*** DRAFT ***Please do not cite without permission.

A South in the North:
The Politics of Democracy in Okinawa, Japan
Takashi Yamazaki
Department of Geography, Osaka City University

Paper presented to:
The Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting
The Politics of Democracy in the “Global South.”Adam’s Mark Hotel in Denver, CO
April 8, 2005

Abstract
Okinawa is a group of islands located in the southern fringe of Japan’s territory. Historically
Okinawa’s location opening to Pacific Asia induced its subordination to strong nation states (i.e.
Japan and the U.S.) and promoted its political economic marginalization. However, the gradual
implementation of democracy after World War II provided Okinawans with opportunities forpolitical struggles against such subordination. Political mobilization in the form of collective action
and voting represented the structure of subordination in (counter-)geopolitical terms and resituatedOkinawa in a new geopolitical map. Political struggles within Okinawa have often been constructed
on conflicting visions of Okinawa, which tended to deepen internal political cleavages. This paper
focuses on such political processes in Okinawa in the 1990s when new types of politicalmobilization were organized to change Okinawa’s subordinate status under the Japan-U.S. security
arrangements. The end of the Cold War and the pressure for free trade during the decade resulted in
the creation of a new geopolitical and geo-economic vision of Okinawa. Using empirical data, it isalso shown that for an ‘intermediate’ place such as Okinawa, how to relate with the North can be amatter of critical but constrained political choice.
Keywords: democracy, political mobilization, geopolitical vision, Okinawa

1

Introduction
In the current context of globalization, the concept of ‘the South’ can be defined in various
ways. Before discussing the variety of the definition, let us look at the common aspects of being‘the South.’ According to the Dictionary of Human Geography, Watts (2000) defined ‘the South’ asfollows:
The ‘South’ corresponds to those poor, largely non-industrial, and ex-colonial states thatare seen to constitute a third world (mostly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America), a term
which arose in the post-war period emerging from the Non-Aligned Movement.
The concept of ‘the South’ was related to the geopolitical development of first and second worlds
on one hand, and the economic polarization of the postwar world on the other. Because of these
aspects of the concept, the North-South divide of the world has been not only a socio-economic but
also a geographical phenomenon. Such zones of ‘the South’ can be visualized in a map as areas ofproblems (Figure 1). Poverty, economic backwardness, and the legacy of colonization seem to becommon characteristics shared by the zones of ‘the South.’Figure 1. North-South divide and the Brandt Line

