It looks like the Japanese government is caving in to U.S. pressure to keep the Marine base in Okinawa.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/world/asia/04japan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Japan Offers New Plan in Okinawa Dispute

By MARTIN FACKLER

Published: March 3, 2010

TOKYO — The Japanese government has approached United States officials with a new proposal for resolving a festering dispute over an American air base in Okinawa, the Japanese news media reported on Thursday.

The proposal would modify a 2006 deal to relocate the Futenma Marine Corps air station, a busy helicopter base, from a crowded city in southern Okinawa to a less populated area in the island’s north. Under the new proposal, the base would be moved to the same location but would be smaller and have a diminished impact on local residents and the environment, according to the reports in major Japanese newspapers.

The reports described the diplomatic contacts as informal, early attempts to sound out whether the plan might be acceptable to the United States, which has irritated many Japanese officials by insisting that the government honor the original agreement.

The dispute erupted after Japan’s new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, took office six months ago with a pledge to revisit the 2006 agreement, signed by his predecessors, the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party. Mr. Hatoyama has pledged to lighten the burden that the American base places on Okinawa, where many of the 50,000 Americans stationed in Japan are located, while also maintaining close security ties with the United States.

This put the prime minister in the difficult situation of trying to find a plan that could appease both Okinawans and the United States, and in particular the American military. After delaying making a decision late last year, Mr. Hatoyama set a self-imposed deadline of May for resolving the issue. To have a plan in place by then, analysts have said, the prime minister must find a solution that is at least tentatively acceptable to both Washington and Okinawan leaders by April, at the latest.

The new proposal would try to do that by addressing a crucial American concern: keeping the helicopters close to the thousands of Marines stationed on Okinawa. The new air station would be built in Camp Schwab, an existing Marine base near the tiny fishing village of Henoko, the site agreed to in the 2006 plan.

The new proposal would also try to appease Okinawans by shrinking the base’s footprint on their island. According to the news reports, the plan would reduce the number of runways to one from two. The single runway could also be smaller, with the government considering two options: one for a runway of 1,640 feet, to be used only by helicopters, or a runway of nearly a mile that could also accommodate some fixed-wing aircraft.

The new base would also be built entirely on land, avoiding the use of landfill in the sea, which was part of the original plan, according to the news reports. Environmentalists had criticized the use of landfill, saying it would destroy pristine coral-filled waters that are one of the last habitats of the endangered dugong, a large sea mammal related to the manatee.

It is still unclear whether this plan would be acceptable to Washington. It may also run into resistance from members of Mr. Hatoyama’s own coalition.