Japan Aff Michigan 2010 / ccgjp lab – 7wks
Exts: US-Japan Relations [1/5] US-JAPAN RELATIONS STRAINED NOW BECAUSE OF US TROOP PRESENCE
Download 0.59 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- US-JAPAN RELATIONS STRAINED - US TROOP PRESENCE KEY
- Exts: US-Japan Relations [2/5]
Exts: US-Japan Relations [1/5]US-JAPAN RELATIONS STRAINED NOW BECAUSE OF US TROOP PRESENCESimpson, 2010 [Dan, a former U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor; “Let’s Draw Down Our Forces in Japan; As a matter of fact, we have way too many troops in way too many places,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 17; Accessed online at LN]America's relations with Japan are in a jumble on a number of fronts. The real problem, which nobody wants to address openly, is that 65 years after the end of World War II the United States still has some 50,000 troops in Japan. America is not very good at ending wars, particularly, it seems, those that it wins. In addition to the troops in Japan, there are 56,000 remaining in Germany, long after the end of World War II in Europe and two decades after the end of the Cold War. The United States maintains 28,000 troops in South Korea, 57 years after the end of the Korean War. The United States even continues to maintain a thousand troops in Cuba, which have been there since the 1898 Spanish-American War. (Residual troops will be a question worth watching in the wake of the Iraq war.) These various troop presences are usually justified in the name of grand strategy, although the argumentation becomes tortured. There is no argument for stationing troops in Cuba. Germany, Japan and South Korea are strong, wealthy, democratic states. Japan remains the world's second largest economy. Germany is the fourth, and firmly ensconced in NATO in terms of its defense.US-JAPAN RELATIONS STRAINED - US TROOP PRESENCE KEYSimpson, 2010 [Dan, a former U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor; “Let’s Draw Down Our Forces in Japan; As a matter of fact, we have way too many troops in way too many places,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 17; Accessed online at LN]The proximate cause of the disruption in U.S.-Japanese relations was the replacement last year of the Liberal Democratic Party, which had ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955, by the Japanese Democratic Party. It isn't that the JDP is anti-American. It is rather that, as a new party in power, it is quite normal for it to look sharply at some of the basic principles that governed Japanese policy during the 53 years of LDP rule. One of these was Japan's relationship with the United States. An integral part of that -- perhaps the central pole of it -- is the presence of the U.S. troops in Japan. That presence is the cornerstone of a sense on the part of the Japanese that the United States remains fundamentally responsible for their national security. There is friction on an interpersonal basis. When I was stationed at the American Embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland, one of the issues between the United States and Iceland was the presence of some 5,000 U.S. troops at an airbase on the island. To avoid problems, the American service members were discouraged from traveling around the country. In Japan, most of the U.S. troops are on the island of Okinawa, where, from time to time they are involved in accidents; murders; rapes; air, water and noise pollution; and other sources of misunderstanding. The current focus of disagreement between the two countries militarily is the question of relocating a Marine base on the island of Okinawa. According to a 2006 agreement, some of the Marines are scheduled to move to the U.S. island of Guam in 2014, at a cost to the Japanese of $6 billion. (The U.S. troop presence in Japan costs its government an estimated $4 billion a year.) The JDP government also annoyed the administration of President Barack Obama recently by ending Japan's 8-year-old refueling mission in Afghanistan. Another point of sensitivity are the "secret treaties," which dealt inter alia with the introduction into Japanese waters of nuclear weapons on U.S. warships, in violation of Japan's no-nuclear policy, which began with the U.S. nuclear attacks in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Exts: US-Japan Relations [2/5]American stubbornness on Okinawa issue is destroying relationsRogin, 2010, [Josh Rogin, 5/4/2010, Foreign Policy Magazine, “Japanese lawmaker: Obama pushing us toward China”, http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/05/japanese_lawmaker_obama_pushi ng_us_toward _china] When Barack Obama met briefly with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on the sidelines of last month's nuclear summit, he asked the Japanese leader to follow through on his promise to resolve the U.S.-Japan dispute over relocating the Marine Corps base on Okinawa. But as Hatoyama's self-imposed May deadline approaches, it doesn't look like the prime minister is going to be able to deliver, and some Japanese lawmakers are now going public with their criticism of the way the Obama administration has handled the issue. One of them is Kuniko Tanioka, a member of Japan's upper house of parliament and the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, and a close advisor to Hatoyama. During a visit to Washington Tuesday, Tanioka leveled some of the harshest criticism from a Japanese official to date of the Obama team's handling of the Futenma issue, which is still unresolved despite months of discussions. "We are worried because the government of the United States doesn't seem to be treating Prime Minister Hatoyama as an ally," she told an audience at the East-West Center. "The very stubborn attitude of no compromise of the U.S. government on Futenma is clearly pushing Japan away toward China and that is something I'm very worried about." Some Japan hands in Washington see Tanioka as marginal, a left-wing backbencher who just recently entered Japanese politics in 2007. But she is close to Hatoyama and serves as the "vice manager" for North America inside the DPJ's internal policy structure.
Since then, Pentagon and State Department officials have been conducting quiet negotiations, but the administration is still waiting for the Japanese side to propose a detailed alternative to the current plan. Meanwhile, huge protests in Okinawa have constrained Hatoyama's room for maneuver -- and Tanioka said the United States was partly to blame. "It seems to us Japanese that Obama is saying ‘You do it, you solve, it's your problem,'" she said, noting that public opinion polls in Japan show increasing dissatisfaction with the presence of U.S. military forces there. Obama should have granted Hatoyama a bilateral meeting during the recent nuclear summit if he is really concerned about Futenma, she said, not just a passing conversation at dinner. "If it is such a serious problem, then he should have sat down. If it's not so serious of a problem, he should say so." Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 0.59 Mb. Share with your friends:
|