Abe suffers a setback with Okinawa election loss

Nago City Mayor Susumu Inamine is accompanied by his wife Ritsuko at celebrations after he was re-elected in Nago, on the southern island of Okinawa, in this photo released by Kyodo.

Reuters/Tokyo

A city mayor opposed to a plan to relocate a controversial US airbase on Japan’s Okinawa island was re-elected yesterday, Kyodo news agency said, creating a political headache for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and threatening friction with Washington.

Delays in relocating the US Marines’ Futenma air base, a move first agreed between Tokyo and Washington in 1996, have long been an irritant in US-Japan ties and Abe is keen to make progress on the project as he seeks tighter ties with the US in the face of an assertive China.

Abe’s ties with Washington suffered after the US expressed “disappointment” with his December 26 visit to Yasukuni Shrine, a pilgrimage that further strained relations with China and South Korea, which see the Tokyo shrine to Japan’s war dead as a symbol of the country’s past militarism.

Susumu Inamine - a staunch opponent of the relocation plan - was assured re-election as mayor of the Okinawa city of Nago, Kyodo said, citing projections shortly after the polls closed.

An Okinawa newspaper also said Inamine’s victory was certain. Inamine has pledged to use his local authority block the relocation of the functions of Futenma from a populous part of central Okinawa to Nago’s coastal Henoko area.

His main opponent had backed the plan and run with strong support from Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Last month, Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima approved a landfill project to implement the plan.

Futenma has long been a lightening rod for discontent among Okinawa residents, many of whom associate the concentration of US bases with accidents, pollution and crime such as the 1995 rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by three US servicemen.

Seeking to soothe discontent, Abe’s government earmarked 348bn yen ($3.34bn) for Okinawa’s economic development in the draft budget for the year from April and pledged about 300bn yen per year through 2021/22.

Abe also promised to study whether the relocation plan could be speeded up and said the government would start talks with the US on a deal that could allow for more oversight of environmental issues at US bases.

Political analysts said Inamine’s win, while likely to slow progress, might not be a death knell for the relocation plan.

“Mr Inamine says he is totally opposed and may create obstacles, but the Abe government is trying hard to keep its promise to the US,” Seiichi Eto, an LDP lawmaker and aide to Abe, told Reuters last week.

Analysts say Abe could risk denting voter support for his government, which came to power at the end of 2012 with promises to revive the economy, if he does push ahead with the relocation of the base in the face of local opposition.

“Inamine’s victory will give momentum to the anti-base movement and the opposition campaign could spread,” Takashi Kawakami, a professor at Takushoku University, said. “Abe will probably try to forge ahead but there will probably be an opposition movement ... and if this is reported in the media daily, Abe’s support rates could fall.”

Japan PM calls for ‘frank’ talks with China, South Korea

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday called for “frank” summit talks with China and South Korea to help solve historical and territorial disputes that have soured ties between the neighbours.

A year of heated arguments have prevented the three from holding any top-level meetings, with Beijing and Seoul accusing Abe of showing a lack of remorse for World War II wrongs.

“We should hold a summit meeting and have a frank discussion,” Abe said in an interview on public broadcaster NHK, two days after Japan’s foreign minister called for similar talks.

Abe, China’s President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Park Geun-Hye all came to power around a year ago, but entrenched positions and growing nationalism in the three countries have prevented them from getting together.

Abe yesterday reiterated he had visited to make a pledge against war, and like other leaders around the world to pray for those who lost their lives for their countries. “I want people to think about whether this is wrong. If they think about it, I think the misunderstanding will go away,” he said.

Two separate territorial disputes over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, which Beijing and Seoul say have their roots in Japan’s early imperial ambitions, have also roiled relations.

Abe said a summit should be held “all the more because there are these issues” but added that Tokyo would not agree to any concessions over disputed issues as a precursor to discussions. “It would be unreasonable if Japan must clear hurdles for summit talks,” he said.