Source: Knox and Agnew (1998: 22).
However, in terms of recent changes in its meaning, Watts added:
While it might be argued that the collapse of many state socialisms has produced a morehomogeneous capitalist core associated with capitalist regional trade blocs, the South isextremely diverse and becoming more so. On the other hand, the newly industrializing
countries (the NICs) such as Taiwan and South Korea are no longer primary commodity
producers and, on the other, the South has rarely had a unified political position even
within the Non-Aligned Movement. The appearance of a Fourth World of extreme2poverty (the so-called famine belt), particularly in Africa, suggests a growing economic
polarization within the South coeval with a deepening polarization between North andSouth.
As the socialist bloc was dismantled, the socio-economic differentiation of ‘the South’ became clear
and, as a result, the countries and regions classified as ‘the South’ came to take various political
positions. However, if we employ the concept of geographical scale (see Smith 1992), being ‘theSouth’ can be seen at various geographical scales— local, sub-national, national, regional, andglobal scales. Not only states but also sub-state regions (localities) can constitute units of ‘theSouth.’
If we redefine ‘the South’ as the concept suitable to various scales, it becomes necessary to
explore further the process in which ‘the South’ has been formed. Such a redefinition would refer tothe ‘relative’ location of ‘the South’ as opposed to the ‘absolute’ one that is usually characterized by‘remoteness’ from the core of development. In this redefinition, however, ‘remoteness’ can beinterpreted in different ways: spatially, socially, legally, emotionally, etc. A locality that provides
low-processed (natural or labor) resources can be located spatially close to the core of development.
Most states have localities that provide natural resources and/or labor forces to urban areas and thisinter-regional relationship is reproduced. In light of the recent development of globalization, such a
process is not contained within the territory of a state. Socio-economic regional differentiation at
various scales can be related to a function of the world capitalist economy. Many countries andregions in ‘the South,’ particularly in Southeast and East Asia, are becoming the new destination of
investment by trans-national corporations. Therefore, the (trans-)formation of ‘the South’ at various
scales is concurrent with shifts in the world political economy.
Relativity of the location of ‘the South’ is not only spatial but also temporal. As long as ‘theSouth’ is constructed or a process, any locality within it can be considered being in spatio-temporaltransition and not being fixed. There can be always regional dynamism toward/away from the North(i.e. the core of development). Poverty and economic backwardness characterize ‘the South’ but do
not explain its whole aspect.According to Watts’ definition, the legacy of colonialism is one of theimportant aspects. In more general terms, the projection of power towards ‘the South’ may beessential in defining it. Colonization or marginalization through it has been a political economic
process in which underdeveloped, dependency, subordination, etc. is reproduced. Even after
decolonization, problematic political dynamism such as long-term dictatorship, constant regimechange, failed democracy, etc. characterize ‘the South.’ For example, during the Cold War, such
political dynamism was brought about through the external intervention by the U.S. and the Soviet
Union. Thus, the (trans-)formation of ‘the South’ has reflected its power relation to ‘the North.’
Drawing on the above-mentioned discussion, this paper will focus on ‘a South in the North’from the viewpoint of center-periphery relations (Rokkan and Urwin 1983; Flora 1999). Rokkan
and Urwin (1983) propose a territorial approach of politics that rests on a center-periphery model ofstate-building in Europe. In their model, there are three sets of relations: military-administrative,
economic, and cultural system-buildings (Figure 2). Military-administrative system-building isregarded as a process of territorial integration/separation. Peripheral communities can be conquered
by centers in all or only one way. Changes in one type of relation have effects on others. Using thismodel, Rokkan and Urwin attempt to construct a typology of political reactions of peripheralcommunities to processes of subordination and incorporation. As Rokkan (extracted in Flora 1999:
6) argues, this center-periphery structure represents essential features in the territorial structure of apolitical system such as territorial expansion, political centralization, and population concentration.
However, these three processes of system-building do not necessarily continue either as
integration or as separation, nor do they operate equally. Peripheral communities can show various

3

types of political reactions between integration and separation. As Agnew (1987) argues,
modernization can be considered the nationalization of a state territory through these processes ofsystem-building, and the disappearance of local characteristics can be thought to be a result of thenationalization. Thus, the occurrence of political behavior at the local level such as peripheral
nationalism, regionalism, or local autonomous movements and its local variety indicate theexistence of place which cannot be nationalized. Therefore, according to the nature of thecenter-periphery relations, peripheral communities act in a certain way (e.g. as a struggle forliberation from underdevelopment or subordination). The question is how democracy works in sucha peripheral location, which is a major concern of this paper.
Figure 2. Stain Rokkan’s abstract model of processes of interaction andresistance within large-scale territorial systems.

Source: Flora (1999: 118).
Okinawa and its location in the Asia-Pacific region
Geopolitical and geo-economic location
This paper chose Okinawa (Okinawa Prefecture in Japan) as a study site. Okinawa is the4prefecture located between the Japan Islands and Taiwan and consists of more than 100 islands witha population of 1.3 million and an area of 2,267 square kilometers (Figure 3). Okinawa has
experienced four distinct historical phases, which typically represents Okinawa’s marginality.
Okinawa used to be an independent state called ryukyu okoku (the Ryukyu Kingdom), which wasunited in 1429 under the influence of China (the Ming dynasty). 450 years later (in 1879), theKingdom was annexed to Japan. From 1879-1945, Okinawa was one of the prefectures in Japan andwas dominated by and integrated into Japan proper. From 1945-72, Okinawa was governed by the
U.S. military forces as a result of the Second World War and became a security “keystone” full of
U.S. bases and installations to contain the communist block in East Asia. During this period,
political mobilizations against U.S. military governance took place and were reflected in collective
actions and voting behaviors. Under the U.S. military governance, Okinawan society and identity
were profoundly transformed. In 1972, Okinawa reverted to Japan and again became one of its
prefectures. Even after 1972, however, the concentration of U.S. military bases has not significantly
changed under the Japan-U.S. security arrangements, which were established after the Second
World War.
Figure 3. The location of Okinawa since the 17th century.
500

