters, many appear with walking buckets. Junior okinavans are more likely to be found in shopping centers like American villagewhere they hang out with American staff and their families.
There are still a lot of ornate that are furious to the base. They blame Tokyo as much as Washington, saying that the American presence proves that Japan is still looking at their island – which was an independent kingdom until the 19th century – as little more than the inner colony. The current governor, Denny Tamaki, was the leading opponent of the base, but he and his predecessor eventually slowed down the process of reducing the American presence by refusing permits and seeking court orders to block the construction of the new airport airpope. Last month, Japanese Supreme Court rejected his last lawsuitCleaning ways to build.
“Maintenance of the base puts over the burden of the nation of Okinawa,” said Mr. Tamaki, a former social worker whose father was an American marine. “The pressure that puts us, in the form of crime and noise and accident, is a kind of structural discrimination.”
Still, thinking in the capital of the two nations clearly moved. When the original contract was signed, the United States was not unquestionable in the Western Pacific. The Chinese army could now put Okinawa in a light rocket range, and North Korea also built a nuclear arsenal.
Japan would be on the front line of any conflict in Taiwan, which is in the form of the southernmost island in the Okinawan chain. In 2022. The Chinese military exercise is intended to be intimidated by the island that only a rule threw rockets into the water near Japan.
“We all recognize that the world has changed since the 1990s,” said Kevin Maher, a former US diplomat who was Consul General Okinawe. “That’s why people think, ‘Oh, do Marines have to actually start moving? “
Still, Mr. Maher and many other US officials say the current plan is still the best option. Recent incidents like Four reported sexual attacks by US soldiers last year Emphasize the risk of renewed anger on the American base, and Tokyo has a little stomach to reopen the tortured contract.
Japanese Prime Minister, Shiger Ishiba, repeated his commitment to the current plan during Meeting last week with President Trumpaccording to the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Mr. Ishiba said earlier that the gap left by the Marines who left could fill in Japanese forces or the common base.
“We will continue to work to reduce the basic cargo,” said Mr. Ishiba last month during the equivalent of speech of the top union. But he added that “As the balance of power in the region passes a historical shift, we must continue to provide regional obligations of the United States.”
Japan does not rush to complete the relocation, the central part of which remained a new airport at Camp Schwabu, an American installation for an hour north of the existing air base it will replace.
Water filled with coral outside the Schwab camp are now occupied with large boats that create the surface of the landfill five times larger than the Pentagon building. Here, V -shaped runways will one day host helicopters and Osprey rotating aircraft rotor, relocated from Marine Corps futtenm air station in dense housing in Ginowan.
During Okinawi’s visit in December to mark the relocation of the first Marines, at that time the Japanese defense minister said the airport would not be ready for use at least 2036. – 40 years after the first construction agreement.
Slow progress reflects the overall deficiency of Japan’s urgency, said Hiromori MaedomariProfessor at the Okinawa International University who teaches the questions that set military bases. “Japan wants to keep the status of quo marinas as long as possible, even if it means that Okinawa is a cost,” he said.
Other parts of the relocation plan only now enter the full momentum.
At Camp Foster on the south half of the island, two dozen cranes build a new headquarters, schools and housing, part of a plan to concentrate on the Americans on this base, allowing other bases to be closed.
“Finally it happens,” said Colonel Leroy Bryant Butler, a marine managing construction projects. “We have not seen this level of construction here since the 1950s, when these base was built.”
Marinci will also move to the base in north of Okinawa, far from crowded inhabitants. About two -thirds of the American bases on the southern part of the island will eventually be abandoned, including the logistical center filled with warehouses, a seafood and a funeral air base.
Japan is a construction cost of about $ 1.5 billion a year. This is with $ 2.8 billion that Tokyo spent to build a new database on Guam, Camp Blaz, that was open last month And he should accommodate about half of the marinas leaving Okinaw.
However, the Marines did not secretly reduce their forces and refused to secure the schedule. If the conflict breaks out, the infantry in Guam would probably have to fight Japan against the enemy who can cause American air and sea superiority.
“Japan is now in a weapon engagement zone,” said Wallace Gregson, a retired chief lieutenant, who commanded the sea forces at Okinawa. “We need to change the conversation into problems that are relevant 2025.”
Kiuko Notoy contributed to reporting.
