Japan Press Weekly

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2015 December 2 - 8 [POLITICS]

Japanese gov’t spends record 727.8 billion yen for US military in Japan

The amount of financial support the Japanese government provided to the U.S. forces in Japan in 2015 reached a record high of 727.8 billion yen, mainly due to an increase in spending related to the planned construction of a new U.S. base in Okinawa’s Henoko district, Akahata reported on December 6.

The Japanese government gives the U.S. military monetary support in three budgetary items: the expense of maintaining U.S. bases in Japan (including the so-called “sympathy budget”), the expense for U.S. military realignment projects, and the expense in related to the Japan-U.S. Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO).

According to Akahata, the total amount of the three items increased by 53.9 billion yen from the previous year to 727.8 billion yen, or 13.5 million yen per U.S. military personnel and their families in Japan. Akahata calculated these figures based on data that the Foreign Ministry had released in response to a request from Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Akamine Seiken.

This sharp increase has resulted from a spike in spending for the construction of a state-of-the-art military base in Nago’s Henoko coastal area in Okinawa, the main focus of the U.S. forces’ realignment projects.

The expenditures for the Henoko project includes costs for chartering patrol ships to intimidate anti-base protesters and hiring private security guards to protect the gates of U.S. Camp Schwab adjoining the construction site. In response to Akahata inquiry, the Defense Ministry’s Okinawa Defense Bureau said that the amount of money it spent for these purposes was 4.3 billion yen in 2015, or 11.8 million yen a day.

Niina Yoshiharu, chief of Nago’s Teima district, criticized the national government for using a huge amount of taxpayer money to suppress anti-base activists staging non-violent protests. He pointed out that the government even sent riot squads from Tokyo to Okinawa, who are staying at a luxury resort hotel during their stay. He went on to say that the government introduced a system that provides subsidies directly to local districts in the vicinity of the construction site over the heads of the prefectural and city governments, adding that the money is said to be awarded only to pro-base districts. Niina stressed that the state should not use taxpayers’ money in such an outrageous way.

Past related articles:
> Japan has no obligation to offer ‘sympathy budget’ to US military in Japan [January 20, 2015]
> Japanese gov’t spends Y674 billion on US bases [December 22, 2014]