An expensive friendship

One of the most striking recent examples of friendship with a calculative eye is that of China and Pakistan. If China in 1960s was a rigid communist nation proclaiming her unconditional support to the poor and oppressed around the world, Pakistan under the military dictatorship was a country holding precisely the opposite viewpoint. Yet the two countries became close friends and strategic partners not because of their ideological standings, but more because China saw in Pakistan a convenient ally in her bid to check India, a country against which Beijing fought a war in early 1960s, and hence was not hesitant to pay the price of betraying her own commitment of supporting the oppressed.

Similarly, why the United States is now adamant in continuing her presence in all over the world is also related more to such self interest calculations than the desire to help trusted allies in times of need.

There are now roughly forty-seven thousand US troops permanently stationed in Japan. For Washington, the military presence in Japan is more a convenient solution because a major burden of sharing the cost of keeping the military presence is being shouldered by the host nation. The people of Japan in general are less bothered about such economic burden as they might see it as a fait accompli for being at the losing end of the Pacific War.

But Japanese in times do lose their patience when they encounter unruly attitude of their unwelcome guests and there are no shortage of such incidents. Their nature might vary widely from indecent behaviour of drunken soldiers to noise pollution around US air bases.

Okinawa, being the main centre of concentration of US troops in Japan, always had to bear the worst of the burnt. Almost 70 percent of total US presence in Japan is in Okinawa, a relatively tiny island district compared to Japan's other 46 prefectures. Resentment of the people against the US presence, as a result, is also quite visible among the people of Okinawa. The government of Japan too, aware of this reality of imbalance, is for quite sometime trying to ease the burden of Okinawa by requesting the United States to move some of its troops out of the prefecture. But since the US administration was unwilling to decrease the number of their troops presence in Japan, Washington in return was asking Japan to provide an alternative for some of its bases in Okinawa. That placed the Japanese government into a position further difficulty as not a single of Japan's other prefectures are willing to accept the so-called important guests to their own territories. As a result, the issue of easing the burden of Okinawa was still in a limbo until the United States decided to rearrange her military presence in Asia Pacific region.

Among other US troops, almost 15,000 marines soldiers are now stationed Okinawa. According to the Pentagon proposal of military realignment, 8,000 of them are to be moved to Guam by 2012. Though the number of troops to be moved out of Okinawa is significantly lower than what the people of the locality would like to see, for both the Japanese government and the local authorities of Okinawa this was news of a great relief. They all welcomed the move without realizing what conditions might be attached with the relocation plan, which the US side revealed without much delay.

The US Defense Department estimates it will cost at least $10 billion and insists that Japan shoulders 75 percent of that expense, which comes up to $7.5 billion. Many in Japan see the cost plainly exorbitant and the Japanese officials are now negotiating with the US authorities about the possibility of downsizing the proportion of Japanese share. But no progress has so far been made in such discussions.

Relocation cost for 8,000 marine soldiers would otherwise mean roughly a little less than $1 million per soldier. This sounds not only exorbitant, but absurd too. To justify the demand US authorities provided further clarification, which indicates that in addition to move personnel and equipment, the money is also needed to construct new living quarters and improve facilities, roads and other infrastructures at the Guam base. The US also wants to upgrade the port facilities outside the base and in that cost too they want to see a due Japanese share. As a result, some forecasts in Japan as well as in the United States say the total costs might swell even further.

The US demand has placed the Japanese government in an uneasy position. No doubt, public opinion in Japan runs against providing anything closer to US demand. But the government knows that for Tokyo it would be virtually impossible to say no to what the trusted ally is demanding. As a result, the Japanese government is trying to reach a negotiated settlement, which would see Tokyo's burden significantly decreased.

Over the years, Japanese taxpayers have been burdened with considerable amount of the huge costs to keep the American troops in Japan. The costs include expenditure for US military base facilities, salaries of base employees and some other related expenditure. In Japan the practice of sharing the burden of US military presence is known as "sympathy budget" and it amounts to roughly 230 billion yen or around $2 billion. Until now the budget covered only US bases that are located in Japan. But now Pentagon is demanding that Japan should pay for the base facilities in Guam as well. Many in Japan see the request disturbing, since there is a possibility that this might open the Pandora's Box as there is no guarantee that further request to provide financial assistance for military bases elsewhere in the US territory will not follow.

The official position of the Koizumi administration is to provide one third of the total cost for the relocation of marine troops to Guam. Japan is well aware that bowing to US pressure would mean the amount provided to the US State Department would by far surpass country's Official Development Assistance budget for fiscal 2006, which many other countries might not see as a rational move for a country seeking a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council. Hence there are other options as well that Tokyo is trying to explore. One is to provide the amount to Washington in the form of loan. But Washington seems to be not impressed at all by any of the proposals that Japan has so far tabled. Pentagon is demanding that the troops in Guam will largely perform the role of protecting Japan from any possible outside attack.

We are definitely living at a time that can be easily termed as a strange and crazy period of history. A military power which has by now become the most hated in the world not only likes to see itself as a global police force, but also considers itself to be the protector of civilisation, and hence demanding that others pay them taxes so that they can continue perform that role. If this logic cannot be termed crazy, then we might have to invent a new word to define it.

Monzurul Huq is a columnist of The Daily Star.