Clinton weighs in on simmering dispute with Japan over future of US Marine base in Okinawa

Clinton accepts Japan’s delay on US base decision

HONOLULU — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday the Obama administration feels assured of Japan’s commitment to a continuing security alliance with the United States, even as Tokyo weighs abandoning a 2006 deal on a U.S. Marine air base.

“The Japanese government has explained the process they are pursuing to reach a resolution” on relocating the Futenma air station, “and we respect that,” she told a news conference after meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada at a Honolulu hotel.

Clinton apparently received no explicit promise from Okada that Japan would not force Futenma off its territory entirely. The U.S. military views Futenma as critical to its strategy for defending not only Japan but also reinforcing allied forces in the event of war on the Korean peninsula.

Okada told reporters that he reiterated his government’s pledge to reach a decision on relocation of Futenma by May. He said Tokyo would determine the future of the air station in a way that would have “minimal impact on the U.S.-Japan alliance.”

In a nod to Japanese sensitivities, Clinton said it was important for the U.S. to maintain its role in contributing to stability in the Asia-Pacific region while keeping in mind the need to reduce the impact of jet noise and other inconveniences to local communities near U.S. bases.

Clinton also delivered a speech designed to clarify the Obama administration’s views on modernizing the groupings of Asian and Pacific nations in ways that would enhance their cooperation on a wide range of issues, including regional security, trade and the environment.

Speaking on a hillside terrace at the East-West Center on the campus of the University of Hawaii, Clinton was met upon arrival by a few dozen protesters lining the street and shouting “End the wars!” and hoisting signs demanding that the U.S. withdraw its military forces from Okinawa. None attended the speech.

Clinton stressed that the first U.S. priority in the Asia-Pacific is to maintain the country-to-country alliances it already has, while exploring ways in which the United States can play a role in any new or reconfigured associations.

“The ultimate purpose of our cooperation should be to dispel suspicions that still exist as artifacts of the region’s turbulent past,” she said.

No country, including the U.S., should dominate in the region, she said. But the role of the United States is irreplaceable, she added.

“We can provide resources and facilitate cooperation in ways that other regional actors cannot replicate, or in some cases are not trusted to do.”

She described the region as a source of potential instability.

“Asia is home not only to rising powers, but also to isolated regimes; not only to long-standing challenges, but also unprecedented threats,” she said.

For decades the main U.S. ties to the Asia-Pacific region have been through security and trade agreements with individual countries, such as the 50-year-old security treaty with Japan that allows the basing of U.S. forces on Japanese territory.

The case of Futenma air station, on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, has become particularly sensitive. That it must be moved is not in dispute — the two countries signed a deal in 2006 to relocate it on the island. The problem is where to put it. And the U.S. position is that it cannot be shut down until a replacement is established elsewhere on Okinawa — an idea most Okinawans oppose.

A new left-leaning Japanese government that took office in September is reassessing the U.S.-Japan alliance.

It also is investigating agreements long hidden in government files that allowed nuclear-armed U.S. warships to enter Japanese ports, violating a hallowed anti-nuclear principle of postwar Japan. The findings are due out this month.

At her news conference with Okada, Clinton played down the friction over Futenma, stressing the many other areas of long-standing cooperation between the two countries. And she made clear that satisfying U.S. needs for the Marine base is equally in Japan’s own interest.

“We look to our Japanese allies and friends to follow through on their commitments, including on Futenma,” she said. “I know Japan understands and agrees that our security alliance is fundamental to the future of Japan and the region.”

The Hawaiian setting for Tuesday’s meeting, in the 50th year of the U.S.-Japan defense alliance, inevitably stirred memories of darker times. After her session with Okada, Clinton visited the World War II memorial to the sunken USS Arizona, which still lies in Pearl Harbor with its dead. She chatted briefly with two survivors and laid a wreath before a wall containing names of those who died on the ship.

Nearly 2,400 Americans were killed and almost 1,180 injured when Japanese fighters bombed and sank 12 naval vessels and heavily damaged nine others on Dec. 7, 1941. The Arizona, which sank in less than nine minutes after an armor-piercing bomb breached its deck and exploded in the ship’s ammunition magazine, lost 1,177 sailors and Marines. About 340 of its crew members survived.