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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

7 in 10 Japan prefectures back revising pact governing US troops

NAHA, Japan—Thirty-three of Japan’s 47 prefectural governments back revising a pact governing the US forces in the country, a Kyodo News survey showed Saturday, underscoring widespread concerns associated with U.S. military bases and the agreement restricting Japanese investigation rights in accidents.

The survey was conducted in November and December after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, a proponent of the first-ever revision to the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), took office in October.

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The wariness over SOFA, which critics view as overly protective of American service members who have broken Japanese law, appears to be not limited to municipalities hosting facilities exclusively used by the US military, with 21 prefectures without such installations also expressing their desire in the survey to see the accord amended.

Under the pact, which was signed along with the bilateral security treaty, Japan’s aeronautics regulations are also not applied, raising safety fears and noise concerns about low-altitude flights by U.S. military aircraft.

The governments of Tokyo and Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan, were among the 26 prefectural offices that called for an amendment. Seven others said a revision is needed “if they were to choose.” No prefecture said a revision was unnecessary.

Among the remaining 14 prefectures, Aichi said it is “not on either side” and 13 said “national security is a matter dealt with exclusively by the state.”

In a multiple-response question to the 33 prefectures asking the reason for seeking an amendment, 19 prefectures cited either “residents’ concerns about U.S. bases and training” or the need to see “Japanese laws also applied to U.S. military personnel.”

Sixteen prefectures said addressing issues through operational change is “insufficient,” followed by 11 prefectures that thought SOFA “does not fit the reality because it has never been revised.”

Tokyo chose “other” reasons and called for a “revision that responds to the changes in social circumstances.”

Okinawa, Kanagawa, Shimane prefectures, meanwhile, said their residents’ lives are “frequently” affected by the US military.

Kanagawa hosts Atsugi air base, which straddles the densely populated cities of Yamato and Ayase and is shared by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military. Shimane residents, meanwhile, have been concerned by low-altitude flights by U.S. military planes based in Iwakuni in adjacent Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Nearly a dozen prefectures were concerned about low-flying planes, while the government of Toyama, which in 2021 spotted such activities without prior notice, cited the risk of “falling parts or planes crashing.”

Some prefectures also noted issues such as noise around U.S. bases and a decrease in tax revenue as U.S. military service members are either exempt from or pay a lower rate of vehicle tax.

While campaigning for his party’s leadership race in September and for the general election the following month, Ishiba expressed his desire to amend the pact.

Recalling a US military helicopter crash on an Okinawa university campus in 2004 when he was defense chief, Ishiba said he wondered at the time whether Japan was “a sovereign state” as US forces sealed off access to the site to retrieve the wreckage with local police unable to conduct their own investigation.

Since taking office, Ishiba, however, has toned down his ambition to amend the pact, which could potentially upset the decades-old bilateral alliance.

The residents of Okinawa, where anti-base sentiment runs deep due to repeated sexual assaults committed by US military members, have called for the amendment of SOFA for years but Japan and the United States have only responded with operational changes or supplementary agreements.

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