Published: January 19 2010 06:40 | Last updated: January 19 2010 10:50
By Daniel Dombey in Washington and Mure Dickie in Tokyo
The US and Japan on Tuesday hailed the 50th anniversary of one of the world’s most successful alliances – but left unresolved a dispute over a controversial marine base relocation plan clouding ties between the Pacific foes-turned-friends.
A joint declaration on the golden anniversary of the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security made no mention of the differences over the plan to move the Futenma air base on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa. Instead, it celebrated "shared values" and "common interests", promised to further build an "unshakeable alliance" and "intensified" dialogue.
The lack of any direct mention of Futenma highlights a shared desire not to let the dispute fuel doubts about a partnership that has been a pillar of regional stability.
Indeed, since Tokyo’s new Democratic party government last month shrugged off heavy and sometimes brusque US pressure to push ahead with the planned move of the Futenma Marine air base, Washington has responded not with rhetorical escalation, but with a marked softening of its diplomatic tone.
After a meeting with her Japanese counterpart last week, Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, made clear that Washington still wanted Futenma moved to a new site in Okinawa’s scenic Henoko Bay, but took pains to be polite about the DPJ administration’s decision to spend months considering possible alternatives.
“We are respectful of the process that the Japanese government is going through,” Ms Clinton said, adding that the US had an “appreciation” for the difficult issues faced by the DPJ and Yukio Hatoyama, Japan’s new prime minister.
Such comments contrast sharply with those of Robert Gates, US defence secretary, in October when he testily told Japanese hosts it was “time to move on” with the Henoko move, which is widely unpopular in Okinawa and among DPJ members.
They also lack the urgency of the demands for “expeditious” implementation of the move voiced by Barack Obama, US president, in Tokyo in November.
One senior US official told the Financial Times that the administration is ready to listen if Tokyo’s review comes up with alternatives to moving the base from the centre of a busy city to less populated Henoko.
“We will not dismiss out of hand anything they come to us with simply on the basis that we have [already] negotiated an agreement,” the official said.
The softer tone comes amid concern that dispute over Futenma could undermine the wider relationship founded on the 1960 treaty, under which the US essentially agreed to defend Japan in return for the right to base its forces on the archipelago.
While arguing that the relationship will remain strong no matter the outcome of the dispute, Washington says that neither it nor Tokyo wants the Futenma affair to define the future of their alliance.
However, the US official insisted that willingness to listen does not mean any change to the US view that the planned site in Henoko, located in Okinawa’s Nago City, was the “best option”.
Some of Mr Hatoyama’s own cabinet colleagues agree, but pressure against the move within Japan may well grow in the weeks to come, especially if an anti-base candidate wins next week’s Nago mayoral election.
Some DPJ members are keen to push alternatives, with party heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa recently offering the surprise proposal that Futenma could be moved off Okinawa to the much smaller Shimoji Island hundreds of kilometres south.
Many in Japan doubt that the new government will be able to come up with a credible alternative to the concluded Henoko deal, part of a wider “alignment” of US forces under which around 8,000 of the around 18,000 US marines on Okinawa would be relocated to the US territory of Guam.
And any further Japanese delays would exacerbate longstanding annoyance in the US defence and diplomatic establishments, where some already feel their primary Asian partner has been enjoying something of a security free ride.
“It’s important that allies and partners accept that they are going to have to bear some burdens for an alliance to work,” said the senior US official.
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