US views China as a threat: Ex-Pentagon official

Kwiatkowski made the remarks in an interview when asked about a US federal judge in San Francisco who has rejected a lawsuit filed to stop the construction of an American military base off Japan’s Okinawa Island.
 
The plaintiffs, including environmental groups and some Japanese residents, initially lodged the lawsuit in 2003, naming former secretary of defense Chuck Hagel as a defendant.
 
According to the lawsuit, the construction of the base would put at risk the life of an endangered marine mammal related to the manatee.
 
In addition, the construction of two aircraft runways on landfill in a bay would damage crucial feeding grounds and habitat for dugongs.
 
Kwiatkowski said “it’s pretty obvious to people looking at the US military’s future approaches that they’re really worried about Asia, they’re worried about China.”
 
“So constructing a new base in Okinawa well to me and to most people who would look at this certainly as Okinawans, this is not a good idea, we’ve had nothing but you know unrest and pushback from the Okinawans, in particular, because of what the American military has done to those islands over the years,” she added.
 
“The construction of a new facility obviously is disappointing to them but it does sit in very much and shows the directions of the US strategy which is very much looking to China not as an ally or a trading partner but as a threat,” she opined.
 
Many Japanese are angry over US plans and have been holding protests demanding that American forces be moved completely off the island.