US base in Japan shows forces close, yet divided

IWAKUNI, Japan, Feb 25 (Reuters) Japan's national flag flutters high alongside the Stars and Stripes at the headquarters of the US Marine Corps Air Station at Iwakuni in southwestern Japan, where the former enemies share a seaside airbase.

No fence divides the two forces, who live and work in close proximity around the base's single runway. They share concerns over the threat from a nuclear North Korea -- about 560 km away -- but say their contact is limited.

''Operationally, we have nothing to do with one another,'' Chief Staff Officer Satoru Shoji, second in command on the Japanese side of the base, said during a rare foreign media tour of Iwakuni last week. ''But we do hold friendship events like Christmas or flower-viewing parties,'' he added.

US Marines showed off their F/A-18 fighter jets and high-tech firing ranges during the tour, while the Japanese maritime forces displayed a US-1A ''flying boat,'' a plane used chiefly for ferrying the sick or injured to the mainland from remote islands around Japan.

Iwakuni, close to Hiroshima and 1,000 km southwest of Tokyo, belonged to Japan's Imperial Navy until the country's World War Two defeat.

About half of its area is set aside for exclusive US use, with only 0.5 per cent of the space earmarked for the 1,500 Japanese personnel and the rest is used jointly -- as it has been for the past half century.

The 3,000 US personnel, their families and support staff almost all live on base in what amounts to a small town, with its own schools, shops and fast food eateries.

JUNIOR PARTNER The divide at Iwakuni to some extent reflects relations as a whole between the approximately 50,000 US troops based in Japan and their hosts, whose armed forces are strictly controlled under the pacifist constitution.

Though some bases hold joint exercises, such as this month's Keen Edge involving the two air forces, and exchange training programmes, Japan's armed forces remain a junior and somewhat isolated security partner to the United States.

''The Japanese remain as separate as they possibly can be,'' said Robyn Lim, a professor of international relations at Japan's Nanzan University. ''That's the way they seem to like it.'' But spooked by North Korean missile launches and last year's nuclear test, Japan has begun to work more closely with the United States on joint missile defence.

Tokyo has yet to clarify whether its constitution would allow it to shoot down a missile heading for the United States.

The bilateral relationship could be invigorated by an upcoming reorganisation of US forces in Japan.

The deal, agreed last May, calls for the US Army Japan's headquarters at Camp Zama near Tokyo to be upgraded and a Japanese rapid response headquarters moved to the base by 2013.

A planned joint operations coordination centre at the US Yokota Air Base south of the capital will allow the allies to work together on missile defence and coordinate joint operations.

''The idea is to create greater interoperability, to maximise the assets that the two sides have,'' said Brad Glosserman executive director of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Hawaii-based think tank.

The Japanese cabinet earlier this month approved a bill that would provide funding for the transfer of 8,000 US Marines from Japan's southern island of Okinawa to the US territory of Guam as part of the realignment process.

An environmental survey is also set to begin next month in Okinawa to enable the relocation of the unpopular Futenma US Marine Base to a less heavily populated area of the island, Japanese media reported.

REUTERS SBA RN0754