The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 8 | Issue 45 | Number 4 | Article ID 3443 | Nov 08, 2010

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The Battle of Okinawa 2010: Japan-US Relations at aCrossroad　　2010年沖縄戦−−分岐点に立つ日米関係

Gavan McCormack

The Battle of Okinawa 2010: Japan-US Relations at a Crossroad

Gavan McCormack

Five decades after the adoption of the (revised)US-Japan Security Treaty, and two decadesafter the end of the Cold War, Cold Warassumptions still underpin the relationshipbetween the world’s leading industrialdemocracies. A belated Japanese attempt tochange and reform the relationship in2009-2010 ended in failure and the collapse ofthe Hatoyama government. Whether the Kangovernment can do better, remains to be seen.The “Client state” relationship that I wroteabout in 2007 proves difficult to transcend. The“Okinawa problem” has emerged as a crucialbone of contention, not only between the USand Japanese governments but between thepeople of Okinawa and both governments. Thispaper addresses the implications of the now 14-year long attempt to resolve the Okinawandemand for closure and return of FutenmaMarine base in Ginowan City.

Global and Regional Frame

Before addressing the Okinawa problem, let memake some general remarks on the framewithin which the US-Japan relationship exists. Isee the present moment as one of sharpdisjuncture in East Asia between on the onehand the continuing Cold War securityarchitecture of global bloc confrontation,nuclear weapon based and super-powercentred, linking the countries of East andSoutheast As ia in hub and spokes ofcontainment or hostility towards the Soviet

Union and China, and on the other hand therapidly growing, China-centred, economic andecological inter-dependence. China is theworld’s number two economy and for both theUS and Japan the major trading partner.1 Chinais also Japan’s best prospect for futureeconomic growth, prosperity and stability. Andat an even deeper level, in terms of ecology –the fate of Japan and China is inextricablyintertwined. Climate change, global warming,s p e c i e s l o s s , r e s o u r c e d e p l e t i o n ,desertification, collapse of the oceans affectboth. For better or for worse, the two countriesare in the same boat, and they must rowtogether.

Japan – not alone but certainly critically, iscaught in the contradiction between theeconomic base and the military and politicalsuperstructure. According to Karl Marx, thereis only one way that, in the long term, suchcontradictions will be resolved. In these comingdecades, short of some currently unforeseeablecatastrophe, the US global weight will diminishand China (and not just China, but Asia as awhole) will resume the roughly half of globalGDP it represented two centuries ago.2 TheAmerican century ends, the Chinese centurybegins (or rather another, since there havebeen many in the past.) The security structuresare anachronistic and out of kilter with theburgeoning economic and ecological aspects ofthis conflicted world order.

65 years since its defeat in war, and just under60 since it recovered its independence, Japanremains occupied by its former conquerorunder the US-Japan Security treaty. Yokosukais home port for the 7th Fleet and Sasebo a

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major secondary facility for the US Navy,Misawa in Hokkaido and Kadena in Okinawaare key assets for the USAF, as are CampsKinser, Foster, Futenma, Schwab in Okinawaand Iwakuni in Yamaguchi prefecture for theMarine Corps. Scattered throughout Japan arethe housing, hospitals, hotels, golf courses (twoin Tokyo alone) and other facilities thatcombine to make some believe that,

“As a strategic base, the Japaneseislands buttress half of the globe,from Hawaii to the Cape of GoodHope. If the US were to lose Japan,i t could no longer remain asuperpower with a leadershipposition in the world.”3

Especially in the two decades since the end ofthe Cold War, the US has pressed Japan tomake the relationship into a “mature” allianceby removing barriers to joining the US in waras in peace.

It is not just the continuation of US occupationand the incorporation of Japan in its globalmilitary strategy that is anomalous, but the factthat Japan insists on paying generously tosubsidize it. The Japan whose constitutionoutlaws “the threat or use of force ininternational affairs” is allied to the onecountry above all others for whom war and thethreat of war are key instruments of policy. Itsupports US wars in every possible way shortof actually sending troops, offers it moreextensive military facilities and funds it (and itswars) with more generous subsidies than anyother country (at around $5 billion per year).

