Idyllic beach resorts jostle for space with US military bases on Japan’s subtropical island of Okinawa, at the center of a feud that may cast a shadow over US President Barack Obama’s visit to Japan next week.
Nowhere is the contrast between the US troop presence and the laid-back local culture more jarring than in Ginowan. Seen from a hilltop, the city’s low-rise concrete buildings, including schools and hospitals, huddle around the perimeter of the Futenma US Marine air base, a dispute over which is straining the 50-year-old security alliance between Tokyo and Washington.
Many of Ginowan’s nearly 90,000 residents welcome a plan to relocate the base, especially after safety fears rekindled by a 2004 helicopter crash in the city added to irritation over noise, but others are ambivalent.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“I want to get rid of it,” said Toshio Arakaki, 52, whose three children go to a primary school a stone’s throw from the base.
“If they are going to replace it, they should find somewhere not just outside Okinawa, but outside Japan. Okinawa has had enough,” he said during a break from his job delivering kerosene.
Washington and Tokyo agreed in 2006 to close the base and move it to the coastal town of Henoko, in a less populated part of the island, as part of a reorganization that would involve up to 8,000 Marines being shifted to the US territory of Guam.
But Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who has vowed to seek a more equal relationship with the US, says he wants more time to review the relocation plan, which is seen by many as damaging to the environment.
“Henoko is a very beautiful place, but I think it’s the best option,” said a 56-year-old woman working in a dry-cleaning store, who gave only her family name of Oshiro. “At least there’s less danger of people being hurt.”
About 1,600km southwest of Tokyo, Okinawa plays host to about half the 47,000 US troops based in Japan, despite making up only 0.6 percent of the country’s land mass, a historical legacy that many see as an unfair burden.
The US military is an integral part of Japan’s security, but it is also key to Okinawa’s economy. That’s a major factor in Japan’s poorest region, where unemployment runs at 7.7 percent, well above the national average of 5.3 percent.
Okinawa is otherwise mainly reliant on the influx of nearly 6 million tourists a year, attracted by white sandy beaches, clear seas and a unique culture that owes much to China.
“There are people who make a living from renting out land for the base,” said the owner of a barber shop in an almost deserted Ginowan shopping street, who declined to give his name, adding he was concerned about the economic effects of closing bases.
“Many of them are elderly. Even if they got their land back, it’s not as though they could farm it,” he said.
Central government subsidies meant to make up for the burden of hosting the bases also provide construction jobs.
Although the island remained under US control after World War II until its return to Japan in 1972, many Okinawans say they bear no ill will toward Americans, whatever their feelings about Futenma.
“We enjoy mixing with the Americans and learning about a different culture,” said 36-year-old Atsuko Takeshika, who works in a Ginowan clothing store and lives close to the base, whose noise she says is irritating.
Takeshika said past fears of crime committed by servicemen had faded with the introduction of curfews for the troops.
“If we could work out a way to co-exist, that would be fine,” she said.
China has possibly committed “genocide” in its treatment of Uighurs and other minority Muslims in its western region of Xinjiang, the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China said in a report on Thursday. The bipartisan commission said that new evidence had last year emerged that “crimes against humanity — and possibly genocide — are occurring” in Xinjiang. It also accused China of harassing Uighurs in the US. China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in Xinjiang that it describes as “vocational training centers” to stamp out extremism and give people new skills, which others have called concentration camps. The UN says that
The Polish Supreme Court on Friday quashed a lower court’s green light for the extradition of a businessman to China for alleged fraud, a charge he has denied, saying that he is being targeted for supporting Falun Gong. Polish authorities took Chinese-born Swedish citizen Li Zhihui, now 53, into custody in 2019 on an international warrant issued by China for alleged non-payment in a business deal, Krzysztof Kitajgrodzki, his Polish lawyer, told reporters. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the case would return to a lower appellate court for review. Kitajgrodzki told reporters that it was still not a given that his client
DELIVERING HOPE: The Japanese PM pledged to push ahead with plans to stage the Games, despite polls showing about 80% think they will not or should not happen Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga yesterday vowed to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control and hold the already postponed Olympic Games this summer with ample protection. In a speech opening a new session of parliament, Suga said that his government would revise laws to make disease prevention measures enforceable with penalties and compensation. Early in the pandemic, Japan was able to keep its caseload manageable with nonbinding requests for businesses to close or operate with social distancing, and for people to stay at home, but recent weeks have seen several highs in new cases per day, in part blamed on eased attitudes
The Palauan president-elect has vowed to stand up to Chinese “bullying” in the Pacific, saying that the archipelago nation is set to stand by its alliances with “true friends,” Taiwan and the US. Surangel Whipps Jr, 52, a supermarket owner and two-time senator from a prominent Palauan family, is to be sworn in as the new president tomorrow, succeeding his brother-in-law, Tommy Remengesau Jr. In a forthright interview, Whipps said that the US had demonstrated over the years that it was a reliable friend of Palau, most recently shown by its delivery of 6,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. “It’s important for
RSS