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Irresistible Force (Japan) Versus Immovable Object (Okinawa): Struggle Without End?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Abstract
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Gavan McCormack here explores matters raised in his 2018 book with Satoko Oka Norimatsu (Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States, 2nd edition), outlines recent judicial, political, diplomatic and ecological developments with a bearing on the “Okinawa problem,” and considers the tactics and strategy employed in the long-running contest by Okinawa's social movements on the one hand and the Japanese and American states on the other. The text that follows is a slightly revised version of the invited lecture he delivered at International Christian University in Tokyo on 11 November 2019.
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References
Notes
1 See my “Ryukyu/Okinawa's trajectory: from periphery to centre, 1600-2015,” in Sven Saaler and Christopher W.A. Szpilman, eds., Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese History, London and New York: Routledge, 2018, pp. 118-134.
2 See my “The San Francisco Treaty at Sixty—The Okinawa Angle,” in Kimie Hara, ed, The San Francisco System and Its Legacies: Continuation, Transformation, and Historical Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific, New York and London, Routledge, 2014, pp. 144-161.
3 For details, Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States, Second Edition, Rowman and Littlefield, 2018.
4 Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a nuclear war planner, London, Bloomsbury Publications, 2017, and Ellsberg in conversation with Peter Hannam, “Setting the world alight,” Sydney Morning Herald, 9 March 2018.
5 For details, McCormack, The State of the Japanese State: Contested Identity, Direction, and Role, Folkstone, Kent, Renaissance Books, 2018 and McCormack and Norimatsu, Resistant Islands, 2018, passim.
6 On the complex legal moves of 2016-2019, McCormack and Norimatsu, pp. 280-291.
7 Kyodo, “Okinawa governor meets top gov't official over US base transfer,” The Mainichi, 6 November 2018.
8 As of late 2019, Okinawa prefectural government estimated a completion rate of three per cent. One independent expert thought the true figure would be less than one-per cent.
9 “Henoko project clearly doomed; time to open talks with the US,” Asahi shimbun, 23 February 2019.
10 The per person daily rate is a remarkable 90,000 yen or around $825. (Mochizuki Isoko and others, “Zei o ou – hadome naki boeihi (10) Henoko-shin kichi kensetsu kenmin osae saigen naki yosan,” Tokyo shimbun, 25 November 2019).
11 McCormack and Norimatsu, Resistant Islands, 2018, pp. 295-6. And see, Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Human Rights Council, “Opinion No 55/2018 concerning Yamashiro Hiroji (Japan),” Opinions adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at its eighty-second session, 20-24 August 2018,“ UN Human Rights Council, 27 December 2018 A/HRC/WGAD/2018/55
12 “Henoko shin kichi, gyoseiho kenkyusha 110 nin no seimeibun zenbun,” Okinawa taimusu, 31 October 2018.
13 “131 constitutional scholars speak up against Henoko base construction,” Ryukyu shimpo, 24 January 2019. (Words quoted from Iijima Shigeaki of Nagoya Gakuin University).
14 Eric Johnston, “More than 70% in Okinawa vote no to relocation of US Futenma base to Henoko,” Japan Times, 24 February 2019.
15 McCormack and Norimatsu, pp. 278-9
16 McCormack and Norimatsu, pp. 53-54.
17 On the grounds that the prefecture's suit was based on the Administrative Complaints Review Act, but that the tribunal only had jurisdiction over complaints under the Local Autonomy Act (“Dispute resolution panel throws out Okinawa request to reinstate landfill ban,” The Mainichi, 19 February 2019).
18 For a summary of these two suits see Okinawa Environmental Justice Project, “Review Henoko Plan!: 33 civic groups send a statement regarding US National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2020,” 1 November 2019.
19 Governor Tamaki: “Kokkosho no saiketsu wa, senshu to shinpan ariki de kosei ni kakete iru”.
20 Kitaueda Tsuyoshi, “Henoko shin kichi wa tonza suru,” Sekai, July 2019, pp. 44-54.
21 “Nanjaku jiban ni kui 6 man bon, koto mukei na koji o yameyo,” editorial, Ryukyu shimpo, 3 February 2019, and for the 76,999 and ninety metre figures, “Asase mo kui 1.3 man bon, nanjaku jiban koji kei 7.6 man bon Boei kyoku hokokusho de hanmei,” Ryukyu shimpo, 9 February 2019. For analysis in English, Hideki Yoshikawa, “Abe's military base plan sinking in mayonnaise: Implications for the US Court and IUCN,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 15 February 2019.
22 Abe to the Diet on 30 January 2019: “Koki ya hiyo ni tsuite kakutaru koto o moshiageru koto wa konnan.”
23 “Okinawa says new base to cost 10 times what Tokyo estimated,” Asahi shimbun, 12 December 2018.
