An Australian perspective on the US-Japan situation in Okinawa

This paper considers two important questions regarding the issue of Okinawa within the context of the US-Japan alliance. Firstly, how is the current base controversy in Okinawa likely to play out as a form of alliance politics and, in particular, as a case of two-level games? Secondly, can an outside perspective – that is, outside the US-Japan alliance framework – provide new insights into the developments surrounding Okinawa and what they mean for the wider security order in East Asia? The argument here is that Japan’s management of the Okinawan issue today invites comparisons with the approaches taken by the Murayama and Hashimoto administrations of the mid-1990s. Compared to these earlier administrations, which adopted ‘cutting slack’ strategies on base negotiations (i.e. increasing the scope for negotiations with the US over Okinawa), the current administration of Hatoyama Yukio, through its election promises on Okinawa and its rhetoric of autonomy and equality, has been engaged in a strategy of ‘tying hands’ on Okinawa (i.e. reducing its domestic scope for negotiation with the US government). From an Australian perspective, US primacy and the alliance have long been seen as crucial to regional stability. They form the foundation for more intra-spoke security cooperation in the region, which suggests that the current destabilization could negatively affect wider regional cooperation.