Okinawa’s Turbulent 400 Years

Gavan McCormack

[Japanese text available]

This three part New Year essay was commissioned by the Okinawan daily Ryukyu shimpo and published on January 6, 7, and 8, 2009, under the title "Satsuma shinko 400 nen – "Gekijo" kokka to shite no Okinawa," (400 Years since the Satsuma Invasion: Okinawa as 'Theatre' state").

For Japanese text, carried here with permission from Ryukyu shimpo, see the headings of each section.

2009 is an especially important date in Okinawan history. It marks the 400^th anniversary of the invasion and conquest of the islands in 1609 by 3,000 musket-bearing samurai from the mainland Japanese domain of Satsuma. Till then, as the Ryukyu kingdom, the islands had been an autonomous part of the East Asian "tribute" world centring on Ming China. After the invasion, the appearance of independence continued but henceforth in fact the Ryukyu kings were subject to Satsuma, and to the Edo Japanese state.

 

East Asia map

270 years later, in 1879, even the residual sovereignty of the Okinawan kings was finally extinguished and the islands were incorporated as Okinawa prefecture within the modern Japanese state (the Meiji state, established in 1868).

The 400^th anniversary of Okinawa's incorporation in the pre-modern Japanese state, which is also the 130^th anniversary of its incorporation in the modern state, offers an occasion to reflect on four turbulent centuries, from the perspective of a territory that has uniquely been both "in" and "out" of the Japanese state. Once Japan's remotest periphery, for long butt of discrimination and exploitation and literally sacrificed to try to stave off attack on the "mainland" in 1945, Okinawa in the 21^st century is at the heart of the Northeast Asian region and, as the following essay argues, raises crucial questions over Japan's identity and role in the world.

(1) Okinawa as Theatre State [Japanese text here]

In the late 20^th and early 21^st century, as in the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries, the old order breaks down; the new struggles to be born. On all sides there is uncertainty and flux. Then, globalization opened new routes of commerce, spread new ideas and technologies and dissolved and reformed states: China's Ming, already in its third century, faced growing challenges and unrest; Japan, emerging from a long period of chronic civil war and a failed attempt to displace the Ming and subject Asia to Japanese rule, had begun to retreat to concentrate on developing its unique closed country (sakoku) polity; Europe was expanding vigorously, despoiling Africa and enslaving its people, colonizing the Americas and violently displacing existing Amerindian kingdoms. Capitalism and nationalism were ascendant, underpinned by war and its technologies.

400 years on, again a familiar world order crumbles and the world is in flux. Western (especially US) hegemony, and the Cold War frame that underpinned the last phase of that hegemony, fades and begins to be seen as a historical aberration; the certainty that but yesterday surrounded capitalism and nationalism crumbles. The sovereignty of states is eroded by the very globalizing forces – of capital, technology, war systems – that engendered them in the first place.

Okinawa was and is profoundly affected. Then, it was the remotest periphery, subjected within the Tokugawa system to an Edo Bakufu keen to revive the relations with Ming China that had been suspended since the Hideyoshi-led invasions of Korea (1592 and 1598), and the Satsuma domain on Japan's southern border that had already seized control of the Amami Islands. Okinawa was to be Satsuma's African or Caribbean colony. Now, still geographically remote, it has become politically central – for the alliance between the two global powers rests on it. Furthermore, while it is embedded in the old system of Western, especially US hegemony, its location makes it potentially a core element in a future regional and world order still only dimly visible. Okinawa would be one candidate to house some of the core institutions of a Northeast Asian concert of states. How to negotiate the present clashing of world orders is Okinawa's problem but also its opportunity.

From Okinawa's viewpoint, it goes without saying that 1609 is a date to commemorate but not to celebrate. Having flourished for centuries as an autonomous kingdom, thriving on commerce and culture, Okinawa was in no position to offer resistance when 3,000 Satsuma samurai, many bearing muskets (only a few decades after firearms were introduced to East Asia), sailed menacingly into their world. Within days, the court submitted and King Sho Nei and his entourage were carried off to Kagoshima. The new order that was imposed was more "modern," rationalized and bureaucratic, than the shamanistic, ritual court world it displaced, but it was also unequal and often harsh. The kingship continued, but kings were no longer sovereign.

 

King Sho Nei

Post-1609 Okinawa/Ryukyu was a Potemkin-like, theatre state: Okinawans were required to pretend to continuing incorporation within the Chinese tribute world, the people ordered to speak Ryukyu dialect and forbidden to speak Yamato (ie. Japanese) language, and kings traveling to Edo (Tokyo) were ordered to wear Chinese costume. Thus the façade of independence was preserved and the prestige of the Bakufu heightened by the appearance of a foreign mission pledging fealty to it. In few states were tatemae and honne so strictly bifurcated. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz once famously wrote of the Java of the pre-Dutch colonial era as a "Theatre State," but when he used the term he meant a state concentrating on ritual, performance, and spectacle for their own sake as the stuff of politics and expression of power. Okinawa was a "theatre state" of very different kind, required to perform theatre designed to conceal the locus and nature of political authority. Shuri Castle itself was a carefully constructed stage, all Okinawans, and especially the court, actors.

 

Shuri Castle, Seiden

The curtain came down on that theatre in 1879, with full incorporation as a prefecture in Meiji Japan. As the last, least, and lowest component of the Meiji state, eventually sacrificed to try to protect the "core" parts of the country and then offered to long-term US occupation by the emperor himself, there is not much to celebrate in that anniversary either.

Following American rule, in 1972, the curtain rose over a different kind of "theatre state." Nothing was what it seemed. The formal documents and instruments of power in late 20^th and early 21^st century Okinawa have been as deceptive and misleading as the Ryukyu expressions of tribute fealty to China in the 17^th to 19th centuries.

Okinawa was required to perform Japanese sovereignty, constitutional pacifism, prefectural self-government, and regional autonomy. The reality, however, was that sovereignty was only partially returned (bases retained), the US-Japan security treaty continued to serve as Okinawa's key charter, in effect contradicting and functioning as superior to the constitution, the reversion was secured by enormous Japanese payments. In short, it was a "purchase" rather than a "return," and Japan was to continue paying ongoing reverse "rental" to the US to make it continue the occupation. Okinawan prefectural autonomy was as empty as the pretence of Okinawan autonomy in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Crucially, Okinawa under Japan's peace constitution retained its war state character under a condominium Japan-US command.

Throughout Okinawa's 400 years, two sets of contradiction have persisted: between Okinawan deep-seated peace orientation and the imposed priority to war and subjection by force, and between Okinawa's multicultural and open, Asia-Pacific universalism on the one hand and "mainland" Japan's dominant identity construct, defined by rejection of Asia and assertion of superiority, in forms often constructed around the emperor as divine, on the other.

According to one story, probably apocryphal, as King Sho Nei in 1609 chose non-resistance to the superior force of Satsuma, he uttered the words Nuchi du takara. Whether or not he ever spoke them, these words have come to be understood as a statement of Okinawan value. Sho Nei's submission did not mean surrender. Facing physically superior opponents, submission was unavoidable, but conscience and value were not to be appropriated by force.

In two particular respects, this essay explores the contradiction between Nuchi du takara, the affirmation of the supremacy or sanctity of life, as the expression of Okinawan values and the competing principles imposed from outside: the priority to force (in the extreme form war, and therefore death over life) on the one hand, and the priority to growth, expansion, conquest, extended under fundamentalist capitalism to involve the appropriation and exploitation of nature itself over stability and conservation, on the other.

Okinawa's subjection to different regimes in different eras is sometimes referred to by the word "shobun," a term that implies passivity, being acted upon or disposed of, never able to take the initiative. The question in 2009 is whether or not, with its long and bitter experience, Okinawa even now may rise above its past, articulate its life affirming message, and play a core role in establishing a sustainable community of peace and life, as a prototype, sustainable Northeast Asian community.

(2) Okinawa as a Site for Constructing Peace [Japanese text here]

Militarism has long been the bane of Okinawa - under Satsuma from 1609, the modern Japanese state from 1879, the US from 1945, and the joint US-Japan regime from 1972. Japan's problem, and a fortiori Okinawa's problem, is that Japanese state and official thinking on security and defense is locked within the Cold War paradigm in which the bilateral treaty relationship with the United States is so overwhelmingly important that Japan must do anything and everything required to maintain it, and it places the burden overwhelmingly on Okinawa. In the post-Cold War world (from the 1997 "New Guidelines" to the 2005-6 "Beigun Saihen" or US military realignment), the US has called on Japan to play a greatly stepped up military role as in the Iraq and Afghan wars, and governments in Tokyo have done their best to comply, deepening and reinforcing Japan's dependence and, indeed, its irresponsibility. It is the path from the long-term dependent and semi-sovereign Japanese state of the Cold War towards becoming a full "Client State." Japan's pain is so much the greater because this stepped-up subordination coincides with diminished US credibility on all fronts – economic, political, and especially moral. Today's political confusion stems at root from an identity crisis: is Japan an independent state or a "Client State?" The recent hubbub over the Tamogami affair, the latest in the battles over war memory, reflects a deep-rooted national schizophrenia.

From 1947 to 1972, Japan's mainland "peace state" enjoyed its peace Constitution while Okinawa was severed from it as a "war state," both, however, tied symbiotically within the US's Pacific and Asian Cold War system. After the "reversion," and especially under the present and ongoing Beigun saihen, the Okinawan "war state" has been reinforced, the constitution's Article 9 steadily emptied out (for both Okinawa and the "mainland"), and the "peace" and "war" functions gradually merged. Mainland Japan becomes "Okinawa-ized," Ampo trumps Kempo.

 

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution

Okinawa's present raison d'être in the US-Japan condominium is as a base for the projection of force and the threat of force against North Korea (some would also include China). Security under this system is assumed to rest on military alliances and weapons (including nuclear weapons - which constitute the core of the US-Japan defense system). By contrast, the basic principle of the United Nations when it was formed in 1945, and of Japan's constitution when it was adopted in 1946, was to diminish and ultimately supplant, force as a determinant of world affairs. Both charters were consonant with the Okinawan principle of nuchi du takara.

Okinawans had imagined that "reversion" would bring them under the constitution, release them from the parameters of force and restore something of their ancient ideal of demilitarized, peaceful islands. It was not to be. The Okinawan people would never have chosen a permanent military identity, so the political challenge facing the Japanese state has been to neutralize the opposition to militarization and to secure the compliance of the Okinawan people to an agenda whose core is priority to the US alliance over the constitution, to military over civil or democratic principle, and to the interests of the Japanese state over those of the Okinawan people. Reversion, therefore, had to be built on deception and trumpery, bribery and lies. The post-reversion state used smoke and mirrors to try to create a theatre capable of deceiving and persuading on a mass scale.

