Japan Relents on U.S. Base on Okinawa

The announcement, a victory for the Obama administration and a humiliating setback for Mr. Hatoyama, confirmed what the Japanese media had been reporting for weeks: that he would accept Washington’s demands to honor a 2006 agreement to move the United States Marine Air Station Futenma to the island’s less populated north. Irate crowds greeted his arrival on Okinawa on Sunday with bright yellow signs that said “Anger,” and showered him with jeering cries of “Go home!” And in Tokyo, opposition leaders and even members of his own governing coalition assailed him for having turned the relocation into a huge political issue, only to go back to the original agreement. While defending his decision on strategic grounds, Mr. Hatoyama conceded that it was “heartbreaking,” and offered the islanders his “heartfelt apology for causing much confusion.” Mr. Hatoyama’s historic election victory last August, ending a half-century of nearly unbroken Liberal Democratic Party leadership, had raised concerns in Washington that Japan would withdraw support for American priorities like the war in Afghanistan. He had opposed the war in Iraq, spoken out against American-led globalization and, after decades of reflexive Japanese support for American policies, promised to redefine Tokyo’s relationship with Washington as an “equal partnership.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia1/24japan.html?scp?=2&//sq=Japan&pyt56785=cse

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