Agreement on Okinawa

For a quarter of a century, Okinawa has stood as a reminder of Japan's defeat in World War II. Conquered by the U.S. in the last bloody battles of the war, it remained an American-occupied area even after Japan regained its sovereignty. Last week victor and vanquished moved to restore the island to its old owner. After two days of talks in Washington, President Nixon and Premier Eisaku Sato agreed to a timetable for the long-promised return to Japanese control of the Ryukyu chain, of which Okinawa is the largest island.

The agreement winds up the last unfinished business that dates back to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In a speech to the National Press Club, Premier Sato, who speaks in fluent but accented English, hailed the Okinawa accord as bringing the postwar period to a close. He promised that Japan, as an equal partner of the U.S., "will make its contribution to the peace and prosperity of the Asian-Pacific region, and hence to the entire world." Sato could afford to be expansive. By having satisfactorily settled the Okinawa issue, he had greatly enhanced his own political standing at home.

Nuclear Ban. According to the agreement, the Ryukyu Islands will revert to Japan in 1972. The U.S., however, will retain the right to maintain military bases there. These bases will be subject to the terms of the U.S.-Japanese Mutual Cooperation and Security Treaty, which forbids the U.S. to deploy nuclear weapons without the approval of the Japanese. The U.S. will remove its nuclear weapons from the island before Japan takes control. If the Viet Nam war is not ended by then, the U.S. reserved the option to ask Tokyo's permission to fly combat support missions from Okinawa, where most of the B-52s are now based.

In return for the handover of Okinawa, Sato made important concessions. He pledged to pick up a larger share of the Asian defense burden. To keep this pledge, he will double the country's military budget after 1972. He also agreed to increase Japan's economic aid to other Asian nations. On the trade front, he committed Japan to use multilateral Geneva talks to solve the problems created by Japan's rapidly expanding textile industry, which has been flooding the U.S. with its inexpensively produced synthetic fibers.

None of these conditions are likely to be very popular in Japan. Accustomed to reliance on the U.S. for protection, Japan now spends less than 1% of its gross national product on defense. Japanese are understandably reluctant to increase their country's military budget or to assume a larger and more expensive role in an Asian defense system. The country's industrialists naturally are not eager to cut back on their highly profitable textile exports to the U.S.

Election Reckoning. Even so, the Okinawa agreement should give Sato's Liberal Democratic Party an unprecedented opportunity to retain control of the Ja anese Diet. U.S. control and use of Okinawa as a base for Viet Nam war operations have long been touchy is sues for the antimilitary Japanese, and his party has staked its political future on reversion. Party leaders in Tokyo have already hailed the Washington communique as a show of mutual trust and friendship between the U.S. and Japan. Though the vocal minority of leftist students and workers op poses any American presence in Japan or Okinawa, a substantial majority of Japanese support the Premier's plan for continued cooperation with the U.S.

A master of political timing, Sato is expected to press his newly gained advantage by calling an extraordinary session of the Diet to hear his report on Okinawa next month and then to schedule parliamentary elections. If he does, Sato can reasonably hope that his party, which now holds 273 of the Diet's 486 seats, may even gain a few seats, perhaps at the expense of the rival Socialists.

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