 

US military bases on Okinawa

The deceptions were thinly concealed. What was called "reversion" was actually purchase, at a cost greater even than Japan had paid a few years earlier to compensate South Korea for four decades of colonialism; "return" was also "non-return" since the bases remained (and Japan would pay the US to continue occupying them) and those who attempted to expose the truth of the deal were pursued mercilessly and their truths denounced as lies (continuing to this day, despite the emergence of proof of their truth from the US archives). When mass discontent against the bases threatened to boil over, a new round of "reversion" was promised, but again deception was the keynote: "reversion" actually meant substitution, modernization, expansion; the scale of the new works was concealed by calling them a "heliport," and the expression "seiri shukusho" (base reduction) was chosen to try to convey the impression that overall that was what was happening.

Since Nago was the centre of opposition and the popular struggle centred there was able to block and frustrate the state design for a full decade, 1996 to 2005, money was poured into it to try to divide, weaken and corrupt it. Nobody, even the Governor, could openly state a preference for construction of a new base for the US over preservation of Oura Bay, with its newly discovered blue coral and its dugong colony, or the adjacent Yambaru forest and its creatures, so the Governor adopted the tortuous logic of arguing that the planned Cape Henoko structure would not really be a "new" base because it would in part be constructed on the site of an existing one.

 

Yambaru forest

In the centuries before 1609, Okinawa's geopolitical location was its strength; since then it has been its weakness. Outside forces have tended to see Okinawa's location as crucial for the defense of "Japan proper" or for the projection of force against other countries. Such thinking implied distance and even hostility between Okinawa and its neighbors. Security in real terms, by contrast, depends on the forging of close, friendly, and cooperative ties with neighbor countries. Such security calls for Okinawa's "war preparation" functions to be converted into "peace building" functions. Though the war preparations on Okinawa are directed at the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Strait, neither official nor civil society Okinawa has, to my knowledge, ever tried to promote Okinawa as a centre for dialogue between South and North Korea, Beijing and Taipei. But is not Okinawa perfectly placed by reason of its geographical location and its uniquely multicultural history to serve as a peace centre, and as home to some of the key institutions of a future Asian community?

The Okinawan Nuchi du Takara ideal has lived in popular memory for these four centuries. Is the time not ripe now to revive and globalize such a life-affirming ideal, to insist, after 400 years, that the samisen is, after all, superior to the gun?

(3) Okinawa, Nature and Sustainability [Japanese text here]

Capitalism in 1609 was in its very early, mercantilist stage, but that same ruthless drive, expansionism, and search for profit that drove the European exploration, conquest, and colonial expansion has continued to morph through different phases, eventually becoming the dog-eat-dog neo-liberalism whose bankruptcy has become so plain today. The Edo state tried in vain to resist it and to preserve intact its own social and economic order. With the modern, Meiji state, Japan launched full pelt into its own version of expansion at all costs, first colonial, then post colonial.

While in 1609 the East Asian pre-modern, pre-capitalist order was taking shape, in 2009 what takes shape is post-modern, late- or post-capitalist. At its peak, and before the main thrust of Western imperialism, Asia's share of global GDP was around 50 per cent. It sank to extremely low levels in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, but rapid growth in recent, post-colonial decades means that it is now about 25 per cent and even by conservative estimates is expected to be 50 per cent again by around 2030. Western imperialism, based on Europe's weapons and its primacy in the adoption of industrial capitalism, was rising over Asia 400 years ago; now it recedes, but in its wake the capitalist ethic has become universal.

 

Asia's share of world GDP 2006 (purchasing power parity)

In its most untrammelled, pure, market and profit-driven mode, "Chicago"-style capitalism has brought the world economy to the brink of collapse. Even more importantly, it has stretched the fabric of the earth to breaking point, putting at risk our survival as a species. The earth warms, the polar ice caps melt, the glaciers and the coral reefs shrink, the seas rise, the deserts advance, the polar bear, the tiger (and countless other species of land, sea, and sky) are endangered. Our present trajectory offers the prospect of gradual decline into chaos, punctuated by water wars, oil wars, food wars, and epidemics.

Latin America's first indigenous state president since the European conquest, Bolivian president Eva Morales, recently spoke of the four hundred years of capitalist transition as his people saw it, noting that "everything became a commodity: the water, soil, human genome, indigenous cultures, justice, ethics, death … and life itself."

The world's best scientific brains have come to something close to a consensus that human activity, pumping carbon into the atmosphere at steadily increasing rates ever since the industrial revolution, must be changed. The pre-industrial concentration of carbon in the atmosphere was 280 ppm. The present figure is 387 ppm, rising at around 3.1 ppm per year. To prevent runaway global warming we must at all costs keep it below 450 ppm (many scientists think that the real tipping point is more likely to be 400 ppm – in any case now unavoidable and imminent).

 

Carbon dioxide emissions by country

Short of some technological breakthrough (of which at present there is no sign), we must reduce economic activity and its necessary carbon emissions, cut back on production, consumption, and waste, eliminate the unnecessary and inefficient and switch as a matter of urgency to use of renewable over non-renewable energy sources. We have to minimize consumption and restore "traditional" values of frugality. You cannot buy human community and the bounty of nature with GDP.

In such a view, recession might be not such a bad thing. Political and economic leaders in Japan, however, insist on the need to strive for 3 per cent growth. If that were accomplished, by mid-century the economy would be almost four and a half times, and by the end of the century nineteen times, greater than now. Within the remaining years of this century, i.e. roughly five generations, materials and energy inputs and waste outputs would multiply by 19 times. Such projections for any developed country are inconceivable and especially absurd in the Japanese case because the projections for population suggest steady decline, so that an aging, shrinking population will somehow have to consume at a rate more than 20 times greater than today. For Japan and the developed world zero growth - meaning zero waste, extensive material recycling, and the substitution of renewable for non-renewable energy sources – is the only politically and morally justifiable goal.

But few are the politicians anywhere bold enough to pledge to reduce their country's GDP, or their electorate's economic output. Despite its lunacy, conventional politics is based on the assumption that society must be organized so as to maximize production, consumption, and waste, irrespective of what is produced, under what conditions (social, ecological), and how the profits are distributed, and irrespective of the implications for the planet.

Okinawa is locked into this destructive, GDP-obsessed frame of thinking by several conditions: firstly because it is seen (and sees itself) to be "backward" in that its per capita GDP and other economic indices are below the rest of Japan and it therefore has to "catch up," and secondly because "development" funds are seen by state bureaucrats as the best device to foster the sort of dependent, mendicant mentality in which the anti-base and environmental movements will lose momentum. "Development" has therefore tended to be concentrated on infrastructural "public works" projects that are often economically retrogressive, ecologically damaging, and debt and dependence-building.

No spectacle is sadder to the regular visitor to Okinawa than to see, in the North, the steady pressure designed to impose a huge new military complex on the quasi-pristine waters and reef of Oura Bay (and associated helipads through the Yambaru forest), and in the South, the gradual reclamation of the Awase tidal wetlands (Okinawa's "rainforest"). In the public works-centred economy that has prevailed in Okinawa for the three and a half decades since reversion, nature has come to be seen as something to be "fixed" (by seibi) in a process that has virtually no limit, with the result that the natural environment - coral, dugong, noguchigera (the Okinawan prefectural bird) - is under siege, even as the public works-led, doken kokka-type development is now almost totally discredited elsewhere in Japan. It cannot be beyond the wit of Okinawans to find alternative ways, rooted in social need, to employ its people productively in ways relevant to addressing the present global crisis and beyond either militarism or public works type development: in regional and global peace building, nature preservation and regeneration, organic food production, sustainable energy programs, leisure (probably fusing tourism, education, art, and environment in fresh ways), aged care, health and recreation.

 

Oura Bay

If it were indeed the case that Nuchi du Takara principle encapsulates some Okinawan moral essence, then it is up to present-day Okinawans to spell out ways, not just for Okinawa but for humanity, to come to terms with nature, finding a way beyond both militarism and developmentalism to assert the primacy of life over war, and of sustainability and symbiosis over growth. In the early 21^st century, humanity's best hope is for a recovery of Okinawa's Nuchi du takara values. Okinawa's anti-base and anti environmental destruction struggles are central to the global struggle for peace and sustainability.

Gavan McCormack, emeritus professor at Australian National University, is a coordinator at Japan Focus. His most recent book is Client State: Japan in America's Embrace.

This article was revised for The Asia-Pacific Journal and Posted on January 12, 2009.

Recommended Citation: Gavan McCormack, "Okinawa's Turbulent 400 Years"  The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 3-1-09, January 12, 2009.

http://japanfocus.org/_Gavan_McCormack-Okinawa_s_Turbulent_400_Years

Okinawan Bases, the United States and Environmental Destruction

Sakurai Kunitoshi

The Japanese original of this article is available here.

Introduction

The US global “empire of bases” has been well analyzed by Chalmers Johnson, especially in his Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, 2006. The complex of bases in Okinawa, ever since the islands fell into US hands in 1945, were central to the 20th century wars in Asia from Korea and Vietnam to the Gulf and Iraq. Okinawa was (and is) in the poignant position of being passionately anti-war, a lesson driven home by the catastrophe it suffered in 1945, yet forced by the Japanese and US governments to accept war and war preparation as its basic collective raison d’être. In that sense, Okinawa may be compared to North Korea, both states whose essence is defined in terms of “Sengun” - priority to the military.

Yet Okinawan civil society has shown astonishing courage, determination and imagination in resisting that design. From 1996 to 2005, it blocked all steps towards construction of the new base that the Government of Japan had promised for the US Marine Corps, eventually forcing that plan to be abandoned. In 2005, the two governments drew up a new plan, but it too has faced such resistance since– challenged in a San Francisco court, rejected by the Okinawan Prefectural Assembly and by Okinawan public opinion, seriously questioned by global nature NGOs – that it seems destined to meet the same fate. Commander of US Pacific Forces, Admiral Timothy Keating, recently acknowledged that the base, scheduled under the 2005 agreement to be completed and handed over to the Marine Corps by 2014, was likely to be delayed by some years; the brutal fact is that it is unlikely ever to be built.

