Then Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, left, and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Walter Mondale attend an April 12, 1996, press conference in Tokyo on an agreement to return the site of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Japanese control. (Mainichi)
Thirty years have passed since Japan and the United States agreed to fully return the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, to local control. Yet the base remains, and the long-promised reduction of Okinawa’s burden of hosting U.S. forces has never been fulfilled.
The agreement was prompted by outrage over the 1995 rape of a local girl by three U.S. servicemen. In response to mass protests across Okinawa, Tokyo and Washington announced on April 12, 1996, that Futenma would be returned to Japan as a symbol of burden relief. Japanese government officials initially pledged completion within five to seven years, selecting the coastal Henoko district of the prefectural city of Nago as the relocation site.
Futenma sits amid dense residential neighborhoods and has long been called “the world’s most dangerous airfield.” In 2004, a U.S. military helicopter crashed on the campus of Okinawa International University. Eliminating that danger remains an urgent task.
A relocation that deepened division
The plan calls for building a new base by reclaiming land off the U.S. military’s Camp Schwab in Henoko. But construction has faced repeated delays. Strong local opposition and the absence of municipal consent are major reasons.
The Okinawa Prefectural Government has argued that the popular will shown in gubernatorial and other polls opposes reclamation and must be respected. Nevertheless, in 2018, under then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s second administration, Tokyo forced a start to the work despite the prefecture’s resistance. When prefectural officials refused to authorize design changes, the central government used a proxy enforcement order to push construction through.
Such heavy-handed tactics show a lack of empathy for a region that has endured the heaviest base burden in Japan. They also bear grave responsibility for deepening divisions among residents.
Engineering problems have compounded the delays. Extensive patches of soft seabed were discovered in Oura Bay, where some sections requiring reinforcement may lie as deep as 90 meters below the surface. Completion is now projected after 2036, while costs continue to soar.
In this Jan. 27, 2018, file photo, U.S. Marine Air Station Futenma, center, is seen surrounded by residential neighborhoods in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture. (Mainichi/Takeshi Noda)
Even more alarming are growing doubts that Futenma will actually be returned once the new base is finished.
Within the U.S. military, dissatisfaction persists over Henoko’s short 1,800-meter runway, compared with Futenma’s 2,700 meters. The Pentagon has told the U.S. Government Accountability Office that the return of Futenma will not occur until Japan selects an alternative site with a longer runway. A recent paper by a Marine Corps officer similarly argued for maintaining both Henoko and Futenma.
Japan’s government has long defined Futenma’s closure to remove its danger and relocation to Henoko as inseparable goals. But with the project mired in uncertainty, that linkage is crumbling.
Regional security threats have undoubtedly intensified. China has stepped up maritime activity, and during military drills around Taiwan in 2022, five missiles landed in waters near Okinawa’s Sakishima Islands. North Korea continues to accelerate its nuclear program. Maintaining deterrence under the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty remains vital.
Yet U.S. bases are potential targets in any conflict, and residents’ anxiety is natural. When Iran retaliated over U.S. and Israeli attacks, it struck U.S. bases in Gulf nations.
Facing Okinawa’s pain
As China’s missile capabilities grow, experts warn of the vulnerability created by concentrating so much of America’s military presence in Okinawa. The Marine Corps already plans to mitigate risk through “expeditionary advanced base operations,” dispersing smaller units across Asia-Pacific islands.
Fumiaki Nozoe, professor of international politics at Okinawa International University, argues that “spreading U.S. forces across Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific would both reduce Okinawa’s burden and maintain deterrence.” A serious discussion on Okinawa’s base burden is overdue, grounded in today’s realities.
Okinawa, which suffered vicious ground combat during World War II, has borne exceptional postwar strain, hosting 70% of U.S. military-exclusive facilities in Japan. Many base sites were seized from residents immediately after the war. Meanwhile, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, under their “southwestern shift” policy, are also expanding deployments across the Nansei Islands including the Okinawan archipelago.
Noise pollution from U.S. military aircraft persists, and crimes by service members continue. Though the prefecture has long urged revision of the Status of Forces Agreement governing U.S. forces’ legal privileges, no progress has been made.
In 2024, it emerged that Tokyo had failed to inform Okinawan authorities of two sexual assault cases involving U.S. soldiers, in violation of established procedures.
Both governments must now confront Okinawa’s pleas for genuine burden reduction. Thirty years after the promise was made, it is time to return to the commitment’s original purpose.