24 Okinawa prefecture (Washington DC office), “Concerns for environmental impacts of seabed improvement work in land reclamation in Henoko,” 17 July 2019.
25 The sea-level around Okinawa has risen at the average rate of 2.2 mm per year since 1954, slightly less than the global average but at rising rate. (Okinawa kishodai, “Okinawa no kiko hendo kenshi ripoto, March 2019)
26 Lawrence Wilkerson, former senior adviser to Colin Powell in George W. Bush administration in the early 1990s, quoted in “Koron, Henoko, Beikoku kara mita rorensu uirukuson, jamesu schoff san,” Asahi shimbun, 22 February 2019.
27 “Kanyo torikeshi sosho, kuni tsuiju no ippoteki na hanketsu da,” Ryukyu shimpo, 24 October 2019.
28 “Henoko hanketsu ‘datsu-ho kyoi’ yurushita shiho,” editorial, Asahi shinbun, 26 October 2019
29 “Henoko de 7 do-me no saiban' kosei de jisshitsuteki na shinri wo,” ed, Okinawa taimusu, 18 July 2019. For text of the dossier.
30 “Ikkatsu kofukin no kakuju o, hoshukei 8 shicho de tsukuru ‘chimu Okinawa’, jiminto ni yosei,” Okinawa taimusu, 3 September 2019.
31 “Henoko isetsu no sokushin motomeru ketsugi, Ginowan shigikai ‘gaman genkai’,” Asahi shimbun, 27 September 2019.
32 Reported in January 2018. (The State of the Japanese State, p. 115.)
33 To the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan on 9 November and to New York University on 11 November. See discussion in Kihara Satoru, “Okinawa, Bei sentoki FA18 no suiraku wa nani o shimesu ka,” Ari no hitokoto, 15 November 2018.
34 Governor Tamaki, Letter to William F. Hagerty, US ambassador to Japan, 14 May 2019.
35 “Naha gunko no Urasoe isetsu-an, Okinawa-ken, Naha-shi, Urasoe-shi ga kento kaigi setchi de goi,” Okinawa taimusu, 25 October 2019.
36 The same fate was to befall Hatoyama Yukio as Prime Minister in 2009-10.
37 “Naha Port,” Global Security.org (accessed 10 November 2018)
38 “Tamaki Deni-shi, Jieitai to Beigun no kichi kyodo shiyo kyogi mo, intabyu de hyomei, okinawa ken chijisen,” Sankei shimbun, 2 October 2018.
39 See the CSIS reports of 2012 and 2018.
40 “International Scholars, peace activists, and artists condemn agreement to construct US marine base in Okinawa,” 7 January 2014.
41 Hideki Yoshikawa, “Abe's military base plan sinking in mayonnaise: Implications for the US Court and IUCN,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 15 February 2019. See also Yoshikawa's “Dugong swimming in uncharted waters: US judicial intervention to protect Okinawa's ‘natural monument’ and halt base construction,” The Asia-Pacific Journal - Japan Focus, 2009, and his “Jugon saiban: Jugonen no kei-i to kongo no tembo,” Kankyo to kogai, October 2018, pp. 29-33.
42 For a critical discussion from an Okinawan NGO, environmental movement perspective, Okinawa Environmental Justice Project, op. cit. See also Hideki Yoshikawa, “Hesitant Heritage: US bases on Okinawa and Japan's flawed bid for World Natural Heritage status,” Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 15 April 2019.
43 Okinawa Environmental Justice Project, op. cit.
44 The Government of Japan, “Nomination of Amami-Oshima Island, Tokunoshima Iland, the Northern Part of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island [for UNESCO World Natural Heritage],” January 2019.
45 With the discovery of one dugong corpse (Individual B) in March 2019, and absence of any sightings of A and C over the past year, the IUCN is expected to adopt the category “critically endangered” which many will take to be synonymous with extinct. “‘Dugong zetsumetsu ka’ koji o tome zenken chosa o,” editorial, Okinawa taimusu, 13 October 2019.)
46 The US-based Center for Biological Diversity has served notice of its intent to file suit against the US government (the Fisheries and Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior) for failure to protect the Okinawa Woodpecker [Noguchigera] living in the forest area in the vicinity of the US Northern Training Area.
47 “For Henoko land reclamation, Prime Minister Abe claims, ‘The coral there is being relocated,‘ however the reality is no such activity is taking place in the landfill area,” Ryukyu shimpo, 8 January 2019.
48 The State of the Japanese State, pp. 246-7
49 The Editorial Board, “Toward a smaller American footprint on Okinawa,” New York Times, 1 October 2018.
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