Japan To Spend $518M On Guam Buildup Next Year

But Tokyo Holds Back On Futenma Replacement Funding

Written by Jeff Marchesseault, Guam News Factor Staff Writer

GUAM - A financial news service reports that while Japan will hold off on substantial FY10 spending for the relocation of a U.S. airbase in Okinawa, it will spend more than half a billion dollars in 2010 for constructing U.S. military installations in Guam. That, according to iStockAnalyst.com. About 8,600 Marines and their 9,000 dependents are scheduled to transfer from Okinawa to Guam by 2014.

Japan's appropriation is undoubtedly welcome news to Washington, especially after word broke in mid-December that the new coalition government in Tokyo would delay until May its decision on whether to honor a 2006 U.S.-Japan security accord for the region. This document spells out an arrangement in which Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is to be relocated from Okinawa's crowded Ginowan City to remote Cape Henoko near Camp Schwab in Nago, Okinawa. The same agreement stipulates that nearly 20,000 Futenma personnel including Marines and their families will move to Guam.

Tokyo's $518 million in FY10 support for the partial move to Guam looks promising as a boon for Guam's buildup, as a pressure-release valve for Ginowan, and as a signal to Washington that Japan appreciates the critical, time-sensitive nature of the Okinawa-Guam transfer. After all, Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway remarked recently that Japan's delay tactics on Futenma's replacement were compromising the stability of the region.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama reportedly admitted on Friday that the 'option' of moving all of Futenma's operations to Guam is no longer even a consideration. According to ZeeNews.com, Hatoyama explained on Saturday:

"It looks as though having everything at Futemma transferred to the US territory of Guam is unrealistic in light of the deterrence" provided by the US military, Hatoyama said.

Hatoyama's pronouncement may lend qualified encouragement to an Obama-backed diplomatic corps exasperated by what they see as Tokyo's intransigence for refusing to commit to the 2006 accord, even as plans are fast afoot to begin building up Guam for the realignment by as early as next summer.

Domestically, the pressure is on the Hatoyama Administration to find an alternative replacement site for Futenma. According to the Wall Street Journal, an upcoming January 24 mayoral election in Nago has come to be viewed as a de facto referendum on the U.S. military's presence in Japan. The sitting mayor is in favor of building the airbase in Nago, his challenger opposes the idea. There is a swelling notion in Okinawa and in government that other parts of Japan should begin shouldering a larger share of the responsibility of hosting U.S. bases in Japan.

However, the U.S. remains firm in its stance that there is no alternative to moving the airbase now in Futenma to Camp Schwab. And the U.S. has insisted that until Japan's new government sees fit to honor the bilateral agreement to make the internal move within Okinawa, the transfer of Marines to Guam can't happen.

Read the iStockAnalyst.com story, "Japan to forgo earmarking spending for new airfield in Okinawa", December 25, 2009.

Read the Wall Street Journal story, "Okinawa Mayor Race May Hold Key To U.S.-Japan Base Spat", December 24, 2009.

Read the Kyodo News story, "Hatoyama nixes Futenma relocation to Guam, eyes alternative Japan site", December 26, 2009.

Read the Zee News story, "Japan PM eager for decentralization of power", December 26, 2009.

Read the Press TV story, "Japan's PM says decision on US base by May", December 26, 2009.