I have described this Japan as a Client State(Zokkoku). I define “Client State” as one thatchooses dependence. Japan chooses to beoccupied, is determined at all costs to avoidoffence to the occupiers, to pay whatever pricenecessary to be sure that the occupationcontinues, and is meticulous in adopting and

pursuing policies that will satisfy its occupier.As one Japanese scholar puts it, for thebureaucrats who guide the Japanese state,

“‘servitude’ is no longer just anecessary means but is happilyembraced and borne. ‘Spontaneousf r e e d o m ’ b e c o m e si n d i s t i n g u i s h a b l e f r o m‘spontaneous servitude’.” 4

The problems of Japan and East Asia are rootedin this self-abnegation at the heart of theJapanese state. As little as three years ago,when my book was published, the termZokkoku (the Japanese title) had a certainshock effect. I expected to be criticized forhyperbole for using it, but to my surprise it hassteadily become uncontroversial, adopted evenby prominent Japanese conservatives. How canit be, I ask myself, that such an ignominiousstatus could so long be tolerated by a peoplefor whom in the past nationalism has been sodear? The Japan once troubled by ultra-nationalism, now lapses into negative, orcompensatory nationalism.

Clientilism is of course not unique to Japan, noris it necessarily irrational. Dependence andsubordination during the Cold War broughtJapan considerable benefits, especiallyeconomic. But that era ended, and instead ofgradually reducing the US military footprint inJapan and Okinawa as the “enemy” vanished,the US ramped it up. It pressed Japan’s SelfDefence Forces to cease being “boy scouts” (asDonald Rumsfeld once contemptuously calledthem) and to become a “normal” army, and tostep up its contribution to the “war on terror.”“Client State” status came to require heavierburdens and greater costs than during the ColdWar, but it offered reduced benefits andenmeshed Japan more inextricably in thecontradiction between its economic andecological shared destiny with China and itssecurity dependence on the US. The dilemma

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sharpens as US global power and influencedecline.

Okinawa – Periphery and Centre

Flag of Ryukyu Kingdom (1429-1879)

For the most part, the Zokkoku relationshipremains comfortable enough for people inmainland Japan, because it impinges little oneveryday life. But clientilism and the Japanesestate’s prioritization of military ties to the USweigh heavily on the people of Okinawa, andresistance to that agenda is strongest there.Three-quarters of all US military facilities inJapan are concentrated in Okinawa: 29separate facilities, taking up 20 percent of theland area of the main island. In mainland Japan,no new base has been built since the 1950s, butin Okinawa for the past 14 years theGovernment of Japan has been committed tobuilding a new base for the Marine Corps. It isdescribed as a “replacement” for theobsolescent and inconvenient Futenma that sitsin the middle of Ginowan township, but it is farmore than Futenma. What is planned is a vast,sophisticated military complex at Henoko, farmore multi-functional than Futenma (andincluding a deep-sea port for docking nuclearsubmarines). This relatively remote northernOkinawa site has become the “hottest” landand sea district in all Japan.

Postage Stamp Commemorating“Reversion” of Okinawa/Ryukyu to Japan,

1972

Okinawa, as Ryukyu, was part of the EastAsian, China centered, world long before itbecame part, first of the pre-modern and thenof the modern Japanese state. Flourishing as anindependent commercial and cultural centre inthe 15th and 16th centuries, it was invaded andreduced to semi-independence in 1609 andthen fully incorporated in modern Japan in1879, following diplomatic blunders by aweakened China that allowed its claims tosovereignty to lapse.

After 1945, whether under direct US militaryrule to 1972, or nominal Japanese rule after it,Okinawa’s orientation to US warmaking did notchange. It played a key role in the conduct ofwars from Korea (1950-53), Vietnam (1961-75),Gulf (1990), to Afghanistan (2001-) and Iraq(2003 -). In the context of a 21st century shiftfrom a US-centered East Asian and world orderto what could become a China-centred one, the

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fact that the Okinawan islands stretch throughthe East China Sea, not far from the coast ofmainland China and Taiwan, for around 1,000kilometers, gives them a potentially hugemilitary significance, especially in the hands ofa military force hostile to or set on containingChina.