Okinawans currently follow closely the negotiations over a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) between US and Iraq authorities, noting that the draft agreement there includes something unprecedented between the US and any other country -- a provision for US forces to be tried in Iraqi courts for any breaches of Iraqi law committed while off base and not engaged on joint US-Iraqi missions. Okinawans wonder why Iraq can insist on provisions that the Japanese government has shown little interest in demanding. They note too that Iraq is insisting on an absolute withdrawal date for all US troops, regardless of conditions on the ground, and wonder when the Government of Japan, more than six decades after the beginning of the occupation by US forces, will adopt a comparable position. [The full text of the SOFA in Japanese and English is available here.]

US bases on the main Okinawan island

The following text discusses the environmental consequences for Okinawa of its long subordination to the American war machine. The bases, which constitute some 20 per cent of the land area of Okinawa island, are known to have accommodated masses of poisonous chemical and even (for some decades) nuclear materials, not to mention conventional explosives, fuels, and heavy war equipment (for well over half a century). Under the Status of Forces Agreement (1960) that governs the US presence in Okinawa, local Okinawan government authorities have no jurisdiction within the bases, and even when some parcels of base land have been returned, or are marked for future return, the US government has no obligation to clean them up. No environmental study has been permitted, although occasional fragments of evidence - such as the discovery reported in Ryukyu shimpo on 9 November 2008 of arsenic levels 120 times permitted levels in Yomitan village in the vicinity of a US naval installation returned to Japan in 2006 – suggest that thorough investigation is an urgent priority for the health of the islanders.

Water pollution in a river adjacent to Camp Schwab, Nago

The election for the Prefectural Assembly in June 2008 ended the LDP-Komeito conservative (cooperative with Tokyo on base issues) majority and delivered a majority that soon passed a resolution of unequivocal opposition to the construction of any new base [see Matsumoto and McCormack in Japan Focus]. Defiantly, the Governor, however, under immense pressure from Tokyo (Tokyo in turn being under immense pressure from Washington)] declared himself a "realist" on the issue, meaning he was ready to allow the construction to go ahead, regardless.

The draft Prefectural Environmental Protection Ordnance discussed in the following paper is part of the struggle between parliament (Prefectural Assembly) and executive (Governor) that has been steadily sharpening since the June election. Very recently, the Assembly took the extraordinary step of voting not to pay for the Governor’s projected visit to the US (on the grounds that since the Governor was taking a pro-base position he no longer represented Okinawa). The draft law now under consideration is an attempt to attain some measure of control over base lands in respect of environmental pollution.

Author Sakurai, president of Okinawa University in Naha, is a prominent environmental scientist and representative of Okinawa Environmental Network, the major environmental NGO coalition founded by his mentor and predecessor, the late Ui Jun. Ui, 1932-2006,was a professor of Okinawa University between 1986 and 2003, and is commonly recognized as the founder of the modern Japanese anti-pollution movement). (GMcC)

Sakurai Kunitoshi

In Okinawa, a draft Prefectural Environmental Protection Ordnance, the first comprehensive revision to be attempted in thirty years, was submitted to the prefectural legislature twice, in June and September 2008, but held over both times to the next session. The issue is a uniquely Okinawan one: what to do about the US bases.

Okinawa has no real manufacturing industries, so the greatest source of pollution is the US bases, yet Japanese pollution regulations do not cover the US military. The national and prefectural governments explain that, since all authority within the bases is vested in the US military under Article VI of the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Regarding Facilities and Areas and the Status of US Armed Forces in Japan (commonly known just as Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, 1960) there would be no point in the Japanese side attempting to extend its jurisdiction by passing laws and regulations, since it would not have the right to prosecute violations and therefore passage of an unenforceable regulation would be meaningless. However, with the reversal of power in the Prefectural Assembly following the June 2008 elections, it is no longer enough just to turn a blind eye to the existence of the bases, as was always done in the past.

The Okinawa Prefecture Environmental Council, asked its views at the time the ordinance was being drafted, submitted its response in June 2006, saying, “As long as the current SOFA remains in effect, there can only be symbolic meaning, no practical consequence, in making the US military the target of direct regulations. However, from the point of view of the seriousness of the problem of the base environment, it is simply impermissible to go on doing nothing, as under the current ordinance. Therefore, on the one hand, we propose extending the scope of the Ordinance as much as is possible, and, on the other hand, making greater efforts than ever before for revision of SOFA.”

Under the charge of extending the scope of the Ordinance, the council suggested implementation of the following four points:

1. The US military always says that they are “good neighbors”. If so, local bodies where there are bases, and Okinawa prefecture, should be able to appeal to the US military to enter a gentleman’s agreement to be called a “pollution prevention agreement”.

2. It is expected that the land provided to the American military for bases will, sooner or later, be returned to the owners to be used for peaceful purposes. A smooth transition to reuse requires fast purification of the sites and, for that, it is indispensable that the US military provides information on the land use history and presence or absence of soil pollution on various areas in the bases. Therefore, prefectural and local bodies at the time of the conclusion of the above-mentioned agreement can demand of the US the release of information at the time of the return of the land, with preparation in advance of such information.

3. If a pollution incident arises that threatens the lives and health of residents, the prefectural governor and local leaders can directly request permission of US commanders to enter the land and survey the situation. (The US and Japanese governments actually agreed in 1973 to such a right to request to survey by entering the base, but it was 2003, 30 years later, before citizens learned of the existence of this agreement.)

4. In order to overcome present base environmental problems, the prefecture should powerfully rouse public opinion and work toward influencing the US and Japanese governments, supported by public opinion. It is expected that the prefecture will grasp the real situation of environmental problems created by US bases, and report to the prefectural environmental council in the form of a white paper every year (or every other year) to update a wide range of residents through public information channels. Not only should base environmental problems be covered in the White Paper, but principles and measures for dealing with those problems should be clarified.

Of these four points, one to three are matters on which local governments can take action. They do not require the US military to act and therefore do not challenge the present agreement. If, however, public opinion is aroused as suggested in point 4, the situation may arise in which the prefecture and local governments will have to consult with the US military, thus changing their administrative relationship. I wonder whether the reason why the prefecture ignores this and hews to the unrevised ordinance may be its preference for avoiding responsibility for working in unknown realms in which there are no precedents. It is necessary to recognize that the legislature has the responsibility to criticize and encourage administrative officials so that they will work hard for the sake of prefectural residents, going beyond the perspective of majority or minority parties.

Among other activities concerning environmental issues, a group of academics concerned about Okinawa’s bases and administration held two symposiums in December 2007 and July 2008 on the theme “Facing US Military Transformation: a problem for Okinawa’s Central districts.” One thing that was pointed out there was the problem surrounding the “Special Measures Law on Reversion of Military Facilities” (gunten tokusohō).

Under the Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) agreement [1996] and the Agreement on Reorganization of US bases in Japan [2005], the return of the American bases to the south of Kadena Base is imminent. Liability for site clean-up under that law, which was passed in 1995, was limited to March 31, 2012. The first problem with this is that it cannot cover cleanup of lands returned at a later date. Furthermore, as is clear from the case of clean-up works in the northern half of Camp Kuwae in Chatan, which was returned to Japan in 2004, even four and a half years — three years covered by the “Special Measures on Reversion of Facilities” law and one and a half years covered by the Special Measures Law on Okinawan Development (Okinawa shinkō tokusohō) has been nowhere near enough to complete the work. Because this is the situation even in the northern sector of Camp Kuwae, which is considered to have relatively few problems, the passage of a second and improved cleanup law capable of addressing the various problems that have arisen becomes a matter of urgency. The current law was drafted on a non-party basis by national Diet members representing Okinawan constituencies, and the same procedure is necessary again now.

Sakurai Kunitoshi is a member of the Okinawan Environmental Network and President of Okinawa University. Posted at Japan Focus on November 10, 2008.

Tamogami's World: Japan's Top Soldier Reignites Conflict Over the Past

Click for Japan Focus

Herbert Bix*

On October 31, 2008, General Tamogami Toshio, Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force [ASDF] Chief of Staff was abruptly dismissed from his post in the Defense Ministry, but allowed to retire with his full pension rather than be summarily fired. At a press conference several months earlier, Tamogami, who had also been the superintendent of the SDF Joint Staff College, publicly expressed contempt for a ruling by the Nagoya High Court that the Japanese military mission in Iraq was unconstitutional. [1] On this occasion, the outspoken General, widely known among his peers for provocatively hawkish views, crossed several more lines.

He entered and won the top prize of 3 million yen ($30,000) in an essay contest sponsored by a large scandal-marred construction and real estate conglomerate, the APA Group, which required contestants to write on “The True Outlook for Modern and Contemporary History.” APA's President is Motoya Toshio, the author of historical works and a key figure in political organizations supporting the Komatsu Air Base in Ishikawa Prefecture (fronting the Sea of Japan). He has strong ties to former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and other rightist politicians, including Tamogami. [2] As far as is known, superiors in the Defense Ministry's chain of command did not carefully scrutinize Tamogami’s essay. A notorious Nanjing atrocity denier, Professor Watanabe Shoichi, headed the panel of judges that awarded the prize. And the essays were apparently “solicited for the purpose of ‘steering Japan toward a correct understanding of history as an independent nation.’” [3]

The APA contest website promoting a book on Japan’s modern history by its President Motoya Toshio written under the pen name Fuji Seiji

The views the General expressed did more than simply contravene the official positions of his civilian supervisors. By arguing that Japanese colonial rule was humane and legal, and that Japan was not an aggressor in World War II, Tamogami contradicted the constitution and the official government stance of apology to the nation’s that Japan had invaded before and during World War II. At the same time, he placed himself at odds with the political sense of most educated Japanese people.

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The text of Tamogami’s essay (Japanese) is here.

A translation of Tamogami’s essay (English) is here.

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The governments of China and South Korea immediately condemned Tamogami’s views, as did Japan’s leading parliamentary opposition parties, who hoped to use the affair to topple the country’s new LDP Prime Minister, Aso Taro. Aso’s own controversial nationalist ideas on history and the constitution are similar to Tamogami’s, but as prime minister he fired the general and refrained from discussing his ideas. An unrepentant Tamogami, however, held his ground and reiterated that the Japanese “people had been misled by erroneous education” into thinking that their country once had a dark past. [3]

In his desire to free the Japanese military from constitutional restraints, Tamogami might have encouraged many senior and junior active-duty ASDF officers to join him in entering essays (of unknown content) in the same competition: the number varies from over 50 to as many as 95. [4] The impression conveyed is that these ASDF officers are heir to the “young officers” of an earlier era who exploited ideas of a “Showa restoration” in an effort to accelerate Japanese rearmament and expansion in the 1930s. The difference is that the uniformed officers of today are supposed to be under “civilian (bureaucratic and parliamentary) control,” not in spiritual rebellion against the nation’s peace constitution. It is notable, however, that the civilian bureaucrats in the Defense Ministry, six of whom have also had their knuckles lightly rapped, initially hesitated to discipline Tamogami and his followers.

