Conclusion: Active SDF, Coming End of Regional Ambiguity, and Comprehensive Political Alliance

Abstract

The year 2010 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Revised U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty of 1960. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which led Japan’s recovery from the Second World War and growth into one of the richest nations in the world, did not get to host the anniversary event, as it lost control of the parliament in summer 2009. The victorious Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is in no mood to celebrate the occasion either. The DPJ-led coalition government pledged to revise the plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Airfield at Futenma, Okinawa, which was agreed between the LDP government and the United States, at the cost of considerable discord between the two governments. After nearly six months of search for a suitable alternative site, the DPJ government has returned to a plan, which seems to stay within minor modifications of the original relocation plan. The politically weakened Prime Minister Hatoyama announced his resignation in early June 2010. Whether DPJ under a new leadership can push through with the plan now is questionable at best. Much political damage has been done to the overall relations between the Obama administration and the Hatoyama government for sure, yet how much harm this issue might cause to the long-term strategic-level relations between the two countries is yet to be seen. Further, two more important issues remain to be seen. The first is whether the DPJ will achieve an upper-house majority of its own and be able to form a government without coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ) members, who seem to have held veto power on most security cooperation issues with the United States.