The two new runways the US military wants to build here by 2014 would cut a giant V through the turquoise waters off Henoko, harming a marine ecosystem that is home to tropical fish and a rare sea mammal, the dugong, she says.

Sakai, 36 -- known as 'Skipper' to her fellow activists who have camped out on this picturesque beach for over 2,000 days -- says she doesn't care what sweeteners the distant superpower throws at the people of Japan.

"The United States has said it would accept a concession and move the runways a bit offshore, but we oppose the entire plan," said Sakai during a recent visit. "I'm sick of these pointless arguments. Japan doesn't have the capacity to accept another base."

Many Okinawans feel the same way.

Opposition to the US military presence has simmered for decades, with locals complaining about aircraft noise, pollution, the risk of accidents and crimes committed by servicemen, especially a high-profile 2005 gang-rape.

The rise this summer of a new centre-left national government in Tokyo, 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) away, has fuelled hopes that the unpopular US military presence will finally be scaled back.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who in September ended half a century of conservative domination, has promised to review a three-year-old pact on the American troop presence, and suggested the new base at Henoko may be scrapped.

The row threatens to overshadow a visit to Japan this week by US President Barack Obama, who Tuesday urged Tokyo to stick with the agreement, arguing that the US military presence is in the interest of officially pacifist Japan.

The biggest flashpoint in Okinawa has been the US Marine Corp Futenma Air Base, now located in the crowded urban area of Ginowan city, where more than 20,000 people staged a protest rally last Sunday.

Under the 2006 pact, the base would be closed, its air operations moved to coastal Henoko near the existing US Camp Schwab base, and 8,000 Marines shifted to the US territory of Guam in a move part-funded by Japan.

The United States has insisted Japan stick to the Futenma deal, part of a wider agreement to realign its troop presence in a country where American forces have been based since the end of World War II.

Washington considers Okinawa, sometimes dubbed 'America's unsinkable aircraft carrier,' as a key strategic location, close to China, Taiwan and North Korea, and a forward base for Afghanistan and other areas.

Okinawa saw some of the bloodiest battles of WWII, when at least 200,000 people died here, about half of them civilians.

American occupation forces officially handed the island back to Tokyo in 1972, but Okinawa continues to host more than half of the US troops in Japan and almost three quarters of its military facilities.

Some on Okinawa have defended the bases for fuelling the local economy and providing jobs -- but sentiment swung in 1995 after three Marines gang-raped a local 12-year-old girl.

The wave of anti-US feeling helped bring about the 2006 realignment pact which Hatoyama's government has now put in question.

Even before that deal was struck, activists like Hiroshi Ashitomi took to the beach of Henoko and started their sit-in protest, now in its sixth year.

"The issue of the Futenma base started because it is too dangerous to keep it in the city," said Ashitomi, 63, a former local government official.

"Shutting down the base must come first, before talk about where to move it."

Ashitomi said he was tired of journalists from Japan's main islands who ask where else in Japan the Futenma operations could possibly be moved.

"Why does it have to be on Okinawa?" asked Ashitomi angrily. "It is nothing but discrimination against Okinawa when... no other prefectures want to share the burden."

Many Okinawans say that 'mainland' Japan has been too happy to allow the major US bases on their island, which has a distinct indigenous culture and language and only became part of Japan in the mid-19th century.

The Okinawa Times has called the bases dispute more of a domestic issue than a diplomatic affair and rapped a Hatoyama government minister for trying "not to spread the US bases onto the mainland."

Kadena mayor Tokujitsu Miyagi, whose town hosts a huge US airbase, has defiantly proposed that the Futenma base be moved to Japan's northern Hokkaido island -- the home of the premier's electoral district.

Tetsuro Kato, politics professor at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University, said Hatoyama, who has vowed an 'equal relationship' with Washington, must show strong leadership and a clear position on the issue when he meets Obama.

"Otherwise it will be extremely difficult for him to solve the base issue."

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