0

1000

km

RUSSIA

CHINA
Beijing
NORTH
KOREA

Pyongyang
Seoul

SOUTH
KOREA

JAPAN
Tokyo

Boundaries
a. Ryukyuan-Japanese (-1606)
USCAR-Japanese (1945-1953)
b. Ryukyuan-Japanese (1606-1879)
USCAR-Japanese (1945-1972)
c. Sino-Japanese (1879-1895, 1972-)
d. Sino-Japanese (1895-1945)ab
TaipeidI

Territories
I. Ryukyu (-1606)
USCAR (1945-1953)
II. Ryukyu (1606-1879)
Okinawa Pref. (1879-1945, 1972-)
USCAR (1953-1972)

II Okinawac

PrefectureThus, Okinawa as a peripheral locality has been affected by the central states and the5inter-state system in the Asia-Pacific region. According to political economic differentiation in theregion (i.e. colonization and the Cold War), the geopolitical and geo-economic location of Okinawa
has been changing over time. This has conditioned political, economic, and social dynamism within
Okinawa. Since its annexation to Japan, Okinawa has faced a dual frontier. The political aspect of
the frontier concerns Okinawa’s location ‘advantage’ for military security such as one during theCold War. Both the U.S. and Japanese governments have repeatedly emphasized the geo-strategicor security value of Okinawa for U.S.’ forward deployment in order to counter potential threats.
This geopolitical context is typically represented by a security map such as Figure 4. The otheraspect is economic in that Okinawa has suffered from economic backwardness due to its remotenessfrom the center of Japan as represented by the location of the Brandt Line.
Figure 4. The post-Cold War military balance in Northeast Asia.

Defense Agency of Japan (2002: 38).
What distinguishes Okinawa from the rest of Japan as well as the world is the concentration of
U.S. military bases. More than 30 military bases and installations are currently located in Okinawa.
75% of the area for U.S. military bases in Japan exists in Okinawa. Their concentration is6

particularly eminent in Okinawa Island (Figure 5). Approximately 20% of the area of the island has
been occupied by the bases. This situation is not at all a recent phenomenon but has continued formore than 50 years since the end of the Second World War. The Cold War and the Japan-U.S.
security arrangements have maintained the status of Okinawa. The fact that an underdeveloped
island prefecture has been forced to accept vast foreign military bases has become a cause ofcontinuing social movements. In spite of these external political controls, Okinawans havemaintained their distinct ethnic identity in language (dialect), social custom, and culture. In sum,
militarization, economic marginalization, and socio-cultural integration into Japan have been the
major stimuli of continuing political mobilization against Japan as well as the U.S. military bases in
Okinawa.
For Japan, however, Okinawa is indispensable because Japan highly depends for its territorial
security on the U.S. military forces stationed in Okinawa. Playing the role of a mediator between
Okinawa and the U.S., Japan has attempted to promote Okinawa's development and compensate
Okinawa’s security burden by providing a large amount of developmental subsidies for Okinawa(Nakano and Arasaki 1976; Arasaki 1996). Thus, the existence of U.S. military bases, U.S.' andJapan's policies toward Okinawa, and Okinawan political mobilization have developed a complex
political nexus and produced the ‘political space’ of Okinawa as a spatial manifestation of those
processes.
Figure 5. U.S. military bases and installations in Okinawa, 2001.
Okinawa Prefecture

Okinawa Island
200

0
km

0

20
km

Okinawa
Islands

Sakishima
RegionU.S. military bases and installations(as of 2001)

