![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article re-examines the often misrepresented role of Okinawan agency by focusing on the divergence between mainstream framings of Okinawa, actual policies directed towards the Ryūkyū Islands and the sociopolitical reality on these outlying islands. In so doing, it interrogates the various narratives of Okinawa and the key terms that have articulated them in the post-reversion era. It thereby adds explanatory power to extant structuralist and critical literatures, which have tended to suffer from monolithic descriptions of structural power and polemic approaches to American and Japanese governance of the islands. Specifically, by analyzing a series of illustrative issue areas such as sexual and economic exploitation, environmental protection and military security, the article uses an adapted form of critical discourse analysis (CDA) to trace how framings and policy have shifted since reversion to Japanese rule. This concentrates primarily on prime-ministerial statements from the National Diet and other, mostly Japanese-language, materials relating to Okinawa’s governance. These are contrasted with short case studies highlighting the disconnection between rhetoric and reality. Ultimately, the evidence points to a decoupling of mainstream narratives from the on-the-ground reality. The article thereby provides a nuanced understanding and expression of Okinawa’s complex interests and agency.
Notes
1 National Archives, The Big Picture – Okinawa – Keystone of the Pacific.
2 Okinawa is by extension the official Japanese name for the country’s 47th (last-named) prefecture, which is comprised of several of the widely dispersed Ryūkyū Islands.
3 Son and Mason, ‘Building a Maritime “Great Wall” to Contain China?’, 437–42; Pilger, ‘The Coming War with China’.
4 Gabe, ‘Comments’, 62.
5 ‘Rikuji miyako keibitai hassoku’.
6 ‘Henoko shinkichi “hantai” no mini sonchō wo’.
7 McCormack and Norimatsu, Okinawa no ikari.
8 Akadome, ‘“Henoko shinkichi” ga hoshii no wa beikoku de wa naku bōeishō da’; Ikeo, Okada and Mason, ‘Watashi ni yokute anata ni ii yonaguni’.
9 Development here corresponds primarily to the Japanese terms shinkō and kaihatsu, burden to futan and deterrence to yokushiryoku.
10 Wodak, Critical Discourse Analysis, 186.
11 Ozawa, Blueprint for a New Japan; Abe, Atarashii kuni e utsukushii kuni e.
12 Ota, Essays on Okinawa Problems; Takara, Okinawa seikatsushi; McCormack and Norimatsu, Okinawa no ikari.
13 Ōkubo, Gensō no shima okinawa; Hoshino, ‘Okinawa no beigun kichi mondai to ningen no anzenhoshō’.
14 Mason, ‘Japan’s Change in Military Outlook Marks the End of a “Peace State”’.
15 Wood and Kroger, Doing Discourse Analysis, 21–22.
16 Matsui, Okinawa shinkō no kadai to kongo no shinkōsaku no arikata, 137.
17 MOD, ‘Zaioki beikaiheitai no “yokushiryoku” ni kansuru shitsumon ni taisuru tōbensho’.
18 Tsuruho Yōsuke, Diet House of Councillors, 7 December 2016 (ref: 001 92).
19 Hosoya, ‘The Role of Japan’s National Security Council’, 2.
20 Newsham, ‘US Military Bases on Okinawa’.
21 Namihira, Kindai higashiajiashi no naka no ryūkyū heigō, 32–33.
22 Yoshida, ‘US Bases, Japan and the Reality of Okinawa as a Military Colony’, 5–7.
23 Paltridge, Discourse Analysis, 69.
24 See Martinez Lirola, Multimodal Analysis, 248, for an illustrative example.
25 Norris, What Is a Mode?, 155–69.
26 For further discussion of the misrepresentation of complex Okinawan agency and identities, intersecting state, market and societal spheres, see Matsumura, The Limits of Okinawa; Figal, Beachheads; and Inoue, Okinawa and the US Military.
27 Glosserman and Kang, ‘The Myth of Japanese Remilitarization’.
28 Hughes, Japan’s Remilitarization, 35–37.
29 Ishi, ‘Handanryoku warui’; Hatoyama, Higashiajia kyōdōtai to okinawa no mirai; Ota, ‘Okinawa kokusai heiwakenkyūjo’.
30 Kurōzuappu gendai, ‘Henoko isetsu’ tairitsu no shinsō.
31 Yamaguchi and Arakawa, The Demise of the Ryukyu Kingdom, viii–ix.
32 Mitchell, ‘Vietnam’, 5.
33 Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum, ‘Battle of Okinawa’.