Tamogami places a wreath on a US war memorial on August 8, 2008

Writing on the theme, “Was Japan an Aggressor Nation?”, Tamogami argued the following:

* Japanese colonial and semi-colonial rule, based on legal treaties, was “very moderate” in nature and beneficial to Koreans, Taiwanese, and Chinese alike. To defend these legally-recognized positions Japan waged justifiable wars.

Manchukuo: The (Japanese) military and the people cooperate for prosperity

* It was the Comintern, according to Soviet intelligence sources, and not the Kwantung Army that might have engineered the assassination of the Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1928, which set the stage for Japan to take over all of Manchuria.

*Japan never waged an illegal war of aggression in China starting in 1931, or elsewhere in the European and American colonies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific a decade later.

* Manchukuo, unlike the Western colonies where racism was the basis of rule, really was a bastion of racial tolerance; so too was imperial Japan.

* The Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party played an evil role in the Japan-China War, manipulating Chiang Kai-shek to attack Japan.

* President Franklin D. Roosevelt “very carefully” entrapped Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor after Comintern spies, such as Harry Dexter White in the Treasury Department, wrote the “Hull Note” that helped “manipulate President Roosevelt and draw [Japan] into a war with the United States.”

* “Had Japan “not fought the Greater East Asia War at that time,” it could not “have experienced the world of racial equality that we have today.” Indeed, without the War of Greater East Asia, Japan might have become “a white nation’s colony.”

In sum, Tamogami concluded, “what this country has done is wonderful.” Toward the end of his essay, citing many limitations on Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, he stresses that it should be allowed to exercise the right of collective self-defense—the implication being that it could then assist allies under attack, something that would obviously necessitate constitutional revision.

Clearly, true and false are not issues for Tamogami; belief in a “normal” (war-waging) state and more voice for the professional officer class are. The General tampers with facts; he uses evidence selectively; he cherry-picks international law when it suits his purpose; and he omits any mention of figures on Asian or Japanese civilian and military deaths from the wars of the 1930s and early ‘40s. His aim is to forge a body of activist officers who will participate in political combat, promoting the “true” perspective on history, even if it is not factually true for the particular historical period he cares about.

But none of his assertions are in any way new. For more than half a century, high ranking civilian and military officials have repeatedly made statements that provoked domestic and international controversy--either for speaking with a forked tongue on issues of war responsibility, or for reiterating, often unconsciously, crudely nationalistic sentiments of the type that Tamogami expressed. Such incidents reflect badly on the intellectual quality of the officials involved. They touch off storms of political debate within Japan and breed distrust of Japan in China, Korea, and other nations that experienced Japanese occupation. But they also serve to heighten popular vigilance against the danger of domestic militarism. Regrettably, comparable effects are seldom produced by policies initiated by Japan’s security alliance partner, the United States, whose endless war crusades and entrenched militarism have distorted national life and undermined international order.

What then are we to make of Tamogami’s views? Put aside his ignorance of history, international law, the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty, and his misinterpretation of sources and documents such as Sec. of State Cordell Hull’s memorandum of November 26, 1941. Is Tamogami motivated by a sense of wounded self-esteem and wrong inflicted by the US and its allies on Japan after its military and ideological defeat in 1945? Is this the reason why he is unable to recognize the many unjust acts and countless crimes committed by Japan in the course of its colonialism and invasion of neighboring states? Consider, for a moment, questions of hypocrisy and double standards in assessing the actions of Japan, the United States, and other nations that went to war throughout the twentieth century.

In 1945, the US and the Soviet Union took the lead in establishing the legal nomenclature of war crimes and the principles for adjudicating them and punishing offenders. At the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Tokyo (1946-8), a small number of Japanese leaders were prosecuted and punished for the crime of aggression and for war crimes in the narrow sense. But the problem of European, American, and Japanese colonialism was ignored. And the war crimes of the Allies, which culminated in the American terrorist bombing of sixty-four Japanese cities and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were also never adjudicated. During the IMT, attempts by American and Japanese defense attorneys to raise these issues were rejected out of hand.

The International Military Tribunal. Judges left, defendants right, prosecutors rear

Moreover, the United States helped Britain, France, and The Netherlands to restore their respective colonial empires by waging war to destroy the national independence movements of their former colonial subjects. While these colonial powers were professing to be defenders of civilization, sitting in judgment of Japan for pursuing policies of aggression, they themselves were continuing to commit comparable offenses.

Some Japanese conservatives can neither forgive nor forget this Western hypocrisy. For them, all distorted (i.e. “official” or “victor propaganda”) versions of Japan’s modern past trace back to the Tokyo trial. They also believe the Japanese defendants at Tokyo were denied a fair hearing. When the occupation ended in 1952 and Japan regained its formal independence, a tiny minority rejected the Tokyo trial because they could see only its negative, not its many positive sides. They began to commemorate and idealize one of the three dissenting judges on the tribunal, Radhabinod Pal. The Indian nationalist judge had been a partisan sympathizer of the Japanese military. He rejected the charge of aggression against Japan’s wartime leaders and sought their acquittal on all counts. For Pal, the real enemy in Asia was the Western White Man. Ever since that time the castigation of the Tokyo IMT’s findings has been a fixed element in Japanese right-wing thought. This is not to deny that in prosecuting Japanese war criminals the victor nations erred in key respects. One was the issue of colonialism; another was the failure to indict Emperor Hirohito, who, alone among Japan’s leaders, was at the center of events during the whole war-period. Yet Hirohito was never even questioned or made to bear moral responsibility for the war, though several of his most loyal subjects were executed or imprisoned on his account.

Tamogami is not alone in defending Japanese colonial rule and holding other far-right views of early 20^th century Japanese history. But for such ideas to dominate, they must be taught in the nation’s schools and universities, widely disseminated among a majority of voters by Japanese journalists, writers, and other opinion-makers, and overcome a political-culture supportive of the peace constitution. In today’s Japan none of these conditions yet obtain. Editorial comment in the wake of Tamogami’s dismissal from office suggests that truthful views of Japan’s wars of aggression from 1931 to ’45 are widely recognized. Mainstream Japanese political culture rejects the fringe ideas associated with Yasukuni Shrine and its history Museum, and articulated here by the General.

Nevertheless, the voting public remains divided on issues of war remembrance. Many politicians in the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party, including Prime Minister Aso, share Tamogami’s shallow nationalistic sentiments, as do writers for Fuji Sankei and its affiliated media outlets. Most of these people, however, refrain from publicly expressing their sentiments on highly contentious issues such as implicitly rejecting the verdicts of the Tokyo trial or calling for Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense in violation of its Constitution.

War veterans parade at Yasukuni shrine

Suppose, however, in the coming decade, powerfully situated individuals with historical consciousness similar to Tamogami’s came to prevail among Japan’s governing elites and their advisers. Could Japan experience the reign of extremist foreign policy ideas comparable to those of the American neo-conservatives and neo-liberals whose ideas developed over a span of three decades before reaching their ultimate expression in the policies of the George W. Bush presidency? Could something similar happen in Japan?

Tamogami says he is uninterested in weakening Japan’s commitment to the US-Japan Security Treaty [AMPO], or Japan’s ties to other Asian countries. He draws an analogy between America, the militaristic superpower that he calls the “parent,” and Japan, its “child.” Japanese staff officers who conform to his way of thinking imagine they can put this “parent-child” relationship on a more equitable basis by jettisoning civilian control, eliminating the Defense Ministry’s “Operational Policy Bureau,” staffed by civilian bureaucrats, and allowing “mostly uniformed officers” to “manage SDF units under the defense minister.”[5]

But the real problem with the US-Japan security relationship is that it is a poison injected into the arteries of Japan’s political system, continually weakening Japan’s commitment to its constitutional ideals. As long as this relic of World War II and the Cold War remains, Japan will have difficulty remaining a peace state, dealing with the criminality of its lost war, and developing an omni-directional rather than US-centered foreign policy. To defend Article 9 of the peace constitution without, at the same time, confronting AMPO is to do the work of Tamogami and people who think like him.

One final consideration: it is most unlikely that Pentagon officials would really welcome a Japan that undid constitutional restraints on the growth of its militarism, and acquired offensive weapons systems in order to become a “normal” (war-waging) state. Conversely, it isn’t clear what Japan’s leaders would do if, in the near term, the “parent” escalated its failed colonial-wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and pressured Japan to involve itself more deeply in them. Social Democratic Party leader Fukushima Mizuho understood the problem correctly, however, when she linked the SDF’s expanding role in support of America’s wars to the spread of beliefs “within the Defense Ministry that Japan’s wartime acts did not constitute aggression.” [6]

Herbert Bix, author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, which won the Pulitzer Prize, teaches at Binghamton University, New York, and writes on issues of war and empire. He is a Japan Focus associate.

He wrote this article for Japan Focus. Posted on November 9, 2008.

Notes

*I wish to thank Gavan McCormack and Mark Selden for sending materials used in this essay.

[1] Asahi Shimbun, April 19, 2008.

[2] Roy Berman, “Gen. Tamogami Toshio, Motoya Toshio, and Abe Shinzo,” Mutant Frog, November 4, 2008

Berman documents the close relations between company president Motoya Toshio and former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, as well as Motoya’s support for a nuclear Japan, his writing of historical works under a pseudonym, and his ties to the Air Force support group. See also, The Mainichi Shimbun November 1, 2008,

[3] Jun Hong, “Axed ASDF chief hawk till the end; no apology,” The Japan Times, Nov. 5, 2008.

[4] “Government needs to assume responsibility for ASDF chief of staff’s behavior,” The Mainichi Daily News, Nov. 8, 2008; AP, “Defense Minister to return part of salary over ASDF chief’s war essay,” Bereitbart.com, No. 4, 2008; “The Ghost of Wartimes Past: Japan’s History Wars Erupt Again,” Economist.com, Nov. 5, 2008.

[5] Shingetsu Newsletter No. 1191, News Analysis, posted Nov. 1, 2008.

[6] Kyodo News, “Beijing, Seoul rip ASDF chief essay,” The Japan Times, Nov. 2, 2008.

