The report presented on Thursday to Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga by the "experts commission" he set up in January is bound to shake the Japan-U.S. relationship. Comprised of six authorities in law and environment, the commission was asked to advise on the legality of the ongoing moves by the Okinawa Defense Bureau (the Defense Ministry's Okinawan affairs section) to reclaim a large section of Oura Bay in the Henoko area of Nago in northern Okinawa and construct there a major military facility for the U.S. Marine Corps.
This would nominally be a Futenma replacement facility that would allow the site of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma (famously described by former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as the "most dangerous base in the world" because it sits in the middle of the bustling township of Ginowan) to be returned to Japan.
While called a "replacement," however, the new base would be a much larger, comprehensive facility, locking Okinawa in to U.S. force-projection scenarios through the rest of the century and with a range of facilities not present at Futenma, including not least a deep water military port. It would involve substantial reclamation of one of Japan's most biologically diverse and precious marine environments.