American " Rebalance Strategy " And The Transformation Of The Strategic Status Of The Okinawa Military Base And Its Influence

The strategic status of Okinawa military base, means the role it played in the implementation of the American Asia-Pacific strategy.It can be analyzed both from the perspective of politics and military. The strategic status of Okinawa military base is determined by three factors-American Asia-Pacific Strategy, the relationship between America and Japan, and the struggle of the Okinawa people and its local government, among which, the American Asia-Pacific strategy plays the most important role.The U.S-Japan alliance is an important pillar of the American Asia-Pacific strategy since the beginning of the cold war, and the Okinawa military base plays a very important role in the alliance.Although America finally gave back the executive power of Okinawa at the year of1972, it still hosts lots of military forces and facilities in this region. Since the end of the cold war to the early days of the G.W. Bush’s administration, Okinawa base had been playing host to half of all U.S. forces in Japan while just representing less than0.6%of Japanese territory.Policy makers from one certain American government always study from their previous counterparts as well as make some innovations in terms of making their overall Asia-Pacific strategy. Compared with George W. Bush’s administration, the Obama’s administration shared the same worry that whether the rise of China will harm the American benefit in the Asia-Pacific region, but the Obama’s administration payed more attention to the way it used its power-they emphasized that America need to learn to make use of its smart power, and America need to focus its limited resources to achieve their primary objectives. In terms of primary strategic objective in the Asia-Pacific region, the Obama’s administration lays stress on the"balance"towards China, which is quite different from the Bush’s administrations’s containment strategyUnder the "rebalance" strategy, the Obama’s administration do not have so much interest in permanent bases as the Bush’s administration in terms of the military deployment in the Asia-Pacific region.The Obama’s administration think that it is very import to cooperate with their allies flexibly. The realignment of the US forces in Japan have reflected the way how American used its "smart power". On the one hand, under the context that China had enhanced its military power, keeping a large number of U.S. forces in the Okinawa military base is quite unnecessary, and with the guidance of the "air sea battle" plan, American ground forces will shrink from the first island chain back to the second island chain. On the other hand, America should leave a certain number of ground forces at Okinawa to be a political symbol of the U.S.-Japan alliance and U.S.-Japan security guarantee system. Besides, the "roadmap for realignment implementation "can also do some help to relieve the burden of the local people in the Okinawa, which then can help to weaken the opposition from the local people against the existence of the American forces in this area. The strategic status of the Okinawa military base under the "rebalance strategy" have changed dramatically. In the sense of the military significance, the part that Okinawa used to play in the process of containing China have been weakened. Nevertheless, in the sense of political significance, the pure existence of the Okinawa military base means a lot to the maintain ance of the U.S.-Japan alliance.The transformation of the strategic status of the Okinawa military base will influence the relationship between U.S. and Japan. And it will also affect the overall security environment of the Asia-Pacific region and China. In terms of the regional security, The transformation of the strategic status of the Okinawa military base will promote Japan to think more about its own national security strategy and the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance. For China, It does not have to worry too much about the Okinawa military base as a military threat, but politically, China should pay more attention to the long-term influence of the transformation of the strategic status of the Okinawa military base in terms of political significance.