This year's Group of Eight summit meeting in Okinawa presents U.S. President Bill Clinton with a particularly sensitive political and diplomatic challenge. The success of the summit for Americans will probably be judged more by the tone of the president's reception in Okinawa than by the substantive outcome of the meetings themselves.
Throughout the postwar period, Okinawans have both resented and economically benefited from the U.S. bases. Periodic tensions, the most serious recent ones in 1995 after the rape of a 12 year-old girl by three U.S. servicemen, have punctuated the uneasy relations between the foreign forces and Okinawans.
The U.S. military has gradually reduced the number and size of its facilities and curtailed operations that inconvenienced the local population, but these changes have not satisfied most Okinawans. The Okinawan government remains committed to setting a deadline for the removal of the bases.