The Hatoyama Attempted Revolt

East Asia, Showing major US bases inJapan

During the prolonged one party state system inJapan between 1955 and 2009, a thoroughlyramified “Client State” system evolved in whichpriority to US interests was taken for granted,until 30 August 2009, when Hatoyama Yukioand the DPJ came to power in a dramatic shift,signaling the bankruptcy of the old regime andthe search for a new order.

Hatoyama had a vision for Japan. Like Obama alittle earlier, he tapped a national mood ofdesire for change, towards a Japan beyondclient state-ism (Japanese: Zokkoku). Hepromised to renegotiate the relationship with

the US on the basis of equality; to reject“market fundamentalism” and to re-orientJapan away from US-centred unipolarismtowards a multipolar world in which Japanwould be a central member of an East Asiancommunity. That community would be builtaround a core value of “Yuai,” which hedescribed as something that was “...a strong,combative concept that is a banner ofrevolution,”5 using the word “revolution” in away no Japanese Prime Minister had ever usedit before. He opened the Diet session in January2010 with the words.

“I want to protect people’s lives.

That is my wish: to protectpeople’s l ives

I want to protect the lives of thosewho are born; of those who growup and mature…”

Such pronouncements disturbed Washington.Hatoyama was dismissed as a weirdo. Whatleader of government ever spoke of an “equal”relationship with the United States, somethingnever contemplated and almost unimaginable;or of “protecting life?” But it was in particularHatoyama’s attempt to renegotiate theagreements adopted by previous, conservativegovernments to build the new base at Henokowhere he crossed a line.

Dismissing Hatoyama’s vision and ignoring hispolicies and projects, US President Obamarefused even to meet him to discuss his agendaor his vision. The US Departments of State andDefense delivered ultimatum after ultimatum,telling him that they would not reopennegotiations, and that it would be a “blow totrust” between the two countries if the existingagreement (on Henoko) were not implemented.

When Hatoyama announced (December 2009)that he would postpone the crucial decision till

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May 2010, Pentagon Press Secretary GeoffMorell declared that the US “did not accept”the Japanese decision; Kurt Campbell, AssistantSecretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific,said the Japanese public would have tounderstand the need to keep US forces inOkinawa.6 The Washington Post describedHatoyama as “the biggest loser [among worldleaders]…, hapless, … increasingly loopy,” i.e.,in effect, it was saying, Hatoyama was mad.

In short, the newly installed Hatoyamagovernment faced orders from Washington tofulfill the pledge signed and railroaded throughthe Diet in the dying days of Aso Taro’s LDPgovernment. The abuse and intimidation towhich Hatoyama was subject is withoutprecedent in the US relationship with anycountry, including Iran and North Korea, letalone its supposed closest of allies.

Torn between the pressures of Washington onthe one hand and Okinawa on the other,hemmed in by faithless bureaucrats in Tokyointent on subverting his agenda, Hatoyama’spolitical position crumbled. The national mediablamed him for the deterioration in thecountry’s key relationship, insisting that hecease offending and irritating the US.7 In the50th year of the Ampo relationship, it becameclear that in a “mature” alliance a Japanesegovernment could not survive loss ofWashington’s confidence. Obama, having risento power in his own country promising“change,” forbade it in Japan.

When Hatoyama in due course surrendered, heabandoned or betrayed the hopes of changeraised by the DPJ before it took office. Thedistinguished Tokyo University politicalscientist, Shinohara Hajime, recently said thathe regarded the 28 May agreement betweenHatoyama and the US government as Japan’s(second defeat” (daini no haisen), i .e.tantamount to August 1945.8 Hatoyama alsogave up other core elements of his vision. His“East Asian Community” mysteriously

transmuted into something that would includethe US (and would therefore be unacceptableto China), and the “China threat” moved closerto the centre of defense and security policy.

The Hatoyama government’s fall is best seen asa client state crisis: a failed attempt to movefrom dependency to equality. It demonstratedthe abjectness of Japan’s submission andrevealed in bold relief just what, in its mature,21st century form, a client state was.