North Region

Central Region

Naha

South Region

7

Shifting boundaries
Due to its unique location between regional powers, Okinawa experienced external invasion
and dominance. As a result of this dynamism, the frequent shift of boundaries had significant
impacts on Okinawan society (see Figure 3). In 1429, Okinawa Island was united and the Ryukyu
Kingdom was built under the influence of China (the Ming dynasty). After the unification, theKingdom became prosperous by promoting transit trade with neighboring countries and regions
such as China, Japan, Korea, Luzon (the Philippines), Siam (Thailand), Malacca (Malaysia), andJava (Indonesia). Okinawa was able to enjoy its location advantage in East Asia. This ‘golden’ age,
however, did not last long. In the 16th century, China allowed Chinese merchants to travel abroad,and Portuguese ships began to mediate trade between Japan and China (Arashiro 1997: 79). The
emergence of these new traders from powerful countries lowered the status of the Ryukyu Kingdom
after the middle of the 16th century. When the Tokugawa shogunate was founded in 1603, theshogunate became interested in the restoration of trade with China. The feudal domain of Satsuma(currently Kagoshima Prefecture) was also attracted to Okinawa’s location advantage ininter-regional trade since the domain of Satsuma suffered from financial difficulties. The feudal lordof the domain of Satsuma, Iehisa Shimazu, sent 3,000 troops to Okinawa and put it under his
control in 1606. This invasion was later named and remembered as the incident of Shimazu’s
invasion.
However, even after the invasion, the regime of the Ryukyu Kingdom was maintained, and its
political economic relationship with China was continued. In this sense, the Kingdom belonged totwo strong powers at the same time: the Tokugawa shogunate and the Ming dynasty. Under thisdual belonging, the culture of the Kingdom prospered, but it was basically situated as a different
state within the Japanese regime. Unlike China’s tributary system, the domain of Satsuma imposed
heavy tribute tax and trade regulation on the Kingdom (Hokama 1986: 76-81, Miyagi 1968: 92-98).
This brought about financial crises of the Kingdom and led to the impoverishment of Ryukyuans.
The decline of the Ryukyu Kingdom continued until its location advantage was reevaluated in the
19th century.
Okinawa as well as Japan faced the expansion of Euro-American colonialism into East Asia.
In 1816 two British ships stopped at Okinawa and their crews stayed in Naha. In 1844 a Frenchbattle ship came to Okinawa in order to establish a trade relationship with the Ryukyu Kingdom.
The U.S. fleet led by Admiral Perry also visited Okinawa and demanded that it be opened for free
trade. Since the Ryukyu Kingdom was under the strict control of the domain of Satsuma, it did not
accept the requests of foreign visitors. However, the fact that these western powers attempted tonegotiate with the Ryukyu Kingdom rather than Tokugawa Japan meant that they recognized therelative independence of the Kingdom from Japan. Although the frequent visits of western powers
to Okinawa affected and reshaped Satsuma’s policy toward the Kingdom, it was not until the Meiji
era that renewed international relations in Asia began to greatly influence Okinawa (Miyagi 1968:
140-147).
With the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the new government replaced the Tokugawa shogunate.
The Meiji government forcibly wiped out the Tokugawa’s feudal system and reconstructed Japan asa modern nation-state. In order to cope with the expansion of western colonialism and secure its
sphere of influence, the Meiji government needed to include Okinawa in the territory of Japan. This
meant that Okinawa would constitute the southern frontier of the Japanese nation-state (Oguma
1998: 18-23). Aware of the intention of the Meiji government, the Ryukyu Kingdom did not agree
to its annexation to Japan, and China (the Qing dynasty) also objected to the request. The belonging
of Okinawa was not yet settled between the Ryukyu Kingdom, Japan, and China at that time.
As the Meiji government promoted swift modernization (westernization) in which the8industrialization and militarization of Japan were prioritized, it began to directly control Okinawa