34 ‘Keihi futanzō “arienai”’, 2.
35 Sato, Amerika seiji to zaioki beigun kichi, 231–32.
36 Norimatsu, ‘Hatoyama Trumps Mubarak’, 11–12.
37 Sakurazawa, Okinawa dokuritsu ron no kentō.
38 Dietz, ‘Transnationalism and Transition in the Ryūkyūs’, 212.
39 Arazato and Ōshiro, Kindai okinawa no ayumi; Tanji, Myth Protest and Struggle in Okinawa; Takahashi, Okinawa ‘fukki’ no kōzō.
40 Arakawa and Oguma, ‘Oguma kenkyū 1’; Takara, Okinawa seikatsushi; Arasaki, Kankō kōsu de nai okinawa; Gabe ‘Comments’; Matsushima, Ryukyu dokuritsuron.
41 Mason, ‘Japan’s Change in Military Outlook Marks the End of a “Peace State”’, 20.
42 Matsumura, The Limits of Okinawa.
43 Lim, Henkyō tō ajia’ no aidentiti poritekkusu, 42–43.
44 The Asahi Shimbun Company, Media, Propaganda and Politics in 20th-Century Japan, 183–84.
45 Takahashi, Okinawa ‘fukki’ no kōzō, 44.
46 Meisels, Territorial Rights; Moore, National Self-Determination and Secession; Anderson, Imagined Communities.
47 Takahashi, Okinawa ‘fukki’ no kōzō, 46–47.
48 Suda, Yabe and Maedomari, Hondo no ningen wa shiranai ga, 83.
49 Takara, Yokuda and Kuramoto, ‘Can We Measure “Okinawan Identity”?’, 136; Yasumoto-Nicolson, ‘Okinawa Identity’; Shimabukuro, ‘“Okinawa aidentiti” to Okinawa jūmin no jiko ketteiken’.
50 Kitada Eisaku, Diet House of Councilors, 25 May 1972 (ref: 001 68).
51 Tanaka Kakuei, Diet House of Councilors, 10 November 1972 (ref: 001 70).
52 Miki Takeo, Diet House of Representatives, 26 January 1976 (ref: 001 77).
53 Ibid.
54 Fukuda Takeo, Diet House of Representatives, 15 March 1977 (ref: 005/009 80).
55 Ōhira Masayoshi, Diet House of Representatives, 25 January 1980 (ref: 002 91).
56 Suzuki Zenkō, Diet House of Councilors, 25 May 1981 (ref: 001 94).
57 Ibid.
58 Figal, Beachheads, 181–84.
59 Mason, ‘Nationalism in Okinawa’, 20. For comparison/continuation, see also Abe Shinzō, Diet House of Representatives, 14 February 2017 (ref: 001 193).