Kan Government, June 2010-

When Kan Naoto took the reins of governmentin early June, the national media defined hiskey task as being to heal the “wounds” thatHatoyama had caused to the alliance, restoreWashington’s trust and confidence in Japan,and resolve the Okinawa problem by“persuading” Okinawa to accept the new base.Kan’s first act as Prime Minister was totelephone US President Obama to assure himhe would do what was required. When in hisintroductory policy speech to the Diet hepledged the “steady deepening of the alliancerelationship” that was what he meant.

Kan and Obama meet on the sidelines ofthe G 8 Summit in June 2010

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Four months into the Kan government,however, nothing has been resolved. Under theAgreement that Hatoyama signed on 28 May,the details of the new base construction wereto be settled by the end of August, but inAugust the deadline was extended toNovember. The two sides could not agree onwhat shape the runway at the new base wouldhave (“V” or “I” shaped), where exactly itwould be built, how it would be constructed,what would be the flight path for its aircraft,and whether Japan’s Self Defense Forces couldshare its use. Only in September did the USgovernment make public its intention to deployat the new base the MV22 Osprey VTOLaircraft, capable, with refueling, of a range of3,700 kilometres or around five times that ofthe CH46 helicopters that currently operatefrom Futenma This had major implications forthe levels of noise and risk that adjacentcommunities could expect to experience and itconstituted yet another reason for reopeningthe environmental assessment process.

Okinawa – The Resistance

What governments in Tokyo and Washingtoncould not accept is that there is no way topersuade, or perhaps even compel, adeterminedly hostile Okinawa to submit. Timeand again, from 1996 to today, Tokyo hasdeclared its determination to substitute aHenoko base for the Futenma one, and timeand again Okinawa has resisted and forced it toback down.9 The Okinawan people haveresolved by every conceivable means –elections, resolutions (of local Assembliesincluding the Okinawan Prefectural Assemblyand Nago City Assembly), mass “All-Okinawa”meetings, opinion surveys, statements byofficials, and determined sit-in movements) thatit not be built. This fierce, uncompromising,non-violent, popularly-supported Okinawanresistance has been one of the most remarkablefeatures of recent Japanese history. If thisOkinawan resistance had taken place in acountry out of favour with the US and Japan it

would have won global acclaim as a heroicexpression of popular will, a beacon ofcourageous, democratic determination, butbecause the struggle is against two supposedpillars of the global democratic system, suchrecognition is denied it.

The International Year of Biodiversity

This year, 2010, has been declared by theUnited Nations to be the “International Year ofBiodiversity.” This very month, October, theparties to COP 10, the Conference of theParties to the United Nations Convention onBiodiversity, meet in Nagoya. It is incongruousthat the government that hosts the Nagoyameeting should be committed to imposing amassive military base upon one of its (and theworld’s) most precious concentrations ofbiodiversity.

The coastal areas of Henoko, Oura Bay (wherethe base would be constructed), are classifiedunder the Okinawa Prefectural Government’sGuidelines for Environmental Protection asrank 1, warranting the highest level ofprotection. There the internationally protecteddugong graze on sea grasses, turtles come torest and lay their eggs, and multiple rare birds,fish, crustaceans, insects, and animals thrive.

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Dugong and Sea Turtle in Oura Bay

(Photograph by Higashionna Takuma)

New Crab and Shrimp Species discoveredin Oura Bay

(Photograph: Fujita Yoshihisa)

A colony of blue coral was discovered only in2007 (and in 2008 placed on the IUCN’s “Red,”or critically endangered, list); a 2009 WorldWildlife Fund study found an astonishing 36new species of crabs and shrimps;10 in July2010 Tokyo marine science researchers found182 different species of sea grasses and marineplants, four of which were probably newspecies;11 and just weeks ago, the NatureConservation Society of Japan found 362species of conchs in those same waters, 186 ofthem in one 50-centimeter-square area.12 Thissea is a concentrated marine patch of Brazilianrain-forest.