The Okinawan Alternative to Japan’s Dependent Militarism

[Japanese translation available]

Gavan McCormack

1) Okinawa as Periphery and Centre

Okinawa is simultaneously Japan’s periphery and its centre. It is peripheral for obvious geographical reasons, being much closer to the China coast and Taiwan than to Tokyo, but it is also peripheral in the historical sense that its links with the main Japanese islands, and eventually with the modern Japanese state, have been thin, fraught, and relatively recent. Only belatedly incorporated as a prefecture in the Japanese state in the late 19th century, it was then excised from it between 1945 and 1972, and only half restored to it in 1972, since the US bases remained intact. It has continued since then to be governed as if the US-Japan Security Treaty mattered more than the Japanese peace constitution, half-in and half-out of the country, so to speak. Though thus peripheral, Okinawa is also “central” in that it constitutes the fulcrum on which the key security relationship between the US and Japan rests.

Okinawa’s culture, with this “half in and half out” quality and the blend of the pre-modern, modern, and post-modern, reflects this ambiguity. With only relatively faint traces of Yamato, Tenno, samurai, imperialist/militarist, and salaryman cultures, and with strong elements of shamanism and sense of affinity with Asia and the Pacific, Okinawa appears as both “Japan” and “non-Japan.” Because of its difference, mainland elites have tended to look on Okinawa as backward, but the same qualities may rather signify Okinawa’s strength, offering the mainland a glimpse of what its multicultural future and bonds to Asia Pacific nations might look like.

Ryukyu embassy to Edo, 1710

The contradictory forces that surround Okinawa are burdensome, but they generate a tension and openness, and a level of hope, civic responsibility and energy unequalled elsewhere in Japan. Without such qualities, Okinawa could never have become the byword for grassroots democratic struggle that it has become.

2) Okinawa and the US-Japan Relationship

In the post-Cold War world, the US has called for Japan to play a greatly stepped up military role (from the 1996 “Guidelines” to the 2005-6 “Beigun Saihen” or US military realignment), and governments in Tokyo have done their best to comply. My understanding of this is that these measures deepen and reinforce Japan’s dependence and therefore its irresponsibility, transforming the long-term dependent and semi-sovereign Japanese state of the Cold War into a full “Client State.” [1] Far from pursuing its own “values, traditions, and practices,” (as other scholars have argued) 21st century Japan scraps them in order to follow American prescriptions, and the present political confusion stems at root from this identity crisis.

US planes over Southern Okinawa during the 1945 Battle

US Officials such as Richard Armitage (former Deputy Secretary of State), Thomas Schieffer (ambassador) and Defense Robert Gates (Defense Secretary) offer Japan a steady stream of advice – pushing, pulling, and manipulating it in the desired direction, to “show the flag” and “put boots on the ground” in Iraq, to send the MSDF to the Indian Ocean (and keep it there), to revise Ampo de facto and the Constitution explicitly. Yet few ordinary Japanese people share these priorities. It is as much these days as most can manage to cope with livelihood problems – pensions, welfare, and jobs - and so governments, torn between their desire to serve Washington and their need to seem to be serving their own people, always incline to attach priority to the former.

In the post Cold War decades, the contest in Japan between civil society and state power has nowhere been sharper than in Okinawa. Okinawa’s modern history is commonly seen as a series of acts of shobun, or disposal, in which Okinawan people had no say and their interests were disregarded, first in 1879, when the Ryukyu kingdom was abolished and the islands incorporated, as Okinawa, in the Japanese state; second in 1952, when sovereignty was restored to the rest of Japan but Okinawa, its land and population having been devastated in the Battle of Okinawa, was turned into a US military colony, “Keystone of the Pacific,” a center for the cultivation of “war potential,” and preparation for “the threat or use of force” such as was forbidden under Article 9 of the Japanese constitution; third in 1972, when the islands were returned to Japan, but with bases and the island’s military mission in the service of American power intact; and fourth in 1996, when the return of Futenma base was promised “within five to seven years” but with the catch that it would have to be replaced, the replacement facilities would also have to be located in Okinawa, and Japan would have to foot the bill. The Japanese state has struggled since 1996 to secure the compliance of the Okinawan people to an agenda whose core is priority to the US alliance over the constitution, priority to military over civil or democratic principle, and priority to the interests of the Japanese state over those of the Okinawan people. The cycle of shobun (disposition)and teiko (resistance) has been almost endless.

The contest that has evolved especially since 1995 seems to me to be the defining, still unresolved, struggle of Japanese democracy. Priority to military over civil is what is known in neighboring North Korea by the term Sengun. Nobody, so far as I know, compares Okinawa with North Korea, but is the analogy not apt, at least in this respect? The state demands Sengun, and civil society attempts to articulate Senmin, the priority to citizen values and lives and to peace. For the US and Japanese government, the priority to Sengun is plain.

The state’s design was disguised first as a “Futenma return,” that turned out to require the construction of a major new base. The base was disguised first as a “helipad,” then as a removable, offshore pontoon with a runway, initially 1,500 meters but gradually stretching to 2,500 meters, before eventually assuming the current form of dual 1,800m runways stretching out from Cape Henoko into Oura Bay, plus a deep sea naval port and other facilities, and a chain of helipads scattered through the forest - a comprehensive air, land and sea base. The people of Nago rejected the designs in their plebiscite of 1997, only to be betrayed by their mayor. They persisted in rejecting the offshore Henoko design until in 2005 Prime Minister Koizumi announced that the state had given up because of “a lot of opposition,” whereupon, however, the state drew up the current design. The helipad of 1996, has now evolved into a design for the comprehensive militarization of Yambaru, the northern reaches of the main island.

Yambaru

The outcome remains uncertain. Governments and bureaucrats continually renew their strength and, backed by the resources of tbe state, often seem omnipotent. In 2007, even the MSDF was mobilized to take part in an almost certainly illegal survey and to intimidate local protesters. The people, on the other hand, tire, age, and sometimes surrender. Yet, despite everything, for this struggle to be able to stall implementation of a project prioritized by the governments of the world’s two most powerful countries for a decade indicates its profound historical significance.

In July, the Prefectural Assembly took an unequivocal stance of opposition to the new base. [2] Yet Governor Nakaima Hirokazu now quietly abandons both the conditions on which his predecessor had insisted (joint civil-military use, a 15 year limit, and assurance of no harm to the environment) and those which he himself had demanded (a shifting of the base site offshore into Oura Bay), and argues that ”realism” demands viewing the project as a fait accompli – a kind of “reluctant realist” pose - and so the construction at Cape Henoko should go ahead, under the subterfuge that what was to be constructed would not be really a “new” base because it would in part be constructed on the site of an existing one. [3]

Mainland civil democracy is so enfeebled that the Beigun Saihen process of incorporation of Japan's Self Defense Forces under American command in the global "war on terror” passes with little debate or protest. For Okinawa, stepped up militarization is likely to lead, as it did 63 years ago, not to increased but to diminished security, and it is certain to increase conflicts between the US military and Okinawan people, so civil society is compelled to respond.

3) Okinawa and the Constitution

Okinawa is a litmus test of Japan’s constitutionalism. From 1945 to 1972, “Japan” was divided into the mainland “peace state” under the Constitution and its Article 9 on the one hand and the Okinawan “war state” on the other, both tied symbiotically within the US’s Pacific and Asian Cold War system. Since the “reversion” of 1972, the reinforced Okinawan “war state” has begun to erode the fabric of the “peace state” mainland. As Article 9 is steadily emptied out, the “peace” and “war” functions merge, Ampo trumping Kempo.

Although the Nagoya High Court held in April 2008 that the Japanese intervention in the Indian Ocean in the form of dispatch of MSDF to refuel US and allied ships was unconstitutional, the politicians who represent the Japanese state treated it as a kind of joke. The Foreign Minister said he would read the judgment if he had time and the head of the Air SDF dismissed it with a vulgar comic expression as something that had “nothing to do with us.” Such contempt for the constitution is plainly in breach of Article 99, but it is an attitude that has permeated the higher echelons of state ever since the landmark US intervention of 1959, of which details have only recently come to light. [4] Outside the state bureaucracy, however, civil society strongly mobilizes at the grass-roots) to protect and demand adherence to Article 9. The “Article 9 Society,” founded in 2004, has blossomed into a nationwide movement with over 7,000 branches. The power of such grassroots mobilization was evident in the Upper House election of 2007, when the revision-intent Prime Minister suffered a humiliating electoral rebuff.

The Okinawan experience also raises large questions about other clauses, notably those on Local Self-Government, especially A 93 and A 94, since Okinawan self-government has repeatedly been subordinated to the requirements of the US alliance.

Recently, instead of seeking the informed consent that a democratic society demands, governments have sought instead to gain formal consent, by fiscal manipulation that combines incentives and threats. It is a stratagem developed over the past decade by the bureaucrats at the helm of the nation state to impose their base project on Nago City. Since Nago opposition to the new Henoko Base was plain, and the formal consent of local self-governing bodies was necessary, money was poured in to secure it under the 10 year, 10 billion yen per year, “Northern Districts Development” policy adopted in 1999.

US plans for the Henoko Base runway

That procedure, codified in May 2007 under the Special Measures Law on the Reorganization of US Forces in Japan (Beigun saihen tokubetsu sochiho) was then applied nationally, so that in that additional sense mainland Japan experienced “Okinawa-ization.” The “Nago model” has proved singularly effective, as shown during 2008 by the defeat of Mayor Ihara Katsusuke in Iwakuni and the surrender of Mayor Hoshino Katsushi in Zama to plans for expanded US military presence in their cities. But even as the state seemed to triumph by using the new law to eliminate opposition to the Beigun Saihen at the local government level, the Okinawan prefectural assembly adopted its historic resolution, showing that that was far from being guaranteed. The employment of fiscal pressures to break popular will and buy consent encourages cynicism and corruption, blocks true development rooted in local needs, and is plainly contrary to the spirit, even if within the letter of democracy (cf. the regional self-government clauses, especially A93 and A94).

4) Okinawa and Life

It seems to me as a historian that the roots of the present “Okinawan problem” are embedded in a past that goes back long before the US-Japan Security Treaty. It is just 400 years since the Okinawan (Ryukyuan) king enunciated the principle of Nuchi du takara or non-resistance, in the face of the Satsuma samurai’s Sengun, initiating the process of forceful incorporation by Japan. Sengun militarism has been the bane of Okinawa ever since - under Satsuma, the modern Japanese state, the US, and now the joint US-Japan regime. Article 9 was in 1946 a new and astounding reversal for mainland Japan, but for Okinawa it was a reversion to an ancient ideal, and to the centuries when the culture of these islands was a byword for sophistication, culture and peace.

