PEOPLE

MY MEMORABLE TRIP TO OKINAWA: BURNING FIRES IN A PEACEFUL PREFECTURE

By Tran Viet Thai

January 30, 2015

I came to Okinawa on a beautiful and sunny day. Out of Naha airport, my initial impression is that Okinawa is a lovely and peaceful prefecture. The streets are tidy and clean. People here are friendly and polite. The food is really tasty and delicious.

On the way to hotel, I saw three Japanese Coast Guard ships lying lazily in the quay after tough patrol missions on the sea, whispering to myself that life here seems so calm and easy-going. The hotel I stayed - the Rihga Royal Gran Hotel - is among the tallest in town. On its 14th floor, the panorama view of the southern part of Okinawa is really attractive.

Strolling around the city of Naha and the southern metropolitan area of Okinawa, three feelings arose in me quite distinctively.

The first is that Okinawa is unique and quite different from the rest of Japan. The Chinese cultural stamps can be seen everywhere, from Ryukyu cuisines to the Shisa - the mythical lion-dog statues which appear in many places across Okinawa. Even the local people here, their hair style and ways of life are also quite different from the mainland Japan.

The second is that Okinawa reminds me of Da Lat city - a famous tourist city in southern Vietnam. Narrow streets, small houses with a low brick fence and small beautiful gardens all look very like a miniature Vietnam in the southernmost prefecture of Japan.

The third feeling is that its history and the relations between Okinawa and the central government in Tokyo are much more complicated than I previously thought of. Okinawa used to belong to the Ryukyu Kingdom, which had tributary relationship with both Japan and China until 1609. It officially became the integral territory of Japan since 1879, but the battle of Okinawa in 1945 once again changed the course of Okinawa's history. After the second World War, Okinawa remained under the US administration until 1972 even though Japan regained its sovereignty since 1952.

Contrary to the peaceful atmosphere I encountered from the very beginning of the trip, heat can be easily felt in all the discussions I have with various people in Okinawa, from the Honorable Alfred Magleby, the Consul General of the US to Okinawa, Ambassador Toshihisa Takata, the chief representative of the government of Japan in Okinawa liaison office, as well as representatives of the local authority in Okinawa. The two hottest issues dominating our discussions are the US military bases and the territorial dispute between Japan and China in Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.

On the issue of US military base in Okinawa, I was surprised to learn that 70% of the US military bases in Japan are located in Okinawa. This rate is particularly dense when Okinawa accounts only for roughly 1% of Japanese population. Economically, the contribution of these bases to local economy has been reduced dramatically from 15.5% in 1972 to around 5% recently.

Even though I obtained different accounts on the number of US troops stationed in Okinawa, but the fact is that they play a very important role in maintaining Japan security as well as the regional security in East Asia. The US troops in South Korea are pinned down to face the challenges on the Korean peninsula while the US troops in Japan, especially in Okinawa are dynamic and can be mobilized for dealing with any events in Northeast and Southeast Asia.

Eye witness proved that the air bases like Futenma and Kadena are very active. On the day I came to a road-side observation station near Kadena air base, it was easily observed that there are many kinds of planes, from helicopters, F-15s to Ospreys up and down on the Kadena terminals. With the fact that most of these bases are surrounded by civilian homes, it is understandable that the noise coming from jet engines of all kinds of planes negatively affect life of the people living in the neighborhood.

Without any prior appointment, our delegation happened to meet with Mr. Haruhiko Gaja, chief of Kadena town base liaison section. He also came to observe the activities inside the Kadena base. He told us that the relationship between the US forces stationed here with the nearby people and the local government is not so good, sometimes confrontational. Many people complaining about the noise at night, which often make their children awakened too early in the morning.

Surprisingly, I did not see many Americans on the streets of Naha city. I did not see many shops or restaurants with English advertisement boards, neither. Maybe my trip is too short and I haven't had enough time to visit everywhere in Okinawa. When asked about this, the Consul General of the US in Okinawa replied that the bases are built so well that there have been nearly everything inside the base. Therefore, the Americans have no needs to go out of the base quite often. The Consul General even jokes that if he were architect of the base more than 60 years ago, everything should have been very different now. The stationed forces and the bases themselves should be more open and integrated into the Okinawan society.

Another issue dominating our discussions is the territorial dispute in Senkaku islands, which is a part of and administered by the Okinawa prefecture, but closer to Taiwan than Naha - the capital of Okinawa prefecture. The general sense is that more and more Okinawan people have unfavorable attitudes towards China. They really do not understand the assertive and nationalistic sentiments and actions done by the Chinese forces in waters around Senkaku islands, which affect very much their normal fishing activities. But there are also complaints about the central government in Tokyo that the voice of the people here is not yet paid appropriate attention.

Recently the government of Okinawa prefecture has made many efforts to promote the good relationship with China. It has set up sister relations with Fujian province since 1997 and localities such as Naha, Urasoe or Ginowan have also established sister city relations with Fuzhou, Xiamen and Quanzhou cities of Fujian province respectively. The human and cultural exchanges between the two sides have been deepened. But these are not enough. According to local sources, more negative impacts on local economy of Okinawa have been recorded since the number of Chinese tourists coming to Okinawa decreased significantly since 2012 and fishing activities near the Senkaku islands are increasingly difficult. It is a common sense that more needed to be done and better coordination between Tokyo and Okinawa should be made.

Okinawa occupies a strategic position in East China Sea, which is extremely important not only for the national security of Japan, but also for the US and the whole Asia-Pacific region. If the current trend of power shift continues in the next one or two decades, sooner or later, Okinawa will certainly become a strategic outpost for Japan in the near future. But pending that time to come, the central government in Tokyo need to pay more attention to the voice of people here and accommodate the national interests with the interests of local people here.

By Tran Viet Thai from the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.

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