According to Asahi News, such a freeze would please Japan’s radical Social Democratic Party, but would raise the ire of Washington, resulting in a further delay in the transfer of 8,000 U.S. Marines to Guam.
This latest development comes only a week after a visit to Tokyo by Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo during which she was assured by the government of Japan that it remains committed to carrying out the terms of the bilateral agreement signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone in Feb. 2009.
“During our meetings, we discussed the Guam military build-up where I received assurances that Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his government are working to resolve build-up related issues internally and that they are fully committed to the terms of the Guam International Agreement. I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress and the Obama administration to ensure that the military build-up is done right and that both governments continue to implement the terms of the Guam International Agreement,” said Bordallo who participated in the 44th U.S.-Japan Legislative Exchange Program.
If the budget for Futenma-related projects are frozen, this will further delay the Guam buildup which is already delayed up to 2020.
The government of Japan is currently ruled by the Democratic Party of Japan, whose members are lobbying feverishly for votes on the budget in the Diet, or parliament, and have been negotiating with the SDP since last Tuesday, according to Asahi.
SDP lawmakers set three conditions to the DPJ for their votes which includes the removal of Futenma relocation expenses from the budget.
DPJ lawmakers will consider voting on a supplemental resolution when the budget is voted on in the Diet which would state that the Futenma expenses would not be implemented after the budget passed the Diet, according to Asahi.
The resolution would also state that a lifting of that freeze would only occur when voting blocs in the Diet agree to that change.
The legislation involves placing a freeze on approximately $21.6 million or 1.8 billion yen set aside in the fiscal 2011 budget in connection with the planned relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to a site in Nago, Okinawa prefecture. It would be a virtual acceptance by the government of one of the SDP’s conditions, according to Asahi.
When asked by reporters last Wednesday about discussions with the SDP about the budget proposal, Asahi reported that Prime Minister Naoto Kan merely said, “I want to wait for the various efforts that are now being made to reach agreement through discussions.”
But such a freeze could come back to hurt Japanese diplomacy, which was already damaged by the DPJ-led government’s hedging on relocating the Futenma base, despite two Japan-U.S. agreements on the move to Nago.