If it were indeed the case that Nuchi du Takara principle encapsulates some Okinawan essence, then it is up to present-day Okinawans to spell out ways, not just for Okinawa but for humanity, to come to terms with nature, finding a way beyond both war and rampant developmentalism with its environmental destruction. I have said enough about war. In the public works-centred economy that has prevailed in Okinawa for the three and a half decades since reversion, nature has come to be seen as something to be “fixed” (by seibi) in a process that has virtually no limit. [5] As a result, the natural environment, notably in the form of the coral, the dugong, the noguchigera, is under siege. Only a recovery of Nuchi du takara values (and within them, presumably, a reassertion of cooperative, non-market, yuimaru values) can hope to save it. Plainly the Yambaru can be either militarized or protected, can follow either “Sengun” or Nuchi du takara, not both.

Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor at Australian National University and a coordinator of Japan Focus. His most recent book is Client State: Japan In the American Embrace, London and New York, Verso, 2007, with Japanese, Chinese and Korean translations published in 2008.

This is a slightly abridged English version of a talk delivered in Japanese (see attached text) at the offices of the Ryukyu Shimpo in Naha, Okinawa, on the occasion of the award of the Ikemiyagi Shui Prize to Japan Focus on 18 September 2008. An abridged version of the Japanese text was published in Ryukyu shimpo on 22 September 2008. It was posted at Japan Focus on October 13, 2008.

http://japanfocus.org/-Gavan-McCormack/2920

US Bases, Japan and the Reality of Okinawa as a Military Colony

Yoshida Kensei: US Bases, Japan and the Reality of Okinawa as a Military Colony - Okinawa,bases,Japan,USF,military,Japanese,Marine Corps,USF Okinawa

US Bases, Japan and the Reality of Okinawa as a Military Colony

Yoshida Kensei

Translated by Rumi Sakamoto and Matt Allen

On June 24, 2007, two US Navy minesweepers entered the small Sonai port in Yonaguni island, the westernmost Japanese island near Taiwan, on a ‘good-will visit and crew R and R’. Okinawa prefectural governor Mr. Nakaima had stated that the ‘US Navy warships should use the designated ports such as White Beach and Naha Military Port and should not use civilian ports’. He asked the Commander, US Naval Forces, Japan to voluntarily refrain from entry into Sonai port; Mr. Hokama, the mayor of Yonaguni town and its residents had also expressed opposition, but they were ignored. According to the Division Chief, North American Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who visited the Yonaguni town office prior to the vessels’ visit, ‘due to the provisions of the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement), the heads of local public bodies have no right to reject the US minesweepers’ visit to their ports. There is no choice other than to accepti their entry into the port.’

In May 1998, the Fukuoka High Court’s Naha branch dismissed the request of residents living near Kadena Air Base who suffered from noise pollution and tremors from early morning till the middle of the night to ban US military aircraft taking off and landing, despite accepting the fact that the aircraft caused damage. The ruling was based on the judgement of the Supreme Court that Kadena Air Base had been ‘offered’ to the US through the Japan-US Security Treaty and SOFA, and therefore the residents did not have a right to demand limitation of the operation of the US military flights there.

These two examples reveal that in Okinawa, which is supposedly a part of Japan, US military intentions prevail over the wishes of Japanese residents, and that the Japanese constitution and laws do not apply in Okinawa. Not only in Okinawa but also in Japan, US military bases, US military planes and warships that arrive and leave from these bases, US military personnel and civilian employees who belong to the bases, and even civilian ports if the US needs them, all fall under the principle of extraterritoriality; that is, they are beyond Japanese law. Okinawa, which hosts US military forces (USF) and US bases, can, therefore, be called a ‘military colony’ of the US. I would like to begin this article using this perspective to examine the reality of the USF in Okinawa, the history of military bases in Okinawa, the role of these bases within US international policy, and the nature and future of US bases in Okinawa.

US bases are an extension of the US

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the USF and bases in Japan are governed by the SOFA, which ‘regulates the USF’s use of facilities and areas, as well as the status of the USF. This is to ensure effective operations of the USF maintained in our country in order to achieve the goal of the Japan US Security Treaty’. However, although Japan accepts the stationing of the USF in Japan and provides the bases, the USF Japan, military personnel and civilian employees are basically an extension of US sovereignty and the US military. Therefore, the USF, military personnel and civilian employees are subject to a military chain of command with the US President at the apex and below him the Secretary of Defense, Commander of the Unified Commands (I will discuss this in more detail later), the commander of the USF in Japan, the commander of Marine Corps Forces in Japan (and concurrently the commander of III Marine Expeditionary Forces) in Okinawa, and commanders and senior officers at each base. They are also bound by the US Constitution, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), regulations within each unit, commanders’ orders, or precedents within the USF (although there are some cases where the US Constitution and laws have not been observed in Okinawa). Okinawa thus coexists with the US with only a wire fence separating them. Many base-related problems arise from military planes, transport planes, helicopters that take off from these bases for training and combat, toxic substances the USF uses, and (some) service members and civilian employees who hit the town nightly.

The USF differ greatly from ordinary Japanese society. There are some cases, such as leaking official secrets or rape, where a court martial is stricter than Japanese courts; but if a US service member commits other sex crimes or manslaughter due to drunk driving, depending on the status, distinguished service, and wishes of the complainant, in order to protect the honour of the military and the person concerned, or in order to avoid complex legal procedures, it is possible to allow them to voluntarily retire instead of being dishonourably discharged or imprisoned. It is also possible for a criminal or a gang member to join the military forces through the ‘waiver’ system. Because of the difficulty in recruitment, some foreigners are inducted in the armed forces in exchange for the promise of US citizenship. The military regime is arduous, and many soldiers depend on alcohol to deal with stress from base discipline and combat training. Perhaps such a ‘military culture’ forms the background for the crimes around the bases. The US Department of Defense stated that there were 2,688 incidents of sexual violence by US soldiers (of which 60% were rape cases) in the year starting September 2006. However, given the nature of sexual violence, in which victims often remain silent, this could be just the tip of the iceberg.

Despite Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ insistence that USF and US service members ‘must respect Japanese laws and pay appropriate attention to public safety, as required by SOFA’, Japanese police power and jurisdiction do not apply to the bases. Even if there is concern regarding environmental pollution, Japanese Ministry of Environment or local municipalities cannot enter a base to investigate. There is no obligation for the US to return the land in its original condition when the bases are closed and returned to Japan (it has such an obligation within the US). Even with incidents outside the bases, if the service member involved was ‘on duty’, the case falls under US jurisdiction. With ‘off duty’ incidents, too, if the US arrests the suspect, they will keep the detainee until the Japanese side presses charges, thus slowing down important early stage investigation. Military personnel and US civilian base employees in Okinawa are treated differently from ordinary foreigners. They do not have to show their passports for entry into and exit from the country, nor do they have to register as residents in Japan. Even if they live outside the bases, right next to ordinary citizens, they are not required to register with local Japanese authorities the name of their unit, their rank, gender, age etc. If Japan has no information on those to whom SOFA applies, how is it to ensure that they adhere to SOFA? With USF exempted from conforming to the Japanese Constitution and laws, it is unsurprising that service members respect neither Japanese custom and law, nor the SOFA.

On May 1, 2008, Haisai, a PR pamphlet of the Okinawa Defense Administration Agency, carried the following announcement. ‘Okinawa Defense Administration Agency, based on the SOFA, provides compensation for any damage caused by accidents or incidents within our administrative area due to illegal actions by the USF and its members etc. (soldiers, civilian employees). Should you suffer damage, please contact us at the address below as soon as possible after the accident.’ Thus a local agency of the Japanese government even provides compensation for damages caused by US service members and civilian employees.

When a US transport helicopter from Futenma Marine Corps Air Station crashed at the Okinawa International University campus (2004), despite this taking place outside the base, the US military acted as if Japan was its occupied territory and closed off the accident site, thus disrupting the work of Japanese police and fire fighters. On top of this, it was the Defense Agency’s Naha Facilities Administration Agency (now the Ministry of Defense, Okinawa Defense Administration Agency) that repeatedly apologized over the accident and paid compensation for the damage to the university.

Futenma Base in crowded Ginowan

The US freely decides what weapons and bombs will be brought into the bases, what training is conducted, and which wars to fight. Japan upholds the three non-nuclear principles of ‘nonpossession, nonproduction, and nonintroduction’. This also applies to Okinawa. The reality, however, is unclear. Japanese government officials cannot enter bases to confirm whether there are nuclear weapons or not.

Concerning the Japanese SDF’s dispatch to Iraq, there was no reporting of the Nagoya High Court’s judgment in mid April that Air Self Defense Force (ASDF) activities ‘contain activities that breach Article 9 of the Constitution’, namely, that the disparth of ASDF to Iraq was unconstitutional. Article nine states that ‘Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes’. From the perspective of Okinawa, however, Japan has already participated in many wars by way of the USF in Okinawa and Japan, including the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the US Air Force and Marine Corps from Okinawa have participated in combat, transport, and intelligence. The number of Iraqi civilian deaths exceeded 150,000 in the first 3 years of the war according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Military colonisation that has lasted for 65 years

It has been 65 years since the ‘militarisation’ of Okinawa. The bases were initially built by the Japanese government (Imperial Headquarters). In order to defend the ‘imperial land’ (mainland Japan) from the US army moving north, the Japanese government dispatched the 32nd Army to Okinawa. Using the slogan of ‘voluntary labour service’, it also mobilised many residents including youth to build and repair numerous airfields such as the Naha (Koroku) Naval Airfield, Kadena Airfield, Yomitan Airfield, Makiminato Airfield, Yonabara Airfield. Three airfields were built on both Iejima and Miyako Island. In addition to the 32nd Division’s Underground Headquarters directly under Shuri Castle in Naha, the Japanese military also entrenched itself in many other locations.

The US military planned to use Okinawa to launch attacks on mainland Japan. Therefore, after declaring that the Ryukyu Islands and their residents were separated from the administrative control of Japan and placed under US military government, the US repaired and reinforced the destroyed airfields, ports, roads and bridges while attacking the Japanese Army. They occupied villages, fields, rice paddies and beaches, using them as barracks, repair facilities, and storehouses. In the fierce battle, a total of 200,000 Japanese and Americans lost their lives. The number of civilian deaths, excluding soldiers and civilian employees, was close to 100,000.