60 Jimbo and Miyadai, Okinawa no shinjitsu, 188.
61 Tanaka Kakuei, Diet House of Councilors, 1 November 1972 (ref: 001 70).
62 National Security Archive, ‘Nuclear Weapons on Okinawa Declassified December 2015’.
63 Hunt, Melvin Laird and the Foundation of the Post-Vietnam Military, 330–46.
64 Ibid., 46.
65 Fisher, ‘The Long Shadow of a Scandal’.
66 Hunt, Melvin Laird and the Foundation of the Post-Vietnam Military, 332–33.
67 Johnson, ‘Three Rapes’, 2.
68 OPNLA, ‘Current Issues in Post-Reversion Okinawa’, 1.
69 Statistics Bureau, ‘Labor Force Survey’.
70 JFBA, ‘Okinawa fukki nishūnen ni atatte’.
71 Hook and Siddle, Japan and Okinawa, 2–14.
72 Naha City Museum of History, ‘Okinawa kokusai kaiyō hakurankai kanren shiryō’.
73 Blaxell, ‘Preparing Okinawa for Reversion to Japan’, 4.
74 Sakaiya, ‘Okinawa kaiyōhakurankai wa seikō datta ka’.
75 Blaxell, ‘Preparing Okinawa for Reversion to Japan’, 6.
76 Yoshida, ‘US Bases, Japan and the Reality of Okinawa as a Military Colony’.
77 Chanlett-Avery and Rinehart, ‘The U.S. Military Presence in Okinawa and the Futenma Base Controversy’, 6.
78 Yamazato, ‘Zaijūgaikokujin to no kondankai’.
79 Nakasone, Press Statement.
80 Sonoda, ‘Beigun izon’, 1–2.
81 Nakasone Yasuhiro, Diet House of Councilors, 14 September 1983 (ref: 001 100).
82 Takeshita Noboru, Diet House of Representatives, 31 March 1988 (ref: 001 112).
83 Kaifu Toshiki, Diet House of Representatives, 15 March 1991 (ref: 001 120).
84 Kaifu Toshiki, Diet House of Representatives, 15 June 1990 (ref: 001 118).
85 Waever, ‘Securitization and Desecuritization’.
86 Chomsky and Herman, Manufacturing Consent.
87 Hook, Mason and O’Shea, Regional Risk and Security.
88 It should also be noted that Japan’s national media outlets and mainstream newspapers have, despite points of critique, broadly articulated the narrative promulgated by the ruling administrations. Okinawa’s two leading newspapers (Ryūkyū Shimpō and Okinawa Taimusu) have, in contrast, consistently both mocked these narratives and attempted to create a counter-narrative of pro-self-determination and resistance towards both the US and Japanese central-government actors.
89 Okinawa Sōgō Jimukyoku, ‘Kaihatsu kensetsu bu’; Okinawa Defense Bureau, ‘Yonagunijima e no rikujō jieitai’.
90 Ota, Essays on Okinawa Problems; Johnson, ‘Three Rapes’.
91 Johnson, ‘Three Rapes’, 6.
92 Miyazato, Arasaki and Gabe, Okinawa ‘jiritsu’ e no michi.
93 Rabson, ‘Henoko and the U.S. Military’, 4. This also distracted attention the continuation of plans for controversial helipads to be built within natural forests inside the US military’s Northern Training Area at Takae (see Voice of Takae, ‘No War! Yes Peace!’).
94 MOFA, ‘The Japan–U.S. Special Action Committee (SACO) Interim Report’.
95 Williams, ‘The YIMBY Phenomenon in Henoko’, 958.
96 National Diet Library, ‘Kantan kensaku’.
97 Koizumi Junichiro, Diet House of Representatives, 21 January 2004 (ref: 001 159).
98 Asō Tarō, Diet House of Representatives, 23 March 2007 (ref:001/002 166).
99 Hatoyama, ‘Hatoyama naikaku sōridaijin kishakaiken’.
100 Noda Yoshihiko, Diet House of Representatives, 26 July 2012 (ref: 001 180).
101 Peralta, ‘Four US Service Members Injured in South Sudan’, 1.
102 Koizumi Junichiro, Diet House of Representatives, 13 October 2004 (ref: 001 161).
103 MOD, ‘Senkakushotō to nichibei chii kyōtei ni kansuru shitsumon chūisho’.
104 Asō Tarō, Diet House of Councilors, 14 March 2007 (ref: 001 166).
105 Hook, Mason and O’Shea, Regional Risk and Security in Japan, 168–69.
106 ‘Mukiau kichi mondai’.
107 Sakurai, ‘Japan’s Illegal Environmental Impact Assessment of the Henoko Base’, 2.
108 Suga Yoshihide, Diet House of Representatives, 9 March 2016 (ref: 002/003 190).
109 A comparable discourse is also applied to the case of helipads constructed at Takae, noted above.
110 Mochizuki, ‘Yokushiryoku to zaioki beiheitai’; Yara, ‘Kaiheitai okinawa chūryū’.
111 Ikeo, Okada and Mason, ‘Watashi ni yokute anata ni ii Yonaguni wa watashitachi no mirai sono mono’.
112 ‘Jieitai ga machi jinkō 15% ni’, 1.
113 Okinawa Defense Bureau, ‘Yonagunijima e no rikujō jieitai’, 6.
114 Campbell, ‘Nationalism in Okinawa’.
115 Williams, ‘The YIMBY Phenomenon in Henoko’, 959; ‘Raikamu kaigyō’, 1.
116 Howarth, Discourse, 48–66.
117 Taleb, The Black Swan, 62–63.
118 Pilger, ‘The Coming War with China’.