by placing the domain of Ryukyu (ryukyu han) over the Ryukyu Kingdom. Japan appointed the
king of the Ryukyu Kingdom the governor of the domain in 1872. Seven years later, the Meiji
government sent troops and police forces to Naha and requested the king to vacate the Shuri Castle,
which had been the seat of the Ryukyu Kingdom for hundreds of years. Upon the ‘surrender’ of theking, the Meiji government declared that Okinawa Prefecture replaced the domain of Ryukyu.
Okinawa was finally incorporated into the Japanese nation-state. This incident in 1879 has beencalled “the Deposition of Ryukyu” (ryukyu shobun). Although many Ryukyuans were opposed tothis forcible incorporation, Japan’s victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 contributed to thesettlement of the question of Okinawa’s belonging. After the War, Okinawa was internationallyrecognized as part of Japan.
As a result of the Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan was annexed to Japan. However, thecolonization of Taiwan situated Okinawa in an ambivalent position between Japan proper and the
newly colonized territory (Oguma 1998: 628-634). This meant that Okinawa was treated neither asJapan’s prefecture nor as Japan’s colony. In this sense, Okinawa became a kind of ‘internal colony’(Hechter 1999). This ambivalent position brought about the following socio-economic‘contradictions.’ First, the Meiji government adopted a policy to preserve Okinawa’s traditions andcustoms such as the institutions of land, tax, and local administration. Although the Meiji
government believed that such a policy would facilitate the governance of Okinawa, the policy also
contributed to the delay of Okinawa’s modernization and to the increase of socio-economic
disparities between Okinawa and Japan proper. It was in 1912 that the same legal and social
institutions as in Japan proper were applied to Okinawa, which was 33 years after Okinawa had
been incorporated into Japan.
Second, the delay of Okinawa’s modernization and the incorporation of Okinawa into Japan
were accompanied by the rapid development of Japan’s capitalism. Okinawa was marginalized andtransformed into the place that provided the labor force for the area outside of it. Because of thesevere economic recession and poverty in the 1910s and 20s, many Okinawans migrated to theindustrial areas in Japan proper and to the agricultural regions in North and South America.
Third, the existence of such discrimination against Okinawa affected Okinawans’ perceptionof their culture and identity. In the process of Japanization as modernization, becoming Japanese or
looking, speaking, and behaving like Japanese were considered a way of modernizing Okinawans.
This sentiment, shared by Okinawan elites, drove Okinawans into the self-denial of their cultural
distinctiveness and ethnic traits such as language.
Finally, the means of assimilation of Okinawa into Japan such as these led to the tragedy of
the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. During the Second World War, Okinawans attempted to become
loyal to the Japanese Emperor and his state as a result of the above-mentioned discrimination andassimilation. Such adversity stimulated Okinawan’s loyalty and nationalism. As the war situation
grew more serious for Japan, the location of Okinawa became critical for Japan in terms of the
defense of its territory. For the U.S., the occupation of Okinawa would be decisive for the attack on
Japan proper. This situation made the ground war in Okinawa Island (okinawa sen, the Battle of
Okinawa) the most tragic. The U.S. fleets began the bombardment called “tetsu no bofu” (thetyphoon of steel) from warships near Okinawa Island. During this battle, more than 200,000 people
including approximately 100,000 civilians were killed. With the expense of such tragic deaths, theBattle of Okinawa ended with the U.S.’ victory on June 23. Okinawa was occupied by and put
under the control of the U.S. military forces, which finally lasted for 27 years until it was reunited
into Japan in 1972.
The above-mentioned history of Okinawa clearly illustrates that Okinawa has been locatedbetween the zone of development and that of underdevelopment, or ‘the North’ and ‘the South.’9

