The purpose of this essay is to examine the relationship between the U.S.-Japan alliance and local politics focusing on the Iwakuni Base problem. The Iwakuni Base was originally established by the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1938, but the U.S. and the British Commonwealth countries seized it in 1945. Then U.S. Marine took initiative and the base became Marine Corps Air Station in 1962. After the incident that U.S. fighter crashed into the Kyushu University in 1968, the city and people of Iwakuni petitioned the Japanese Government for moving the base off the coast and the huge project began in 1997.
On the other hand, Okinawa's anger reached to the peak after the rape incident of an Okinawan girl by three U.S. soldiers in 1995. And the people surrounding the Atsugi Base complained about Night Landing Practice by carrier-based aircrafts. Thus Iwakuni was considered the best place to transfer aircrafts in Okinawa and Atsugi.
By a local referendum held in 2006, an overwhelming majority of Iwakuni said "NO" to accept the transfer of carrier-based aircrafts. However, the Japanese Government stopped granting a subsidy of 35 billion yen to construct a new Iwakuni city hall. Mayer Ihara resigned and ran for a mayoral election. Ihara criticized cruel treatment by the government and insisted to support local autonomy and democracy. However, Ihara was defeated by a former member of the House of Representatives who approved accepting carrier-based aircrafts in exchange for a subsidy. Thus it was decided that Iwakuni would be the largest air base in the Far East after the accomplishment of U.S. military transformation scheduled in 2014.