These days, the U.S. and Japan enjoy an excellent relationship, in part due to the close personal relationship between President Bush and Prime Minister Koizumi.

Likely there will continue to be deep cooperation between the U.S. and Japan, particularly on security issues, as the rise of China and the North Korean nuclear blackmail occupy minds of policy makers in both countries.

Even so, there are still moments of “debate” between the two countries when money and internal social concerns are at stake:

Defense Agency Chief Fukushiro Nukaga met local officials Sunday in a last-ditch effort to seek support for a planned realignment of U.S. troops, a deeply divisive issue that has caused widespread disagreement between Tokyo and Washington.

Japan has abandoned hopes of finalizing a deal with the United States by a planned end-March deadline amid arguments over how to split the US$10 billion cost of relocating 7,000 U.S. marines from Okinawa island to the U.S. territory of Guam, according to a report. [snip]

The two countries agreed to finalize the plan by the end of March when they produced a basic blueprint last October, but Japan now wants more time because of concerns that deadline could force it into an unwanted compromise on its share of the cost, a newspaper reported, citing unidentified government sources.

The discontent in Okinawa about hosting U.S. forces is pronounced:

Residents near the U.S. troop installations have long opposed their presence, citing crowding, noise and crime associated with the bases. The realignment plans have triggered protests in Okinawa, where construction of a new military runway is planned, and in other local communities near bases that will be beefed up.

Seeking to gain understanding, Nukaga met Sunday with officials from Okinawa, where resentment of the U.S. military presence runs especially deep due to the longstanding burden of hosting about half of the Japan-based American military. The 1995 rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by three US servicemen triggered angry demonstrations and demands for the bases to be removed [boldface mine].

This issue of “crowding” in Okinawa is largely Tokyo’s fault. During the Cold War years, Tokyo enjoyed the protection afforded by the U.S. forces “on the cheap,” but tried to prevent widespread U.S. deployment and the consequent interactions with ordinary Japanese by crowding the U.S. forces into Okinawa instead (Okinawans were long considered second-class citizens by “mainland” Japanese).

Now the Okainawans aren’t going to take it anymore. The fair thing to do would be for the rest of Japan to share in the physical “burden” — not just economic costs — of hosting the U.S. military forces, but since that is still unacceptable to Tokyo, we have a dispute over where, when and how the forces will relocate and how much to pay.