Okinawa has constituted a space of ambivalence in which inconsistent political processes or
behaviors tend to appear. Relationship to ‘the North’ or developed states has often become acontested political issue for Okinawans.
US military administration and the delayed progress of democracy
US’ fear of communism and incomplete democratization
The fact that Okinawa was subordinate to Japan helped the U.S. easily occupy it. Due to the
Okinawans’ negative feeling toward the oppressive Japanese governance, the U.S. military forces
could act as a savior for Okinawans. For a short period of time after the Second World War,
Okinawans were willing to accept Americans (Kokuba 1962: 217; Miyazato 1966: 9). It was the
beginning of the Cold War in 1946 that changed the meaning of the U.S. occupation of Okinawa.
The strategic significance of Okinawa for the capitalist bloc was enhanced after the Second World
War, particularly when the 1949 Chinese Revolution took place. Such an expansion of thecommunist bloc in East Asia urged the U.S. and Japanese governments to create new Japan-U.S.
security arrangements in relation to the occupation of Okinawa (Miyazato 1966: 24-26; Tanaka
1997: 34-69).
As seen in the pre-modern era, the geopolitical location of Okinawa between powerful states
has kept Okinawa in a subordinate position. When international relations became tense in East Asia,
Okinawan society was significantly influenced by the tension as seen, for example, in theanti-communist campaign. Such structural constraints on Okinawa became stronger and affected the
dynamism of Okinawan society in the late 1940s. As a result of the beginning of the Cold War, theU.S. military forces remained in Okinawa and retained the administrative rights over Okinawa until
1972.
Such exclusive occupation of Okinawa by the U.S. did not necessarily observe internationallaw at that time 1 and had the potential to become a cause of international disputes over thelegitimacy of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. The development of the Cold War made it
urgent for the U.S. to legitimize its continuing (semi-permanent) presence in the islands. For the
postwar Japanese government (e.g. the Yoshida Cabinet), the smooth rehabilitation of Japan was a
top priority after its disarmament (Tanaka 1997: 52-53). In order to cope with its socio-economic
restoration and security threats from the communist bloc, Japan could take advantage of the U.S.
military presence in Okinawa as well as in Japan. When the U.S. postwar occupation of Japan
ended in 1952, the U.S. incorporated Japan into the capitalist bloc. With Japan and South Korea, theU.S. constructed the Cold War front in East Asia against the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea.
The Peace Treaty with Japan of 1951 was a product of such international tensions. The Soviet
Union and China did not sign the Peace Treaty because it granted the U.S. an exclusive right todecide how to utilize Okinawa. In addition, the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty of 1951 provided that
the U.S. had the right to use military bases in Japan. Along with Okinawa, the Security Treaty
obliged Japan to support the forward deployment of the U.S. military forces. Okinawa, on the other
hand, was not under the Japanese administration at that time. The concentration of U.S. bases in1