The construction process (for the “V” version ofthe runway) would require 21 million cubicmetres of fill, of which 17 million cubic metreswould be sea sand. That means a staggering3.4 million dump truck loads of sand, more than12 times the current volume of sand extractedin a year from throughout Okinawa. That alone,before actual base construction could begin,

would mean significant damage to Okinawa’sfragile land and sea environment.13

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The Four Newly Discovered Sea Grasses ofOura Bay

(Photographs: Ohba Hideo, Tokyo University ofMarine Science and Technology)

Along with the dugong, turtles and othercreatures, for the US Marine Corps and theirJapanese promoters the coral of Oura bay issimply a nuisance. When the first plans formilitarizing the Bay were developed, in 1962,the Marine Corps began to deal with the coralby bombing it.14 Such a course is not opentoday, but the scale of militarization envisagedcould be expected to have the same effect overthe longer term.

It is true that an environmental impact studywas conducted on Henoko between 2007 and2009. But the Assessment Law (Asesuho) doesnot stipulate an impartial, scientific processand includes no provision for actually banninga project on environmental grounds. It merelyrequires the party proposing works to considertheir impact and take appropriate steps toprotect the environment.15 So the JapaneseDefence Facilities Bureau (part of what was

then the Defence Agency and is now theMinistry of Defence) reviewed its own project.It paid no attention to the likely impact oftyphoons, because none happened while thesurvey was in process; it concluded that“dugong are not in the area” since it saw none,though it was likely that the dugong were notto be seen precisely because the disturbancescaused by the investigation process had driventhem away. The process was also flawed in thatno information was provided to it on the kindsor number of aircraft that would be using thefacility, or the materials that would be stored orused on it.

Okinawa Prefecture (its Environmental ImpactCommittee) found multiple faults in theAssessment’s Interim Report; GovernorNakaima recommended a multi-year study ofthe dugong, and Okinawa’s lead ingenvironmental law authority, former OkinawaUniversity president Sakurai Kunitoshi,declared the process “unscientific” and fatallyflawed. 1 6 In the International Year ofBiodiversity, it was bizarre, he noted, that theGovernment of Japan, even while hostingCOP10, should go to such lengths, and spendsuch amounts of taxpayer money, to pushthrough a thoroughly unscientific justificationfor the destruction of such a preciousconcentration of biodiversity.

Civic and international organizations protestthe implausibility of the region’s largestmilitary base being imposed on an environmentwhose extraordinary biodiversity is only slowlybeing understood, and court act ionschallenging the project on environmentalgrounds are underway in both the US andJapan17: It is as if the Grand Canyon were to bedesignated a military base, or in Australia,Kakadu.

Conclusion

The Henoko dispute compounds elements oflocal (Nago City), prefectural (Okinawan),national (Japan), regional (East Asian) and

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international (Japan-US) contradictions. Itexposes the fabric of the Zokkoku state and the“alliance” that under-pins it and, as itcontinues, it threatens to widen into amovement to question the US base presence inJapan as a whole. As Kent Calder notes, thephenomenon of foreign military bases beinghosted for any period of time in the territory ofa sovereign state is extremely unusual; “castlesbuilt on sand” cannot long be stable.18 TheOkinawan sand is now crumbling.

There is no precedent in the post-warrelationship for the confrontation that occurredbetween the US and Japan in 2009-10. There isalso no precedent in modern Japanese historyfor an entire prefecture to unite, as doesOkinawa today, in saying “No” to the centralstate authorities. Okinawa is commonly thoughtof as a peripheral Japanese prefecture, but iscentral to Japanese, regional, and globalaffairs.

The legal justification for the bases, inmainland Japan as in Okinawa, is the 1960“Japan-US Security Treaty.19 That treaty,however, entitles the US (under Article 6) tostation troops in Japan for “the purpose ofcontributing to the security of Japan and themaintenance of international peace andsecurity in the Far East.” The Marines,however, are neither a defensive nor a FarEastern force but an expeditionary “attack”force, dispatched repeatedly since 1990 forparticipation in the Gulf, Afghanistan, and IraqWars, and held in readiness to be launched as aground force into enemy territory. As a seniorofficial in the Japanese Department of Defenseput it, the 3rd Marine Division is a “force fordeployment at any time to particular regionsbeyond Japan …. not for the defense ofparticular regions.”2 0 Their presence,supposedly justified by the security treaty,might instead be in breach of it. The baseproject on which the two governments havebeen intent since 1996 is concerned not with aFutenma substitute, or even with the defense of

Japan, but on supplying the US Marine Corpswith a new, upgraded, multi-service facility tobe used as a forward base capable of attackingforeign territories.

