Japan’s new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama was elected on a platform of developing a more independent relationship with America. After all, those Yankee bully boys have been dictating Japanese foreign policy for over 60 years. Ironically, this comes at a time when the US is losing interest in Japan, and is focusing on its G2 relationship with China, a country that has always been able to punch above its weight. And also ironically, with neighbours like China and North Korea, Japan needs the US, which guarantees its defense, perhaps more than it realizes.
The issue of the US forces in the southern Japanese island of Okinawa has become the lightening rod for US President Obama’s visit to Tokyo right now. In 2006, after 15 lengthy years of negotiations, the US and Japan agreed to move its base to elsewhere on the island.