ASIA: Public Pressure to Shape U.S. Military Presence in Region
By Tim Shorrock
WASHINGTON, Oct 4 — A combination of public opposition and financial instability is creating pressures on the United States and its Asian allies to scale down the number of U.S. bases and military personnel in North-east Asia, analysts of Asian politics and U.S. foreign policy say.
But populist concerns about the heavy U.S. presence in South Korea and Japan are growing at a time when the U.S. military is adding to its forward-bases posture in Asia and the Japanese government is contemplating a deeper military alliance with the United States in the wake of the Sep. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.
"A definite policy challenge is looming for the governments of the region and the United States," said Kent Calder, director of a programme on U.S.-Japan relations at Princeton University and the special adviser to two recent U.S. ambassadors to Japan, Walter Mondale and Tom Foley.
"Political competition is leading to pressure against U.S. bases across a whole range of countries," he pointed out.
"There sure is a major rise of populism which demands reduction of the U.S. forward deployment in Japan," added Yoichi Kato, a staff writer for the 'Asahi Shimbun' newspaper and a visiting research fellow at the National Defense University and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"The role of the (U.S.-Japan) alliance in terms of defending Japan is being questioned seriously," he added.
Calder and Kato spoke here at a forum on Asian populism and U.S. bases sponsored by Japan's Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
The forum took place two days after the Department of Defense issued its Quadrennial Defense Review, a blueprint for U.S. military policy and strategy. This year's report, issued in the wake of the Sep. 11 attacks, emphasises "homeland defense" of the U.S. mainland and the need to maintain a "forward deterrent posture" in critical areas around the world, including East Asia.
Without specifically naming China, the report makes it clear the U.S. military intends to maintain enough forces in Asia to keep the Chinese military in check. "Asia is gradually emerging as a region susceptible to large-scale military competition," the report stated.
"The possibility exists that a military competitor with a formidable resource base will emerge in the region. The East Asian littoral — from the Bay of Bengal to the Sea of Japan — represents a particularly challenging area," the report explained.
To prepare for this challenge, the review calls for the U.S. Navy to increase its aircraft carrier battlegroup presence in the Western Pacific and study "options for homeporting an additional three to four surface combatants and guided cruise missile submarines".
That will add to the already formidable firepower at the U.S. naval base at Yokosuka, Japan, which is home to the Kitty Hawk, the only aircraft carrier based outside the United States.
The United States, the review stated, "will maintain its critical bases in Western Europe and North-east Asia, which may also serve the additional role of hubs for power projection in future contingencies in other areas of the world".
In Asia, those forward bases include Kadena in Okinawa, the largest U.S. Air Force base outside the U.S. mainland, and, on Okinawa, one of the U.S. Marine's three rapid deployment forces. Key U.S. bases in South Korea include U.S. Army installations.
In Europe, U.S. forces dropped from 250,000 during the Cold War to less than 85,000 today. But in Asia, the U.S. military structure is "largely unchanged", noted Calder, and in the last five years, "they've become even more forward-deployed".
But during that time, changes in the politics of host countries and economic shifts in Asia have altered the strategic landscape, creating the pressures that Calder and Kato now see as threatening to the U.S. military position in Asia.
In Korea, the relaxation of tensions between North and South as well as negotiations between the North and the U.S. government have substantially "reduced the (South) Korean sense of threat," Calder said.
That, combined with much greater political freedoms in a country once dominated by authoritarian military governments, is likely to make Koreans "less inhibited" and "more confrontational" about the impact of U.S. bases, he said.
That can already be seen in local movements opposed to a U.S. bombing range and the recent renegotiation of the Status of Forces Agreement with the United States.
Similarly, political discourse in Japan has widened as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has lost political status with the public, culminating with the election by the party's rank-and-file of reformist Junichiro Koizumi over party elder Ryutaro Hashimoto.
Japan's faltering economy and corruption have also eroded the reputation of the once-powerful Ministry of Finance. On a local level, that has opened political space for NGOs in cities outside of Okinawa to criticise the presence of bases near their cities, Calder said.
In Okinawa itself, where nearly 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan are located, anti-base sentiment remains high despite the attention paid by U.S. policymakers to the problems on the island. In 1995, the rape of a Okinawan girl by a U.S. marine triggered a crisis in U.S.-Japan relations. Six years later, the situation remains so volatile that another rape "would drive the alliance to almost collapse", said Kato.
In addition, Japan's deep financial problems and its decade-long recession are raising serious doubts among the Japanese public about the five billion U.S. dollars Japan spends every year to support the U.S. bases.
As the Japanese government embarks on a structural reform programme that is shifting economic policy from one of distribution of wealth to one of distribution of burdens, Kato said, "it's only natural that people ask 'are we getting a fair deal or being taken advantage of?' "
The LDP, which includes factions that are anti- and pro- American, is in a serious dilemma, Kato said, because of a "lack of plausible rationale for the alliance".
During the Cold War, a close military alliance could be justified by threats posed by the Soviet Union or North Korea. But with the Soviet Union long gone and dangers in Korea fading, the new threat has been explained as transnational terrorism. "But against (terrorism), the existing alliance is of little use," he said.
In Kato's view, Tokyo "should come out and say China is the reason for the alliance. If they talk of China as a potential target, people would really support it."
On the other hand, recent newspaper polls about the Koizumi government's decision to deploy Japanese Self-Defense Forces in support of U.S. military action in response to the Sep. 11 attacks show a deep ambivalence about Japan becoming a military power.
An 'Asahi' poll shows that 42 percent support the new mission, while 46 percent are opposed. Said Kato: "This shows the people are not yet sure Japan should take on a military role." (IPS/2001)