Furthermore, the hullabaloo in Japansurrounding the Henoko project rests on aserious misunderstanding (if not a deliberatedeception on the part of the Japanese and USgovernments). The Pentagon from 2006 hasbeen committed to transfer core FutenmaMarine units to Guam, upgrading it into themilitary fortress and strategic staging postcovering the whole of East Asia and theWestern Pacific. That plan clearly undercutsthe strategic importance of both existing andfuture planned marine deployments inOkinawa.

In the year of the “golden jubilee” anniversaryof the US-Japan security relationship (1960), amore unequa l , misrepresented andmisunderstood bilateral relationship betweentwo modern states would be difficult toimagine. Under republican and democratadministrations in the US, and LDP and DPJgovernments in Japan, agreement followsagreement , pos tponement f o l l owspostponement, but nothing is resolved. Asfailure follows upon failure, that in turn feedsirritation on both sides. The Okinawanresistance constitutes a brick wall that the twogovernments can neither evade nor breach. Ina dictatorship, the base project could stillproceed, even if people had to be cleared awayby tanks. That is how bases were built andexpanded in the 1950s, the process thatOkinawans remember bitterly as the terror ofbayonets and bulldozers in the wake of theBattle that drove them from their land. But in21st century Japan, at least so long asdemocratic institutions survive, it is surelybeyond the capacity of any government torepeat that process.

To both sides, Okinawans are an inconvenienceand a nuisance, to be persuaded or bought off

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with the appropriate package of carrots andsticks. Yet no defence of democracy or of a“free” world can rest on denial of freedom anddemocracy in a core territory. Serious attemptto resolve the “Okinawa problem” has to beginfrom setting aside the series of “Agreements”to militarize Oura Bay reached during the hightide of LDP client state rule and putting an endto the many vain attempts to impose uponOkinawa something its people had said in everyconceivable forum that they will not accept. Tobegin to resolve the current “Okinawaproblem” means to revisit the formula on whichthe post-war Japanese state has rested and tobegin renegotiating its dependence on theUnited States, to return to the Hatoyama visionof 2009 that was treated with such contempt inWashington.

Okinawa’s history over especially the past 14years constitutes a lesson to the rest of Japan,and indeed the world, in what it means forpeople to be citizens and therefore to exercisewith confidence and determination thesovereignty vested in them under theconstitution; to hold peace dear and beresolved never to forget or repeat the crimes ofmilitarism; to be committed to non-threateningcooperation with neighbors; to revere natureand insist on policies of environmentalsustainability. The most significant story ofearly 21st century Japan is being told here.Japan’s geographical periphery is its politicalcore, pointing towards an alternative, non-client state, civil society-led, direction for therest of the country.

This is the text of a talk delivered at the PeacePhilosophy Salon, Vancouver, Canada on 16October 2010.

Gavan McCormack is a coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal, an emeritus professor ofAustralian National University, and author ofClient State: Japan in the American Embrace.

Recommended citation: Gavan McCormack,"The Battle of Okinawa 2010: Japan-USRelations at a Crossroad," The Asia-PacificJournal, 45-4-10, November 8, 2010.

Notes

1 Terashima Jitsuro notes that as of 2009 US-China trade ($366 billion) was two and a halftimes greater than US-Japan trade ($147billion) and US visitors to China (1.7 million)two and a half times greater than US visitors toJapan (700,000). (Terashima Jitsuro, “Noriki noressun, 100, tokubetsuhen, Nichibei domei noshinka sareba naranai, Futenma meiso nosoketsu to kongo,” Sekai, August 2010, pp.102-112, at p. 109.)