After Japan surrendered, the US military retained possession of bases in Okinawa and enlarged or strengthened some. The first opportunity to do so occurred during the war and the immediate postwar period. The second opportunity to expand followed the deterioration of the ‘Far East’ situation: the deepening of the Cold War that came with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and the outbreak of the Korean War; tensiosn over the Taiwan Strait; and the Vietnam War. In all these cases, bases were maintained and strengthened without regard for the residents of Okinawa. Residents’ opposition was ignored. It is a clear contradiction that the US on the one hand holds up the ideal of ‘freedom and democracy’ and ‘regional security’ but on the other hand in Okinawa it overlooks residents’ voices, their requirements for a peaceful life, and their human rights.

In the early occupation, the US enclosed huge areas without the consent of the landowners and without paying compensation. The requisition and use of such land as military bases is a violation of the Hague Convention’s Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907), which prohibits confiscation of private property or pillage, the Cairo Declaration (1943), in which Great Britain, the US, and other nations pledged no territorial expansion, and the Potsdam Declaration (1945), which established democracy after Japan’s surrender and withdew most of the occupying forces. It is unclear whether the US had planned from the outset to occupy Okinawa for an extended period; but Louis Johnson, the Secretary of Defense, when he visited Okinawa in June 1950 as tensions mounted over the situation in the Far East, stated that in order to make Okinawa an impregnable fortress, the US ‘will build permanent facilities that will withstand typhoons and other destruction.’

Article 3 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which Japan signed with the US and other countries in 1951 (effective 28th April 1952) stipulated: The US proposes to the UN that the Nansei Shoto including Ryukyu, is ‘placed under its trusteeship system’ with the US as the sole administering authority; Japan will concur with any proposal of the US. However, during the period between the proposal and its approval, the US will have the right to exercise ‘all and any powers of administration, legislation and jurisdiction’ over these islands, sea territory and their inhabitants.

Article 3, too, possibly violates the aforementioned Hague Convention’s Laws and Customs of War on Land and the Potsdam Declaration. At any rate, for 20 years since then, the US placed Okinawa under the jurisdiction of the US Secretary of Defense (represented locally by the High Commissioner) based on Article 3. Okinawa thus became a US military colony. Okinawan fiercely protested against the US military’s requisition of land by a sit-in and other means; however, the US mobilised its forces, using ‘bayonets and bulldozers’ to move them off their land.

In January 1954, President Eisenhower stated in his annual State of the Union message to Congress: ‘We shall maintain indefinitely our bases in Okinawa.’ From around that time, the USF began to call Okinawa a ‘Keystone of the Pacific.’ In December of the same year, nuclear weapons were placed in Okinawa, their number peaking at 1,200 in the 1960s (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Nov/Dec 1999). According to a recently released classified US Air Force document, at the time of 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, the US Pacific Air Force had a strategic plan to deploy nuclear weapons against mainland China using a bomber from the Kadena Air Base.

In 1962, the US Army’s former 267th Chemical Service Platoon in Alaska was reactivated and stationed at the US Army Depot in Okinawa. In 1965, it became the 267th Chemical Company and was assigned to the 196th Ordinance Battalion, 2nd Logistics Command. In 1968, a toxic gas leak at the Chibana ammunition storage facility of the 2nd Logistics Command poisoned 24 US service members. The US Department of Defense admitted that it was storing highly lethal chemical weapons such as sarin and mustard gas, and stated that it was relocated chemical munitions to Johnston Island in 1971 (Operation Red Hat). In the early 1960s, the US sprayed Agent Orange containing highly toxic dioxin in the training area in northern Okinawa. Nuclear weapons were reportedly removed by 1971, but since US policy regarding the storage of nuclear weapons is to ‘neither confirm nor deny’, there is no way of knowing the truth.

In 1972 Okinawa finally reverted to Japan and came under the Japanese Constitution. However, the wish to abolish the US bases in Okinawa, or at least to reduce their size to those on the mainland, was not granted. When Prime Minister Sato and President Nixon agreed to Okinawa’s reversion to Japan in November 1969, the precondition was that it not be detrimental to the ‘security of the Far East including Japan’. In order to fulfill this condition, both governments applied the Japan-US Security Treaty and SOFA to Okinawa ‘without any modification’. According to Headquarters USF: ‘the return and joint use of US facilities and areas continued during the 1970s, especially in Honshu. The 5th Air Force transferred its fighters etc. from the main islands to the Kanto Plain area. With that, support forces and military housing areas were closed, and Army supply houses were also reduced or closed. In addition to the return of facilities, there was also a huge cutback of Japanese employees of the USF Japan.’ The US military bases in mainland Japan were thus substantially reduced; but the USF in Okinawa remained essentially the same as in the pre-reversion era. Therefore, the proportion of the USF in Okinawa in relation to the country as a whole increased. Okinawa became the pillar that supports the Japan-US Security Treaty. Under Japan-US SOFA, Okinawa was turned into a military colony of both Japan and the US.

Okinawa in US International Strategy

In 1975 the US withdrew from Vietnam and in 1989 the Cold War ended. However, the US neither withdrew its forces from Okinawa nor closed the bases. Even though Okinawa was under Japanese administrative sovereignty, it continued to be a military colony with the predominance of the USF.
Since then, the 1991 Gulf War, multiple simultaneous terrorist attacks iin 2001, the North Korean nuclear threat, and China’s expanding military budget, the US had new pretexts for building up its military forces and maintaining the USF in Okinawa.

Since World War II, the US has rationalised and modernised the armed forces. Central to this process has been Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) both in and outside the US, and the functional reorganisation of the armed forces. In particular, aiming at constructing a post-Cold War new world order, the US advanced the Unified Combatant Command (area army) system. The USF in Japan including Okinawa belongs to the Pacific Unified Command based in Honolulu. Its area of responsibility covers the west coasts of South and North Americas (including armed forces stationed in Alaska and Hawaii, but excluding the area within 500 nautical miles of the US mainland and the West coast of South America, which comes under the responsibility of the US Southern Command), most of the Indian Ocean except the Middle East, and more than half the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic Ocean. Located in this area, which covers more than half the surface of the world, are the world’s military superpowers: the US, China, Russia, as well as India, Japan, Korea, North Korea, and Australia, as well as major US trading partners. This area is critical for the US strategically and economically. The Command system that covers the whole earth and stretches even to outer space, shows that the US regards itself ‘the world’s sheriff’.

The US national defense expenditure for carrying out its international strategies, partly because of the rising cost of the Iraq War, reached $700 billion (48% of the world’s total national defense expenditure) in 2008. This is six times higher than China’s national defense expenditure in the same year, which was $120 billion (8%) (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). US national defense expenditure exceeds, for example, the GDP of Turkey or Taiwan (2007 estimate), and is more than 350 times the United Nations’ normal budget.

The new role the US has allocated to the USF in Okinawa international strategies was to deal with the area that the US Department of Defense has called ‘the arc of instability’ in the 2001 ‘Review of the National Defense Strategy’, namely from North Korea via South East Asia to the Middle East and the African coasts. Okinawa has turned into a military base for the ‘state of perpetual preparedness for war’ watching over the ‘arc of instability.’

Partly because of this, the size of the USF on the small islands of Okinawa is extraordinary compared to those in other countries. As of the end of September 2006 the USF in Okinawa consisted of 890 service members in the Army, 1,690 in the Navy, 13,840 in the Marine Corps, and 7,080 in the Air Force, for a total of 23,140. (‘USF and SDF bases in Okinawa’ Compiled Statistical Resources, March 2007)). Indeed, Okinawa hosts 69% of all USF in Japan (33,450), 53% of the Air Force, and as much as 94% of Marine Corps personnel. If we add to this figure the 1,333 US civilian employees and 20,000 family members, more than 43,000 people who are associated with the USF are stationed in Okinawa.

US bases in Okinawa

If we look at the USF in other members of NATO, Turkey hosts 1,590 US service members, Belgium 1,330, Spain 1,290, Portugal 830, the Netherlands 580. These numbers are much smaller than in Okinawa, mere remote islands of Japan. Only 55 are stationed in France. Even in the UK and Italy there are only about 10,000. In Australia, an important ally of the US in Asia Pacific, only 140 are stationed. 120 US service members are in Singapore; 90 in Thailand, and 95 in the Philippines. In the Pacific Ocean, other than in Hawaii, there are only 2,800 in Guam, which is an unincorporated territory of the US, five in Wake island and two in Samoa. 140 in Canada across the US border, 20 in Mexico, and 400 in Honduras.

Japan has about 310 square kilometers of facilities exclusively used by the USF with an overwhelming proportion of US bases concentrated in Okinawa. According to the Ministry of Defense, as of 1st January 2008, 74.23% of the total area of US military facilities in Japan (229 sq. km) are located in Okinawa. The proportion of the land area occupied by the US bases on mainland Japan is 0.02%; in Okinawa prefecture, 10.08%. The second largest area of the US military facilities is in Aomori prefecture (24 sq. km; 7.69% of the prefectural land), third, Kanagawa (18 sq. km; 5. 91%), and fourth, Tokyo (13 sq. km; 4.28%). None of these comes anywhere close to Okinawa. It would not be wrong to say ‘the USF Japan means the USF Okinawa, and the US bases in Japan means the US bases in Okinawa.’

Moreover, the bases are concentrated on Okinawa Main Island (including Iejima and Kumejima), where the proportion of land area occupied by the US military facilities is as high as 19% (excluding the huge sea area and airspace the USF use as training grounds etc.) These figures are in fact smaller than what they were before reversion, when US military bases took up 14.8% of the total land area of Okinawa prefecture and 27.2% of Okinawa Main Island. The central part of the Main Island has the highest proportion of bases (25%): 83% of Kadena, about 60% of Kin, 54% of Chatan, 51% of Ginowan, and 45% of Yomitan are occupied by bases. In Kunigami, in the forested area in the northern end of Okinawa Main Island, the bases occupy 23% of the land area, or 45 square kilometers, which is the largest area of bases in any one city or village.

The Northern Training Area, Camp Schwab, Camp Hansen, Red Beach and Blue Beach in Kin, Henoko Ordnance Ammunition Depot, Iejima Auxiliary Airfield, Yomitan Auxiliary Airfield, Futenma Air Station, Makiminato Service Area, Camp Courtney, Camp McTureous, Camp Zukeran … many of these are for the Marine Corps because the core of the USF in Okinawa is the Marine Corps, which are combat units.

