Spotlight: Japan swallows bitter fruit of self-sown inferiority in alliance with U.S.

The Japanese are swallowing the bitter fruit of what the government has sown in its relations with the United States, as shown by the increased public anger over wrongdoings by personnel related to the U.S. forces stationed on the island of Okinawa.

After a staff member of the U.S. forces was arrested last month for involvement in the death of a young Japanese woman, local resentment against U.S. forces was fanned up again by the alleged drunken driving on late June 4 of a female U.S. officer, which led to the injury of two people, one seriously.

Moreover, the latest incident took place during a month of mourning from May 27 to June 24 announced by the U.S. station forces, banning its personnel to drink and stay overnight off base, among other discipline intensification measures.

Police arrested Aimee Mejia, 21, assigned to Kadena base in Okinawa, after she drove the wrong way on a freeway and smashed head-on into two vehicles. The alcoholic level in her blood was reportedly six times the legal maximum.

The incident led to a U.S. Navy ban on drinking and restriction on off-base activity for its personnel in Japan.

Crimes and wrongdoings by U.S. military personnel in Japan, especially on Okinawa, which hosts three quarters of U.S. bases in the country, have long been cited among reasons for Japan to get rid of U.S. military presence, while amounting to a sensitive and significant factor in Japan-U.S. relations.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed regret over the latest incident, one day after Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida lodged a protest with U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, who pledged a full assistance to related investigations.

However, as regards the two incidents, apologetic gentleness in the U.S. response to protests from the Japanese side, analysts believe, is only part of a dual play with Tokyo to quell as early as possible the consequent public anger to avert harming the Japan-U.S. alliance.

By the alliance, Tokyo seeks from Washington a security guarantee and support for the normalization of Japan as military power, while Washington tries to turn Japan into a forward base in its intended control over the Asia-Pacific region, as well as a contributor to its "Asia-Pacific rebalance" strategy.

However, humbleness from the U.S. side cannot cover up the long-rooted U.S. dominance in the alliance, provided for by the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement that took effect in 1960.

The U.S. forces enjoy more justice privileges in Japan than in other defeated countries with which the United States has similar agreements, such as Germany and Iraq.

The inferiority of Japan in its alliance with the United States is seen by analysts as a result of its own strategic choice, which has made itself a subordinate unworthy of an equal partnership, as well as nothing but a "tool" in the eyes of the United States. This may explain the U.S. practice of condoning Japan's wrong conception of history on the one hand, while caring little for harms it has done to Japan on the other. Endi