An expert panel set up by the Okinawa prefectural government has called for scrapping what it calls an almost impractical plan to relocate a U.S. Marine Corps air base in the city of Ginowan some 40 kilometers northeast to a coastal area in Henoko next to the U.S. Camp Schwab.

The panel, consisting of university professors and former bureaucrats, urged the Japanese and U.S. governments to hold talks with the prefectural administration to find an alternative plan to achieve the original goal of eliminating the danger posed to local communities by the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

The panel, tasked with proposing ideas to reduce the U.S. military presence in the southernmost island prefecture, presented its proposals to Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki on March 26.

The seven-member panel, headed by former senior defense bureaucrat Kyoji Yanagisawa, has been discussing possible options since May 2019. Yanagisawa served in various senior posts at the Defense Agency (now the Defense Ministry) before being appointed as assistant chief Cabinet secretary in charge of security and crisis management.

In addition to pointing out that the government's contentious plan to build a new Futenma replacement facility in Henoko in Okinawa's northern city of Nago is no longer workable, the panel said the U.S. Marine Corps based in the prefecture should be decentralized and deployed in smaller units to the Japanese mainland and overseas locations in response to changes in the regional security environment and the U.S. military's strategy review.

It also proposed a vision for the future of Okinawa as "the hub of a network of regional cooperation."

Despite a series of elections in which local voters made their opposition to the base relocation plan patently clear, the Abe administration has continued to forge ahead with land reclamation work to build the new base.

As the panel rightly argued, the discovery of extremely soft ground under the seabed in parts of the reclamation area has made the relocation plan "technically and financially difficult to complete."

The central government should sincerely recognize this grim reality and give serious consideration to the panel's proposal to set up a new expert council to discuss the issue involving representatives of the Japanese and U.S. governments, as well as Okinawa Prefecture.

With regard to the regional security landscape, the panel pays special attention to China's significantly enhanced missile capabilities.

That means the concentration of U.S. forces in Okinawa, which is geographically close to China, creates a major vulnerability in the defense of Japan, according to the panel.

The experts contend that it would make more strategic sense to redeploy the U.S. Marine Corps based in the prefecture in smaller units to Self-Defense Forces bases in the mainland of Japan, along with wide areas in the Asia-Pacific region.

This idea, of course, entails the colossal political challenge of winning the understanding and support of the local communities around the bases to which U.S. troops would be transferred.

The panel stressed the need to promote a fresh national debate on how the burden of hosting U.S. forces should be shared.

Even if the U.S. military presence is crucial for Japan's national security, it is debatable whether the nation should be allowed to maintain the status quo--where Okinawa is forced to shoulder an unfairly large portion of the burden.

The central government is not the only actor which should make a serious response to the panel's proposal. Local governments and residents in the mainland should not remain uninterested in the issue, either.

There is no doubt that China's military buildup and naval expansion has undermined stability in the region. It is clear, however, that this security challenge cannot be effectively met only through bolstering Japan's military capabilities and deterrence.

A national security strategy can only be dependable when it is underpinned by an effective system to ease tensions and build mutual trust.

Okinawa, which once thrived as an intermediate base of trade with China and Southeast Asia, should serve as the hub of regional cooperation that supports the system, the panel argues. As specific measures to realize this vision, the experts proposed regular meetings among researchers in the region. It also called for establishing a new research institute that would serve as the center of such efforts.

In a nutshell, the panel has proposed to redefine the strategic position of Okinawa to transform it from the front line of confrontation between the United States and China and between Japan and China into a bridge between Japan and the rest of Asia.

This vision should lead to a serious national debate over the future of Okinawa.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 11