Growing militarism in the East China Sea has the weak link in the bulwark of Okinawa. The governor of the prefecture, Denny Tamaki, denounced the “threat to peace” that, according to him, represents the proliferation of military bases in Geneva, before the UN Human Rights Commission.
For the United States and its allies, preparing for any scenario in Taiwan could be more than a rhetorical exercise. But for Okinawa, it evokes some of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War, which swept away a third of its inhabitants. Some of them, at the hands of the Japanese themselves, who did not quite trust the natives of the old kingdom of Ryukyu, who at the time spoke their own language.
Last year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the return of Okinawa to Japan by the United States. A reintegration that continues to present edges.
The numbers sing and Tamaki quoted them again in front of the UN. Japan’s southern archipelago, with just over 1% of the population, is home to 70% of the US military bases in the country. “A threat to world peace”, he said, which also pollute and make them a “target”.
The politician also complained that work on a new base, on the coral coast, continues, despite the non-binding referendum he called four years ago, in which more than 70% of the islanders voted against. Only fifteen days ago the Supreme Court rejected the appeals.
Tamaki won the prefecture on an anti-base platform, like his predecessor, the late Takeshi Onaga, who also spoke at the same forum eight years ago, albeit with a more direct vocabulary, in which there was no shortage of accusations in Tokyo of “discrimination” and to ignore the “right to self-determination”. On Monday, an envoy of the Japanese Government disqualified Tamaki’s arguments on the spot.
However, the fears are not unfounded. A US think tank has predicted that, in the event of a military escalation in Taiwan, China’s first target would be the airstrips of the Okinawa bases.
It should be added that the island of Yonaguni is only one hundred kilometers from Taiwan. And that the Senkaku/Diaoyu islets, under Japanese control but claimed by China, are on the periphery of the archipelago.
Likewise, the largest of Okinawa’s bases, Futenma, occupies hundreds of hectares in the center of one of the largest cities. In peacetime, Futenma was described by the late US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, as “the most dangerous air base in the world”. In addition to a continuous source of neighborhood protests.
In wartime, she would be a rascal again. Futenma’s eviction is something that has, in fact, been agreed upon since 1997. Not only because of the “inconvenience” to the neighbors, but because she was taken at gunpoint.
The eviction has been interpreted by Washington and Tokyo as a relocation to the same island, in Nago, something frowned upon by the inhabitants of Okinawa, who would like a more equitable distribution of the burdens.
Okinawa is home to 30,000 military and 50,000 civilians from the United States, in 32 bases, which occupy 18% of the island.
The governor’s suspicions multiplied a year ago, with the new Japanese military doctrine, revealed by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The latter abandons the pacifist itch and opens up to intervene abroad, under the command of the United States. He also commits to dedicating 2% of GDP to Defense, as if he were a member of NATO, and to double the budget in five years against China – “Strategic Rival”–, Russia and North Korea (“Opponents”).
Japan occupied the island of Formosa in 1895, until 1945. A quarter of a century earlier it had appropriated Ryukyu, a prosperous archipelago until then due to its intermediate location between China and Japan.
“We must never allow the people of Okinawa to go through the same terrible experience we went through,” concluded Tamaki. “Japan’s security is a matter for all Japanese”.
