United States Forces in Japan (USFJ) and Extraterritoriality

United States Forces have been stationed in Japan since the end of August 1945, first as Occupation Forces of the Allied Powers between 1945 and 1952, and later as United States Forces in Japan (USFJ) since 1952. In 1951, Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty and the United States-Japan Security Treaty (hereafter referred to as the Security Treaty). Under the Security Treaty, the United States government is to provide Japan with security while Japan supplies land and the existing facilities to USFJ. Therefore, the Security Treaty is not supposed to be “a one-sided” treaty, but “a give and take” treaty. Over the last sixty years, there have been many accidents and crimes committed by USFJ (In this paper, USFJ include their family members and civilians who work for USFJ). As many statistics show, USFJ hurt the local people, instead of protecting them under the Security Treaty. The number of the average incidents is more than 10 cases per day during 19522008. Moreover, the Japanese government pays huge amounts of money to USFJ for Host Nation Support (HNS) every year, even though Japan has no obligation to pay such money to the United States under the Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and Japan (SOFA). In other words, the Japanese people are so generous that they are paying to the people who hurt them. The real problem in this issue is that Japan cannot exercise sovereignty over USFJ. Many crimes and accidents are not tried by either a Japanese court or a United States military court in Japan. Conversely, the Japanese law does not control USFJ. Therefore, one can argue that USFJ enjoy “extraterritoriality” under SOFA. As a result, crimes and accidents by USFJ are repeated. According to the Asahi Shimbun , 59% of those Americans who participated in a survey in the United Sates in 2010 thought that the main reason for keeping USFJ was United States world-wide strategy while only 9% said the reason was to defend Japan. In fact, in January 1970, United States Undersecretary of State Alexis Johnson stated that it is Japan’s Self Defense Forces (SDF) that has primary responsibility to defend Japan, not USFJ. USFJ do not have either ground or air forces to defend Japan against a conventional attack. A part of USFJ since 2001 has been transferred to other areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq. In other words, Japan has been used as a supply and training base for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some Americans argue that United States Marine Corps in Okinawa are not needed in a conflict either near the Taiwan Strait or in the Korea Peninsula. Barney Frank, United States House of Representative of the Democratic Party, states that 15,000 Marine Corps troops from Okinawa would not fight against several million Chinese troops in the mainland China. A military official says that the tactics of the Marine Corps are to force their way through the enemy’s lines and occupy small islands. Therefore, Marine Corps troops would not play an