Base facilities include jungle warfare training areas, airfields, flight training fields, firing ranges, bombing practice areas, urban (anti-terrorism) training facilities, landing training grounds, harbours, ammunition depots, fuel storage, communication facilities for espionage prevention, barracks, and welfare facilities … There are also urban residential streets inside bases that are equipped with high rise apartments, shopping malls, schools, entertainment facilities, churches, gyms and restaurants.

The varied goals of the USF in Okinawa are varied, including military training (Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps), storage of weapons and ammunitions, repair/maintenance (supply), command, prevention of espionage, information gathering, storage and supply of fuel, medical care, administration, accommodation, rest and recreation. They are not limited to training and providing logistical support. As the repeated dispatches of the mostly Marine Corps and the Air Force to Iraq and Afghanistan from Okinawa has shown, and as the US Marine Corps in Okinawa states, the USF in Okinawa is a battle deployment corps under ‘perpetual preparedness for war’. Okinawa once possessed the Nike Hercules, an interceptor missile, and in 2007, the Patriot, a ground-to-air guided missile, was newly placed in the 1st Battalion, 1st Air defense Artillery Regiment at Kadena Air Base.

The excessive concentration of the USF and US military bases in Okinawa has created different perceptions of the US bases in the Japanese mainland and on Okinawa. This is why many Japanese citizens can ignore various problems arising from the US bases on Okinawa and adopt an attitude of ‘it’s none of our business’.

US bases in Japan

Special Action Committee on Okinawwa (SACO) Agreement and after

Consider another question: Will Okinawa continue to be a military base? When the US returned Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty, it returned Naha Airport, Yogi Fuel Depot, Motobu Auxiliary Airfield , Ishikawa beach, parts of Camp Schwab and Camp Hansen. Naha Airport, which had been a US Air Base, became a civil airport; but Naha Port is still under the control of the USF. After reversion, Naha Air and Naval Support Facilities were returned and developed as residential and commercial areas, while Hanby Airfield was turned into Mihamamashi (Amerikamura); Awase Communication Facility, which had extended over today’s Okinawa city and Nakashiromura, was mostly turned into a residential area and an athletic park; Makiminato American residential area that spread over the hill behind Naha city was reborn as Naha’s new downtown area (Omoromachi). However, while 60% of the US bases on mainland Japan was realigned and reduced since 1972, in Okinawa the percentage stopped at 16%. The wish of the residents to reduce the US bases in Okinawa to the same level as the mainland was betrayed, and Okinawa remained the ‘keystone’ of the USF.’

A major change took place in 1995, when a school girl was raped by US soldiers. This intensified anti-base public opinion in Okinawa. In the same year, the Japanese and US governments established the Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) in order to ‘reduce the burden placed on Okinawan people, and by doing so to strengthen the Japan-US alliance’. Agreement was made on the first significant return of bases (11 facilities) in Okinawa by December 1996. This led to the termination of live fire artillery training over Prefectural Route 104, measures for reduction of aircraft noise levels, revision of SOFA, attachment of number plates for USF official vehicles, and public reports on US military aircraft accidents. It also promised the return of the land used by 11 facilities (50 sq. km; 21% of the total land area occupied by the US bases in Okinawa) by 2008. However, even if all these areas are returned, the percentage of US bases in Okinawa out of all the land area of facilities exclusively used by the USF will change from 74% to 70%, leaving Okinawa overwhelmingly dominated by US bases. Moreover, the precondition of the return of seven facilities including the Futenma Air Station, is the relocation of these facilities. Mostly this meant ‘relocation within the prefecture’. Realignment and reduction have experienced major delays. Especially, the plan to move Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, where a helicopter crashed during training in 2004, to Henoko, Nago City in the Northern Pacific coast has ground to a halt after more than 12 years has passed since the agreement was made. Despite Governor Nakaima’s insistence that Futenma Air Station be ‘closed’ until relocation, training and mobilisation to the Middle East have continued; the residents in the area have been left with noise pollution and anxiety. Relocation of Futenma to Henoko, which is close to Camps Schwab and Hansen, will be convenient for the Marine Corps, but for the local residents it means new base pollution. The effect of the relocation on the dugong (a natural treasure that is close to extinction) and other creatures is another concern.

Since then, Japan and the US agreed on the SACO Interim Report in October 2005, and the Final Report was made public on May 1, 2006. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls it a ‘US-Japan roadmap for realignment’. It was decided that by 2012, the US will relocate 8,000 Marines and 9,000 family members from III Marine Expeditionary Force to Guam, and fully return five facilities located South of Kadena Base (Camp Kuwae, Makiminato supply area, Futenma Air Station, Naha Port facilities, Army oil storage facility), and part of Camp Zukeran. However, the Marine relocation to Guam (whose cost is to be born by Japan) depends on the relocation of Futenma Air Station within Okinawa, and the completion of the preparations for receiving them in Guam. Also, a precondition for the integration of the facilities and return of land south of Kadena is the completion of the Marine relocation to Guam. In short, there will be no relocation to Guam or a return of facilities until the Futenma Base relocation is complete.

The future of the USF in Okinawa

The crux of the SACO agreement was that while some facilities will be returned, the ‘function’ of the bases will be maintained by relocating them to alternative sites in Okinawa (or in Japan). On the one hand, aiming at increasing ‘interoperability’ of the USF and SDF, bilateral training and shared use of the bases have increased. A new urban warfare training facility has been built in Camp Hansen, and a ground-to-air Patriot guided missile system has been placed in Kadena. The purpose of the reorganisation of the USF Japan seems to be to incorporate the SDF into US international strategy, to expand the scope of the Japan-US Security Treaty (Japan-US Alliance) from the ‘Far East’ to the world as a whole, and to make full use of the already-existing bases in Japan, including those in Okinawa.

Other factors that influence the prolonged stationing of the USF is Japan’s ‘sympathy budget’ that far exceeds any other country’s US base budget, as well as the Okinawan economy’s dependenc on the bases. Japan’s contribution towards the cost of the stationing of US bases, which the US calls ‘host nation support’, consists of direct support (Japanese employees’ salaries, land rents, housing, utilities, relocation costs of training facilities – all added to the annual budget) and indirect support (tax waivers, road tolls and port use fees etc.). Every year, Japan’s financial support far exceeds the total of such support by NATO member nations, including Germany, Italy, and the UK. (The total amount of support by the 18 NATO member nations other than the US in 2002 was $2.5 billion or ¥300 billion; Japan’s support was $4.4 billion or ¥530 billion). Japan is one of the military superpowers of the world along with the UK, France, and China, with a defense budget of $44.3 billion. Japan’s ‘sympathy budget’ provides 75% of the total costs of the USF stationed in Japan (The NATO total is 27%, of which 97% is indirect contributions).

Part of the contribution comes back to the Okinawan economy in the form of land rents, salaries, material purchases, construction work etc. In addition, cities, towns, and villages that host US bases can claim from the Japanese state base-related expenses such as noise prevention measures, fishing industry compensation, and other subsidies and grants. The cities, towns and villages that receive the relocated bases will receive new reorganisation subsidies from the government. Okinawa has a very low proportion – about 30% - of independent revenue such as prefectural taxes. For the rest, it relies on reallocating local taxes and national Treasury disbursement; in addition, in such places as Kin, Ginowan, Onna, and Kadena, base-related revenue accounts for more than 20% of total revenues. The long-term presence of the bases has hindered Okinawa’s autonomous economy (the bases did contribute to the civil engineering and construction business, food and drink industries and supply industries). And Okinawa’s reversion to Japan led to the maintenance of infrastructure such as roads and public facilities. However, neither laid a foundation for long-term autonomy such as manufacturing industry, and Okinawa has fallen into the pathology of the ‘carrot and stick’ ideology the Japanese government set up.

In order for Okinawa to escape from its ‘military colony’ status, it is necessary to break free from this structure; it will not be easy. We need to reduce the importance of the bases by nurturing talented people and building up facilities in areas such as IT, medicine and care, by exchanges with neighboring countries, attracting investments, and further promoting tourism, agriculture, fisheries, and trade, taking advantage of Okinawa’s geographical uniqueness and nature. We should not simply see ourselves as victims of the Battle of Okinawa and the US bases, but think about the reality that the bases are supporting wars; then we will not be so eager to accept land rents or subsidies. If the bases are returned, there will be less danger of crash accidents, less noise pollution, fewer sex crimes and other incidents involving US soldiers. Not only will we reduce our association with wars (war cooperation), but base sites can be turned into housing areas, commercial or industrial areas, parks, or education/research areas. Revitalisation of the community will bring about far more income and revenue than the current base-related revenue, which has benefitted a limited number of landowners, businesses, cities, towns, and villages. Since the realignment of US bases throughout the world has been decided by the US, we cannot deny the possibility that one day the US will suddenly decide to reduce or withdraw its bases from Okinawa. To avoid being caught by surprise when that happens, Okinawa (Japan) needs to practice its sovereignty and prepare for that occasion.

The Japanese preconception that Okinawa equals US bases needs to be changed. If the Japanese nation considers the stationing of the USF and the US bases necessary, instead of forcing an excessive burden upon Okinawa, bases should be distributed throughout the country. It makes sense to do so from the perspective of national defense, too. Furthermore, the Japanese nation needs to examine the SOFA and the USF reorganisation from the standpoint of a sovereign nation. If we leave things as they are now, the SDF may become incorporated into the USF, and Japan’s defense policy integrated into the US international strategy, leaving Japan with nominal sovereignty. Finally, forcing the burden of the bases on Okinawa, while neglecting Okinawan people’s voices, is simply anti-democratic.


Yoshida Kensei was born in Itomanshi, Okinawa. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he was a professor at Obirin University in Japan until his retirement in 2006. He has authored a number of books on Okinawa, including Okinawasen – beihei wa nani o mita ka 50 nen go no shogen (Sairyu-sha), Senso ha peten da: batoraa shogun ni miru Okinawa to Nichibei chii kyotei (Nanatsumori shokan), Gunji shokuminchi Okinawa (Kobunken). He published this article in Gunshuku Mondai Shiryo (Materials on Arms Reduction) in July 2008.

Rumi Sakamoto is Lecturer in Asian Studies at Auckland University and a Japan Focus associate. Matt Allen teaches Asian history at the University of Auckland and is a Japan Focus associate. They are the coeditors of Popular Culture and Globalisation in Japan. They translated this article for Japan Focus. This condensed translation is published at Japan Focus on August 19, 2008.


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