Okinawa rejects US base expansion

Voters in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa resoundingly rejected the construction of a new U.S. military base on their island in a referendum, causing fresh concern for the central government and for U.S. forces in Japan.

Background 

 Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost prefecture of Japan.  It encompasses two-thirds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) long. The Ryukyu Islands extend southwest from Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu (the southwesternmost of Japan's four main islands) to Taiwan. Naha, Okinawa's capital, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island.

Although Okinawa Prefecture comprises just 0.6 per cent of Japan's total land mass, about 75 per cent of all United States military personnel stationed in Japan are assigned to installations in the prefecture. Currently, about 26,000 U.S. troops are based in the prefecture.

Okinawa is home to about half the 54,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan and houses the largest U.S. air base in the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. military says its presence on the island is vital not only for the defence of Japan but also for keeping peace in the region.

Analysis 

Residents of Okinawa are saying that their small island bears an unfair burden of the U.S. military presence in Japan, and they made their resentment felt in a prefecture-wide referendum. 

The results showed that 72.2 per cent of voters rejected the construction of a U.S. base at Henoko, in the north of the island. The turnout was over 52 per cent.

The construction of the Henoko base was originally seen as a way to appease public opinion in Okinawa because it was intended to replace a U.S. Marine Corps air station that is in a much more built-up area.  

However, opponents say it isn’t enough to close the Futenma air station and move it to Henoko: They want fewer U.S. bases on their island, wherever they might be built. Environmentalists also complained that the landfill work needed to build the Henoko base would destroy coral reefs and habitat for manatees.

The nonbinding referendum was backed by Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki, who was elected in September and had campaigned against the construction of the Henoko base.

However, his subsequent appeals to the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to cancel the base construction have fallen on deaf ears, with the central government making clear that it sees no alternative to its plan to build at Henoko and close the Futenma site.

Okinawans complain about the noise of low-flying aircraft and the dangers of accidents from U.S. bases, as well as crimes committed over the years by members of the U.S. military — although the military says crime rates among its personnel are actually lower than among the general Okinawan public.

The referendum asked voters whether they were for or against “the landfill work for the construction of the U.S. base that the government is planning in Henoko, Nago City, as a replacement for the Futenma airfield.” It allowed three choices: “agree,” “oppose” or “neither.”  

According to the referendum ordinance, Tamaki is expected to “respect the result” and present it to Abe and the U.S. president if the “agree” or “oppose” vote attracts a quarter of all registered voters in Okinawa, or 290,000 votes.

In the end, the “oppose” vote attracted 434,273 votes, higher even than Tamaki’s vote tally in September.

“The people of Okinawa presented a definite no to the construction of the new base,” said Hiromori Maedomari, a professor at Okinawa International University and a critic of the bases, calling it “a vote against the Abe administration” for ignoring the popular will expressed in Tamaki’s victory. The opposition also attracted support from young voters normally seen as indifferent to politics

The referendum was originally proposed by 27-year-old Jinshiro Motoyama, who took leave from graduate school to organize a petition that attracted 93,000 signatures, nearly four times the threshold needed to present it to the Okinawan local assembly, which approved the referendum plan.

Assessment 

Our assessment is that the overwhelming rejection of any base expansion of the US Forces in Japan’s most strategic military bases is a major setback for Washington’s security agenda in East Asia. We believe that Japan will most likely “relocate” the new military base to the newly purchased and uninhabited island in the south of Okinawa.