A total of about 100,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Okinawa, elsewhere in Japan, south Korea, and aboard warships afloat in the Pacific. These troops, together with a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, are aimed against the workers states in China and north Korea--as well as Russia--and against working people throughout Asia who fight to assert their rights. They are key to the U.S. rulers' efforts to remain the dominant Pacific power.

Washington targets China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea because workers and farmers there ripped those lands out of the control of Washington and other powers that had long plundered them, and overturned capitalist rule. U.S. officials have labeled north Korea a "rogue state"--now revised as a "state of concern"--because the Korean people continue to refuse to get on their knees to imperialism. The U.S. troops and weapons on the Korean peninsula are meant to reinforce the 50-year-long division of that nation. Washington's bipartisan drive to develop a missile "defense" system--in reality an offensive system designed to give the U.S. rulers a first-strike nuclear capacity--is also aimed against these workers states.

U.S. officials argue that the U.S. bases in Okinawa are needed in face of "instability" in Asia. They have in mind rebellious workers and farmers such as those in south Korea who continue to mobilize in strikes and demonstrations for union rights, against economic austerity measures, and for the unification of their country.

The generator of instability is the capitalist system itself, which especially since the economic crisis that rolled through Asia in 1997 has been wreaking havoc on the lives of millions in the region.

Working people have been impelled into action by layoffs and other brutal economic measures by capitalist governments in country after country--from strikes by 20,000 garment workers in Cambodia to demonstrations in Indonesia for democratic rights.

The U.S. rulers have divergent interests from the capitalists in Japan. The heavy U.S. military "footprint" on Okinawa--as William Clinton put it--gives Washington the upper hand in the inevitable and sharpening competition between these two imperialist powers.

Washington maintains a roughly similar military presence in Europe and Asia. But its troops in Japan and Korea are not integrated as the dominant force in any Asian military alliance with other powers, unlike Europe, where U.S. imperialism is the predominant force in NATO. That makes U.S. armed intervention in Asia less "legitimate" and more explosive.

Just how explosive could be glimpsed on July 20, when tens of thousands of fishermen, farmers, and workers demonstrated for the removal of the U.S. bases from Okinawa. The repeated incidents of abuse against Okinawan women by U.S. military personnel, as well as the destruction of the environment, have only reinforced mass opposition to Washington's military presence.

Protests against the U.S. military in Japan and south Korea help to strengthen the fight against the number one enemy of all working people around the globe--Washington and its war machine.