JAPANESE Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama suggested at the weekend that a failure to resolve a dispute over plans to relocate a US military base on Okinawa island could prompt him to resign. Support for Hatoyama's Democratic Party has slumped to about 40 percent, mainly over financial scandals, damaging its chances in an upper house election expected in July. The fuss over the Futenma base could further distract from efforts to craft mid-term plans to boost economic growth. Following are some questions and answers about the issue: Why has this dispute flared up? Before Hatoyama's election victory last year, he raised hopes that a 2006 plan agreed with the United States by the previous government to shift Futenma Marine base to another part of Okinawa could be changed and the facility moved off the island. Angered by the noise and crime they associate with the bases, many residents want him to stick to that stance. His room for maneuver narrowed after an anti-base candidate won a local election on Okinawa in January. Hatoyama has pledged to decide on the matter by the end of May, ahead of a possible meeting with US President Barack Obama, who has urged him to proceed with the current plan. A senior opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) executive said at the weekend Hatoyama should resign if he fails to produce a solution on time. Polls show many voters are concerned about how he is handling the country's alliance with the United States. More broadly, the Democrats have promised to adopt a diplomatic stance less subservient to Washington. Anxiety is heightened by questions about the overall future of the five-decade-old US-Japan alliance as both face the challenge of China's rising economic and military might. Can Hatoyama resolve the dispute and stay on? Maybe, but the outlines of any resolution remain murky. Media say two options are being floated informally, one to build a new runway within the existing Camp Schwab base on Okinawa. This would reduce the bases' overall footprint and avoid landfill in a bay frequented by dugongs, a rare marine mammal. The local assembly in Nago, where Camp Schwab is located, on Monday passed a resolution opposing an additional runway, Kyodo news agency said, though that vote carries no legal weight. Another option involves construction on landfill off another part of Okinawa, media say. Hatoyama might agree to the current plan, or one with slight modifications, but that would also outrage many Okinawans and cause a rift with two tiny parties whose backing is needed to pass laws smoothly. Voters might also wonder why Hatoyama raised the issue in the first place. The dispute seems unlikely to spill over into trade and investment ties between the world's two biggest economies. But damage to the alliance could create uncertainty in a region home to a rising China and an unpredictable North Korea, eventually affecting investment flows. Why close the Futenma base and replace it? Residents of Okinawa, 1,600 km (1,000 miles) south of Tokyo and reluctant host to about half the 47,000 US military personnel in Japan, have long resented what they see as an unfair burden in maintaining the security alliance. The concentration of US bases on Okinawa, a major US military forward logistics base strategically located in the western Pacific close to Taiwan and the Korean peninsula, is a legacy of America's occupation of the island from 1945 to 1972. Outrage flares periodically among residents, most strikingly after the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl by three US servicemen. As part of a 1996 pact to reduce the US military presence, the United States and Japan agreed to close Futenma Air Station, home to about 4,000 Marines and located in crowded Ginowan City, within seven years if a replacement could be found on Okinawa. An initial plan for an offshore facility in northern Okinawa was opposed by locals and environmentalists. The current plan is for relocation to Nago, where it would be partly built within another base and on reclaimed land. But the new mayor of Nago opposes the plan. Is this just about Futenma? No. The issue is much broader. Washington and Tokyo agreed in 2006 on a “road map” to transform the decades-old alliance, the pillar of Japan's post