2 The US now has roughly 5 per cent of theworld’s population and about 25 per cent of itswealth. China, however, at roughly 5 trilliondollars, in 2010 displaced Japan as the world’ssecond largest economy, and it continues togrow at around 10 per cent yearly. If thatgrowth were to continue even at a somewhatreduced rate, say 7 per cent, its economy woulddouble in 10 years and quadruple in 20 years.By then – and unless the US and/or Japandiscover some formula for economic growththat now seems improbable - China would beroughly equal that of the US, the GDP of bothbeing roughly 20 trillion dollars.

3 Military analyst Ogawa Kazuhisa, quoted inSaito Mitsumasa, "American Base Town inNorthern Japan. US and Japanese Air Forces atMisawa Target North Korea," The Asia-PacificJournal, 40-3-10, October 4, 2010.

4 Nishitani Osamu, “Jihatsuteki reiju o koeyo –jiritsuteki seiji e no ippo,” Sekai February 2010,p. 126.

5 Hatoyama Yukio, “My political philosophy,”Voice, September 2009 (13 August 2009), andin English in Financial Times.

6 “Pentagon prods Japan on Futenma deadline,”

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Japan Times, 8 January 2010.

7 Yamaguchi Masanori, “‘Hato wa sagi nisaseta’ ote media no ‘Nichibei domei nofukashin’ hodo,” Shukan kinyobi, 11 June 2010,pp. 24-25.

8 Shinohara Hajime, “Toranjishon dai ni makue,” (interview) Sekai, November 2010.

9 For details see my various essays, mostlyavailable at the Asia-Pacific Journal: JapanFocus.

10 “Oura-wan ni 36 shinshu, ebi kani-rui, ken nihozon hatarakikake e,” Ryukyu shimpo, 25November 2009.

1 1 “Henoko n i sh inshu? Ka i so 4 shu‘umetatereba zetsumetsu no osore,” Asahishimbun, 16 July 2010 (English text: “4 newtypes of seaweed found at Henoko,” Asahishimbun, 17 July 2010).

12 Tomoyuki Yamamoto, “Conservationists sayFutenma move threatens rich marine life,”Asahi shimbun, 30 September 2010.

1 3 The “I”-shaped design would requiremarginally less landfill, 18.9 million cubicmetres. WWF (World Wildlife Fund), Japan,“Futenma hikojo daitai shisetsu jigyo nikakawaru kankyo eikyo hyoka junbisho nitaisuru ikensho,” 13 May 2009; also UrashimaEtsuko, “Okinawa Yambaru, kaze no tayori,(10), Ikusa yo wa tsuzuku,” Impaction, No 170,August 2009, pp. 128-141, at p. 137.

14 Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting and NorimatsuSatoko, “Assault on the Sea: A 50-Year U.S.

Plan to Build a Military Port on Oura Bay,Okinawa,” The Asia Pacific Journal, 5 July 2010.

15 “Futenma hikojo isetsu mondai, ‘iho’ to 344nin teiso Futenma asesu yarinaoshi sosho,”Ryukyu shimpo, 20 August 2009.

16 Sakurai Kunitoshi, “Ronsho ketsujo surikaemo- tayosei toshi ni towareru shinka,” Ryukyushimpo, 23 August 2010 (see also the Sakuraicomment quoted in Ryukyu shimpo, 25 August2010. See also Sakurai Kunitoshi, “The GuamTreaty as a modern ‘disposal’ of the Ryukyus,”The Asia Pacific Journal, 21 September 2009.

17 In 2008 a San Francisco federal court judgeruled that the U.S. Department of Defense(DoD) had violated the National HistoricPreservation Act (NHPA) by failing to “take intoaccount” in its planning the effects of baseconstruction on the dugong of Oura Bay, andin 2009 344 Okinawans launched a suit in theNaha District Court to have the assessmentdeclared invalid.

18 Kent E. Calder, Embattled Garrisons:Comparative Base Politics and AmericanGlobalism, Princeton University Press, 2008.

19 “Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Securitybetween Japan and the United States ofAmerica,” January 1960, Ministry of ForeignAffairs, link.

20 Yanagisawa Kyoji (former Director ofNational Institute for Defense Studies),“Futenma no kakushin – kaiheitai noyokushiryoku o kensho seyo,” Asahi shimbun,28 January 2010.

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