Hatoyama’s Hollow Promise

ENDŌ   I think it was Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio’s promise in 2009 to move Futenma off Okinawa that transformed what was an already entangled situation into an entirely different political landscape. Before then, there were people in Okinawa who were willing to accept the Henoko plan, as long as there were guarantees that the facility would not become a permanent fixture on the island. When Hatoyama announced that Futenma would be relocated outside the prefecture, though, even those people began insisting on pushing the US bases out.

MIYAGI   You sound quite negative toward Hatoyama.

ENDŌ   Well, it’s hard to say whether he was a good or bad leader, but one thing you can say for certain is that he gave the people of Okinawa a reason to put aside their differences and to move in a single direction.

I personally feel that Futenma should be returned without having to provide a new site in the prefecture. This is because that is what the people of Okinawa want. And this singleness of opinion is, intentional or not, a byproduct of Hatoyama’s announcement.

MIYAGI   Another aspect of the statement was that it triggered strong opposition in other areas that were cited as relocation candidates, exposing the aversion people on the mainland also feel toward hosting the Marines.

ENDŌ   Yes, that’s true. Everyone looked the other way, and Hatoyama wasn’t able to keep his promise. This deepened the fissure between Okinawa and the rest of the country and revealed the unfairness of the arrangement with which Okinawans were being asked to live.

MIYAGI   People could no longer pretend they were unaware of Okinawa’s burden. By saying no to US bases, mainland Japanese were essentially asking Okinawa to continue living with them.

A Balancing Act

TAIRA   I agree that the Hatoyama announcement had tremendous repercussions. Ties between Tokyo and Naha quickly deteriorated after Governor Ōta ultimately refused to accept the Henoko plan in 1998. His successor, Inamine Keiichi, prioritized ties with Tokyo in order to advance economic development, though, and reversed Ōta’s decision—on the condition that Henoko be turned into a dual, military-civilian facility.

Inamine sought to walk a fine line between the strong public opposition to the relocation plan and the wishes of the central government, trying not to appear to be pandering to either side. This balancing trick got conservatives to go along with Henoko, albeit reluctantly, during the Inamine years.

Things started going off-kilter when Nakaima Hirokazu replaced Inamine, and everyone turned against Henoko when Hatoyama subsequently announced he was going to take Futenma outside the prefecture. Inamine has been quoted as saying that not having to balance competing interests was a big weight off his shoulders. I think that this is a sentiment shared broadly among the conservatives in Okinawa. They were now free to openly join the progressives in the fight against Henoko. The conservative who led the effort to build a unified front was Onaga Takeshi, who is now governor.

MIYAGI   Left-leaning Governor Ōta rejected the Henoko plan after struggling long and hard with his decision, but his more conservative successor, Inamine Keiichi, accepted it, although with the condition that it be a dual-use airfield with a 15-year limit. The limit was unilaterally removed by Tokyo, however, in the 2006 cabinet decision on the realignment of US forces.

Inamine was succeeded by fellow conservative Governor Nakaima, who focused on economic development. While his opponent in the gubernatorial race ran on a strongly anti-Futenma platform, Nakaima merely said he was against the “existing plan.”

One can see from this that the relocation plan was never unconditionally embraced by conservative forces. There was indeed a moment, during Governor Nakaima’s term, when both he and the Nago mayor expressed their approval of the plan, but it was really only for a moment.

TAIRA   As Mr. Endō noted, Hatoyama’s promise to take Futenma outside Okinawa was a major turning point, but a development of equal significance, I think, was his admission after stepping down that the explanation he gave for ultimately sticking with the Henoko plan—that the Marines needed to be on Okinawa as a deterrent—was an expedient. This was further exacerbated by the December 2012 remark by Defense Minister Morimoto Satoshi that a replacement facility for Futenma didn’t necessarily have to be in Okinawa from a military point of view but that it was the optimum political solution.

This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Both Japanese and American experts and former government officials had been quoted in the local media as saying that the Marines really didn’t need to be in Okinawa. But to have a former prime minister and the incumbent defense minister say so showed that the deterrence argument was just a white lie. From then on, resentment and distrust of mainland policy spread like wildfire.

Why Okinawa?

ENDŌ   The deterrence that US forces provide, as described by Japanese officials, is a very tenuous one; in fact, the US presence probably does nothing more than give the Japanese people a vague sense of reassurance, a feeling that American soldiers would be there to protect us should the Chinese try to bully us around. For most people on the mainland, it’s like a security blanket.

From the Okinawans’ point of view, it’s a slightly different story. If the Marines are to be deployed at all, they’d have to be picked up by a warship docked in Sasebo [in Nagasaki Prefecture]. That means there’s no reason at all that the Marines have to be in either Futenma or Henoko. They might as well be somewhere closer to Sasebo. The number of Marines in Okinawa fell dramatically while they were deployed in Afghanistan and during the Iraq War, but the reduction in deterrent power didn’t invite any attacks during their absence.

From a strategic perspective, moreover, the presence of the Marine Corps does not act as much of a deterrent. As far as Okinawans are concerned, there is no logical or convincing reason for them to have to host the Marines on their soil.

If the Marines aren’t really much of a deterrent, Okinawans ask, then why must we put up with the dangers of hosting the bases, the noise, and the crimes committed by servicemen? Even the defense minister has admitted that the Marines don’t need to be in Okinawa, as long as they can be stationed somewhere in western Japan, so there must be a fairer way to share the burden of guaranteeing Japan’s security with the rest of the country and easing Okinawa’s disproportionately heavy load.

My personal view is that a smaller US military footprint in East Asia right now, when China is rising and the United States is in relative decline, would lead to a destabilization of the region. But the ongoing realignment of US forces will mean a greater Marine Corps presence in Guam and Hawaii, as well as in Darwin, Australia. These forward deployed troops should enable the United States to maintain its deterrence in East Asia, even without a Marine Corps base in Okinawa.