EDITORIAL: The Futenma debacle

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's final decision on the issue of where to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture came as a betrayal of expectations raised by his promise to find a solution by the end of May.

After months of waffling and dithering, which continued until the last moment, Hatoyama on Friday had his Cabinet endorse a Futenma relocation plan as the government's official proposal to settle the issue.

The document approved by the Cabinet in an extraordinary meeting, as well as a joint Japan-U.S. statement on the Futenma issue released earlier, said the air base, located in the densely populated city of Ginowan, is to be moved to the Henoko district in Nago, also in Okinawa Prefecture.

Hatoyama has failed to honor his promise to move the base "at least out of the prefecture," made during the campaign for the Lower House election last year. His political responsibility for this fiasco is unlimited.

Hatoyama repeatedly said he would work out a solution supported by the U.S. government, the local community to host the new facility and the ruling coalition.

But people in Okinawa reacted with outrage to the proposal, while residents of Tokunoshima island in Kagoshima Prefecture, the only place specifically named in the relocation plan as a new training site, adamantly refused to accept any of the operations of the Futenma base.

Hatoyama's decision has also put the ruling coalition led by the Democratic Party of Japan in jeopardy as it has forced the prime minister to dismiss Mizuho Fukushima, minister of consumer affairs and gender equality.

Hatoyama had to take the unusual step after Fukushima, who heads the Social Democratic Party, a junior coalition partner of the DPJ, refused to sign the relocation plan, arguing the government should stick to its pledge to get the base off the prefecture, or even out of Japan.

Desperate to avoid breaking his other important promise, which was to settle the issue by the end of May, Hatoyama decided to effectively embrace the relocation plan worked out and approved by Japan and the United States in 2006.

Hatoyama made a pitiful spectacle of himself by thoughtlessly scrambling to piece together a plan just for appearance's sake while postponing tough negotiations with local communities and the ruling alliance.

Bleak outlook for deeper bilateral ties

This decision will leave two negative legacies, one concerning the government's relationship with Okinawa and the other concerning Japan's ties with the United States.

For people in Okinawa, the government's proposal represents nothing but Hatoyama's "betrayal."

Last year, the DPJ's successful bid to oust the Liberal Democratic Party brought in, for the first time, a government that vowed to take on the challenge of moving the Futenma base out of the prefecture.

The DPJ's ascent to power naturally raised expectations among Okinawans that the base would finally go away. It is therefore not surprising that their disillusionment with the government is all the more bitter.

The bilateral agreement on the issue is no doubt very important. But relocating the base to Henoko will be impossible without approval by Okinawa. How is Hatoyama going to persuade the local communities?

Unless the government's efforts to win local support make swift progress, it will be extremely difficult to complete the relocation by the 2014 target date, as specified in the "U.S.-Japan Roadmap for Realignment Implementation."

Or is Hatoyama ready for the forcible execution of the relocation blueprint?

The way the Hatoyama administration has dealt with the Futenma issue has made Washington distrustful of Tokyo, and it will be difficult to change that perception.

The joint statement released on Friday reaffirmed the two countries' commitment to "promote and deepen security cooperation in wide-ranging areas to enable the alliance to adapt to the evolving challenges of the 21st century."

There is indeed a long list of challenges the two countries need to tackle in cooperation for the deepening of the alliance.

But it is hard to imagine how fruitful discussions on such challenges will be possible until the damage done to their relations by the Futenma snafu is repaired.

We argued that the government must start from scratch in its efforts to find an answer to the Futenma question without being bound to the end-of-May deadline.

That's because we thought it was impossible to find a way to break the impasse without fresh debate between the two countries and in the domestic political arena over fundamental questions concerning the U.S. bases in Japan and the burden they impose on the local communities. The relevant questions include the security environment in East Asia and the deterrence provided by the presence of U.S. Marines.

Hatoyama now has to pay the price for avoiding this crucial process.

Issue highlights weaknesses

The Futenma debacle encapsulates the major weak points of the Hatoyama administration. It has highlighted, for instance, Hatoyama's troubling tendency to make thoughtless remarks without a plan to deal with their consequences. It has also disclosed a lack of unity among Cabinet members and the prime minister's inability to control them due to his poor leadership.

Lacking a well-defined strategy to deal with the issue, the administration kept making ad-hoc responses without serious efforts to lay the political groundwork for its moves. Its campaign to ensure lawmakers' leadership in policymaking has backfired because of its inability to make effective use of bureaucrats.

Hatoyama's credibility is in tatters, with his ability to govern the nation in serious doubt.

There is a large imbalance in the distribution of the security burden when 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan are in Okinawa.

Hatoyama was right in arguing that it was imperative to ease the burden of the people in Okinawa.

Unfortunately, he lacked the political prowess, commitment and strategy needed to find a solution and implement it.

This is not limited to Futenma. He also proposed bold budget reform and the new concept of "regional sovereignty" for decentralization of power. But he has proved unable to carry out these proposals.

Political funds scandals involving Hatoyama and DPJ Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa and Ozawa's old-fashioned politics of patronage have also eroded the public support for the administration. The Cabinet's approval rating will likely drop below 20 percent. The Hatoyama administration is on the brink.

In the old days of the LDP's virtual monopoly on power, such a crisis would have provoked a chorus of calls for the prime minister's resignation and triggered a power struggle within the ruling party.

Hatoyama's departure, however, would not improve the situation. He wouldn't do any good by stepping down.

Balancing the demands of national security with the need to ease the burden on Okinawa would be a formidable political challenge for any prime minister.

Hatoyama has no choice but to keep grappling with this issue.

The DPJ should support the prime minister by radically restructuring its system for making policy decisions, including those concerning personnel affairs, in an all-out effort to get the administration back on track.

Waiting for voter verdict in summer

What should be remembered is the historical significance of the advent of the Hatoyama government. For the first time in modern Japanese politics, voters changed prime ministers through a general election.

Political reform has created a political situation where a change of government can actually happen. It marked an end to the era when power changed hands frequently but only among faction bosses of a ruling party which had a firm grip on power.

In this new political era of frequent government changes, the leader is chosen and forced out by voters, but should be given some time to pursue his agenda.

It is not yet a year since the historical event. Even though the government urgently needs to overcome its political immaturity, we should not slip back into the old habit of discussing the possibility of the prime minister's resignation from the viewpoint of a power struggle.

Voters will soon hand down an interim verdict on Hatoyama's performance, including his handling of the Futenma issue, in the summer Upper House election. Hatoyama may be able to survive the end-of-May political test. But he cannot escape the verdict of the voting public.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 29