As U.S. mulls moving troops, Japanese cities grow uneasy

It's an issue of space, and there isn't enough for the U.S. troops, an official says.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
SAGAMIHARA, Japan -- Half a world away from the debates at the Pentagon over how to realign U.S. military forces in East Asia, Mayor Isao Ogawa lays out his own aerial photos of a local U.S. base, Camp Zama, and wonders aloud how his city might cope with more U.S. soldiers.
"There is not enough space for them," Ogawa said, noting the dense urban growth around the camp, not far from Japan's famed Mount Fuji.
Japan and the United States are in the throes of evaluating their defense alliance, and the exercise is bringing anxiety to cities like this one. Few, if any, mayors want U.S. troops camped nearby, fearing noise, air crashes and crime, even as Japan's citizenry generally supports the U.S. security umbrella over the world's second-biggest economy.
Shifting presence
The municipal uneasiness is made more acute because Japan and the United States have agreed to shift some U.S. military presence from Okinawa, the far southern island, to other sites in Japan, putting a number of localities on watch.
City councils in Sagamihara and Zama, two adjoining cities with a combined population of 750,000 people, recently passed resolutions strongly opposing putting more troops in Camp Zama, the headquarters of the U.S. Army in Japan.
Ogawa, a white-haired mayor with an easy smile, came up with his own action plan. He delivered letters of protest to U.S. Ambassador Howard Baker, met with the foreign minister, the chief of Japan's defense agency and pestered Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's office with requests for meetings.
"I wanted to ask the prime minister, 'Koizumi-san, what are you thinking? You said we cannot overly burden Okinawa,"' Ogawa recalled. So will more U.S. troops be brought to Sagamihara? Is it true that Camp Zama will double in size with a proposed move of the headquarters of the 1st U.S. Army Corps from Washington state to Japan, bringing some 500 to 800 officers?
Ogawa got no definitive answers, underscoring a dilemma for local officials: Such weighty strategic decisions are usually made at the highest government levels with little consultation below.
Vulnerability issue
The debate over redistribution of U.S. forces in Japan comes amid a broader discussion within Japan about its vulnerability in an uncertain East Asia and a loosening of constraints on its self-defense forces.
Earlier this year, Tokyo sent 1,000 troops in a noncombat humanitarian role to Iraq, and since April they've been based in the southern city of Al Samawah.
Even as some Koizumi opponents argued that such a deployment was unconstitutional, it signaled a possible sea change in Japan. The evolution began in 1998, experts say, when North Korea test-fired a Taepodong-1 ballistic missile over Japan, stunning the nation. Since then, North Korea has boasted of acquiring nuclear weapons.
Japan is working with the United States to develop a missile defense system.
Last month, in a sign of sometimes-testy relations with Beijing, an advisory board to Koizumi suggested that China should be viewed as a potential military threat. There's talk of turning the self-defense forces into a regular army.
"In the last few years, the Japanese have come to understand that they can talk about this without increasing fear in the neighborhood and tearing the nation apart," said Brad Glosserman, director of research at the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
How to redistribute troops?
The more immediate decision, however, is how to redistribute the 53,000 U.S. troops in Japan, about half of them stationed on Okinawa, the major U.S. forward logistics base in the Western Pacific, close to potential flash points in Korea and Taiwan and a favored spot for jungle warfare training. The goal is to relieve pressure on Okinawa.
Anti-U.S. tensions on Okinawa have soared since 1995, when three U.S. soldiers gang-raped a 12-year-old schoolgirl. Since then, other crimes have been increasing.
Anger surged again in mid-August after a U.S. CH-53D military transport helicopter crashed into a university building in a densely urban area near Okinawa's Futenma air station. No civilians were hurt. But an anti-U.S. bases protest Sept. 12 drew some 30,000 people, the biggest in nearly a decade.