Seoul, South Korea — In a move described as “unprecedented,” Japan’s central government has stepped in and overruled the local government of Okinawa in an effort to jump-start construction on a new base for U.S. troops on the island.
The government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday gave the go-ahead for construction to reinforce soft ground in Okinawa’s Oura Bay. The work, expected to begin as early as Jan. 12 according to Japanese media reports, will lay the foundations for a new American base to be known as Henoko.
It is designed to accommodate troops and equipment now located at U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which has long been a source of debate and protest on the island. A crowded residential district has grown up around the U.S. military outpost, leading to complaints about disruptions and fears of flight accidents impacting the local civilian population.
The landfill work is expected to take some 12 years to complete.
Work had been halted at the Oura Bay site since 2020 due to objections by Okinawan Governor Denny Tamaki, who wants the air base moved entirely off the island. Mr. Tamaki has lost several court decisions trying to halt the work and an appeal to the Supreme Court is pending.
The government’s move to oversee and advance the base construction project “robs the prefectural government of its administrative authority,” Mr. Tamaki, 64, complained. “They are trying to construct a new base by infringing on our autonomy and independence.”
Tokyo’s initiative appears to reflect frustration with Mr. Tamaki and the repeated delays. According to the Kyodo News Service, Thursday’s decision marks the first time that Tokyo has acted on behalf of a local government due to the latter’s refusal to fulfill tasks entrusted by the state.
Mr. Tamaki and his allies denounced the move as undemocratic.
“The will of the Okinawan people has been…. clearly demonstrated through the highest number of votes ever won at the gubernatorial election, by the candidate, myself, who pledged to oppose the new Henoko base,” Mr. Tamaki wrote on his prefectural website. “The Japanese government has blatantly disregarded the will of our people.”
In September, Mr. Tamaki took his case against Tokyo’s support for the U.S. troop presence on Okinawan before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, generating a wave of criticism back home. The conservativer Sankei Shimbun ran an editorial with the headline: “Denny Tamaki No Longer Serves the Interests of Okinawa and Japan.”
“Such speeches serve to drive a wedge between the people of the prefecture and [Japan’s military] and U.S. forces,” the paper’s editors wrote. “The only parties that will take pleasure in this are those foreign governments and militaries that would contemplate the possibility of attacking Japan.”
Rising profile
The development is just the latest in a long dispute between Japan’s center and periphery. The dispute has gained renewed energy in recent years as Okinawa’s importance to the evolving national defense strategy has increased.
The post-World War II presence of U.S. troops, predominantly Marines, has long been a bone of contention between local and national officials. Many Okinawans share Mr. Tamaki‘s belief that they are hosting an excessive segment of the 50,000-strong American troop deployment in the country.
“I agree with Japan-U.S. security arrangements and I am NOT asking all the U.S. military bases to be immediately closed and removed,” Mr. Temaki writes on his governor web page. “Yet, it is absolutely unacceptable that Okinawa, which accounts for only 0.6% of Japan’s total land area, hosts 70.3% of exclusive-use U.S. Force Japan facilities, even today, more than 70 years after the end of the war.”
Complaints against GIs’ presence relate to pollution caused by the base, crimes by American service personnel committed against locals, the noise and danger posed by low-flying aircraft, and even the threat of COVID infections despite the recent global pandemic. The tensions were on display again in November in the fallout from the fatal crash of a U.S. military Osprey tilt-rotor helicopter.
The local government has won some concessions: In 2012, Tokyo and Washington agreed to relocate a regiment of U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, a redeployment set to begin in 2024.
Yet any further reduction in U.S. troops looks like a vain hope, as Okinawa and its satellite island in the Ryukyu chain to its southwest have become an ever more valuable strategic asset in the East Asian theater.
As China massively expands its naval presence and presses its claims to Taiwan, the southern Ryukyus dominate critical naval choke points. Japan’s own Self Defense Force is relocating forces formerly deployed against Russia in the north to the Ryukyus, where new missile bases are being constructed.
Amid growing concerns about both China and a nuclear-armed North Korea, there has been little protest in Japan against the low-key but clear remilitarization despite the country’s postwar pacifist constitution.
In a series of moves since 2015, the country has reinterpreted a clause in the constitution enabling Japanese forces to expand their role in the defense of allies. Tokyo has also created a new marine brigade and converted two helicopter carriers to light aircraft carriers – moves that were once unthinkable.
The Kishida government is also purchasing a “counterstrike” force of Tomahawk cruise missiles from the U.S.