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“Unacceptable and Unendurable:” Local Okinawa Mayor Says NO to US Marine Base Plan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Miyagi Yasuhiro ,
Gavan McCormack  and
Satoko Norimatsu
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The Futenma Marine Corps Base in Okinawa's Ginowan, often described as the most dangerous in the world, is situated in the midst of a densely populated area and has been the site of multiple accidents and clashes between the US military and Okinawans. The Japan-US agreement to have Henoko Village in Okinawa prefecture's Nago City as the site to transfer the Futenma Marine Corps Base when it is returned to Okinawa, dates back to the Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) Agreement of 1996. Yet the issue of building a new base has been contested for fifteen years. Okinawa agreed to the transfer in 1999, albeit subject to several conditions, but a Japan-US agreement that was reached in 2005 to build the base on an enlarged scale ignored Okinawan conditions. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government in 2010, after reconsidering the Japan-US agreements, agreed on the same site. But popular will against relocating the Futenma base within Okinawa is so strong that the possibility of Okinawan acceptance of the Japan-US Agreement is virtually zero. I asked the Mayor of Nago City, site of the controversial planned base, for his honest opinion.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 9 , Issue 42 , October 2011 , e2
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2011

Footnotes

Japanese original text is available: https://apjjf.org/data/日本語版名護市長インタビュ（1020）宮城康博.pdf

References

Notes

1 For details of the development of “Futenma Relocation Facility” plans, see Ota Masahide, “‘The World is beginning to know Okinawa’: Ota Masahide Reflects on his Life from the Battle of Okinawa to the Struggle of Okinawa,” the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, under subheading “On the ‘Futenma Relocation” and plans to build a new base at Henoko, Oura Bay.“

2 Shimada kon (Shimada kondankai): the “Shimada Advisory Group”, set up under Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro in 1997, headed by Shimada Haruo, to disburse special development funds to stimulate growth in basehosting Okinawan towns and villages.

3 Projects subsidized by the central government are never subsidized 100 percent; local municipalities must bear part of the expense including post-construction maintenance. The Northern District development funds encouraged Nago to undertake projects beyond its financial capability.