US wants additional sympathy budget

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

US wants additional sympathy budget

The U.S. government is putting pressure on Japan to allocate more money for the U.S. military presence in Japan, the so-called sympathy budget.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia and Pacific Security Affairs Wallace C. Gregson on July 27 submitted a statement to the House Armed Services Committee in which he pointed out that the sympathy budget or Host Nation Support (HNS) is “a strategic pillar of the (Japan-U.S.) alliance.”

Gregson demanded that Japan “should increase its overall defense expenditures and HNS funding levels.”

The sympathy budget for U.S. forces is based on the special agreement that will expire in March 2011. The U.S. government is now pressuring Japan to extend this agreement.

The percentage of U.S. military-related expenses in Japan’s military spending has been increasing year by year. The Democratic Party of Japan government is considering cutting the U.S. military-related expenses and setting an upper limit on them.

The DPJ, when it was an opposition party, was opposing the special agreement on the grounds that it would indefinitely expand the sympathy budget, an expenditure that Japan is not obliged to pay under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

After the DPJ came to power, the party changed its position. It currently states, “We will find a way to reduce (the sympathy budget), but we intend to maintain the special agreement with the U.S.”

- Akahata, July 29, 2010