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Escape from Dependency: An Agenda for Transforming the Structure of Japanese Security and the US-Japan Relationship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Maeda Tetsuo  and
Vic Koschmann
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Anticipating the August 2009 electoral victory of the Democratic Party of Japan, which has promised to adopt a more assertive stance toward Washington, in July 2009 defense specialist Maeda Tetsuo presented concrete set of proposals for transforming the Japan-U.S. security relationship and paving the way for a more proactive Japanese role in Eastern Asia. These proposals have taken on more immediate relevance since the election, which swept the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party from office in a landslide.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 36 , September 2009 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

References

Notes

[1] According to the February 17 agreement, 8,000 U.S. Marines are to be transferred from Okinawa to Guam at a cost to the Japanese government and taxpayers of $6.09 billion, a perhaps unprecedented fiscal event in the history of dependent relationships. The agreement is, however, contingent on the transfer of the present U.S. Marine base at Futenma, Okinawa, to a new upgraded base at Henoko in pristince northern Okinawa, a move that has been bitterly resisted by Okinawans for more than a decade.

[2] The Guam transfer agreement reconfirmed, and raised to the level of a treaty, agreements on “realignment” reached in the October 2005 and May 2006. These were the agreement on “Transformation and Realignment for the Future” and the “United States-Japan Roadmap for Realignment Implementation.”

[3] The Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation of 1997 expanded the scope of Japan-U.S. defense cooperation beyond Japanese territory, providing for Japanese rear support to U.S. forces in “situations occurring in areas surrounding Japan,” where “areas surrounding Japan” was said to be a “situational” rather than “geographical” concept. The text of the Guidelines may be found here. The Antiterrorism Special Measures Law of October 2001 provided the legal basis for dispatch of Japanese forces overseas, and dispatch of the MSDF to the Indian Ocean for refueling operations followed.