Until the Peace Treaty with Japan was concluded in 1951, there were few legal grounds on which the U.S. could keep
exercising exclusive administrative rights over Okinawa. By Article 3 of the Treaty, Japan was to agree to any measuresconcerning Okinawa that the U.S. would propose to the UN. The implication of Article 3 was that Japan as a sovereignstate offered its own administrative rights over Okinawa to the U.S. In other words, the article assumed that Japan stillretained “residual sovereignty” over Okinawa. Due to this interpretation of residual sovereignty, the U.S. was able toexercise exclusive administrative rights over Okinawa under the ‘permission’ of the sovereign state of Japan. See
Miyazato (1999: 29-33).

10

Okinawa was not maintained by the Security Treaty. The Peace Treaty guaranteed that the U.S.
could freely utilize Okinawa for its military purposes. However, the U.S. military presence in
Okinawa also sustained the Japan-U.S. security arrangements because it compromised Japan’s lightarmament and constituted part of the deterrence for Japan.
Japan’s disarmament was first requested by the allied forces including the U.S., and the denialof belligerent rights was provided by the Japanese Constitution whose draft was also written by the
U.S. occupation force. In light of postwar socio-political sentiments in Japan, the drastic
rearmament of Japan was not a realistic option to counter the threats of communism and nuclear
war. These circumstances necessitated the stationing of U.S. military forces in and near Japan as adeterrence. After all, in the face of the development of the Cold War, the maintenance andexpansion of U.S. bases in Okinawa were an efficient way to meet the demands of the U.S. andJapanese governments. Thus, the conclusion of the two treaties in 1951 determined the ‘fate’ of
postwar Okinawa.
Although Okinawa was completely under foreign rule with the U.S. occupation, they accepted
it at first. The U.S. military forces promoted the rehabilitation of Okinawan society. The U.S.
government considered the prompt restoration of Okinawan society a way to stabilize theiroccupation of Okinawa (Miyazato 1966: 26-30). One of the policies newly applied to Okinawa wasdemocratization. The U.S. governing body first believed that a democratic system would help tomake Okinawan society friendly to the U.S. occupation (Miyazato 1966: 30-32). The U.S. militaryforces implemented many democratic institutions such as autonomous archipelago (gunto)governments, free elections, and political parties including leftist ones.
However, as the Cold War developed and as the role of Okinawa in such a context was clearly
defined, the U.S. Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (USCAR) was established in 1950.
USCAR was very cautious of excessive democratization so as not to spread anti-U.S. sentiment andcommunism within Okinawa. In order to transform Okinawa into an anti-communist fortress under
the Cold War, the careful control of Okinawan society became necessary. Even though thesocio-economic recovery of Okinawa was important for the U.S. occupation, its priority was thereconstruction of Okinawa for military purposes. The military priority of the U.S. administration
inevitably distorted the ‘normal’ development of Okinawa and created a fragile economic structure
dependent on external income sources (Makino 1996: 25-36).
Such distortion was reflected in USCAR’s policies. In the first elections for the archipelago
governors and assemblymen in September 1950, the majority of the elected candidates supported
Okinawa’s reversion to Japan. As a result, USCAR established a provisional central government
whose chief executive was appointed by USCAR in 1951, and in 1952 the provisional government
became a new semi-autonomous central government (the Government of the Ryukyu Island, GRI).
Accordingly, the archipelago governments were abolished and the public election system for thechief executive of the new government was not implemented (until 1968). USCAR had theauthority to appoint the chief executive of the GRI and the president of the GRI court and to amend
the laws enacted by the GRI Legislature. It was also able to issue and amend its own ordinances
applied to Okinawans without the consent of the GRI. In addition to this, as the Cold War
developed, USCAR’s repression against leftist parties, particularly the Okinawa People’s Party,
began in the early 1950s. Until Okinawa’s reversion to Japan in 1972, USCAR reigned over
Okinawan society. It was authoritarian in its nature.
In parallel with the reconstruction of the governing system in Okinawa, the physicaltransformation of Okinawa Island proceeded after the war. As a result of the Battle of Okinawa, theU.S. troops occupied the bases of the Japanese military forces. The development of the Cold War
enhanced the use value of the occupied bases and the land of Okinawa Island for building new
bases (Figure 6). U.S. military officials often called Okinawa “keystone of the Pacific” (Yoshida11

2001: 61), which meant that Okinawa occupied a geopolitically important location in the West
Pacific. Within an approximately 1,500 km radius from Okinawa Island, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Seoul,Beijing, Taipei, and Manila are located (Figure 3). Although the U.S. occupation of Okinawa was a
result of the Second World War, the geo-strategic importance of Okinawa that emerged during theCold War predetermined the long-term stationing of the U.S. military forces. This also means thatstructural constraints on Okinawa were strengthened and fixed as long as the Cold War continued.
Figure 6. U.S. military bases and installations in Okinawa, 1964.

Source: Yoshida (2001: xxx).
As shown in Figure 7, the area of U.S. bases in Japan proper significantly declined in the late
1950s, which indicates the end of the postwar U.S. occupation of Japan. On the other hand, that in
Okinawa gradually increased from the mid 1950s. Thus, the withdrawal of the U.S. military forcesfrom Japan proper was related to the increase of (the area of) the U.S. bases in Okinawa. Figure 7
clearly shows that the role of Okinawa was being ‘fixed’ in the 1960s. It also indicates that upon thereversion the function of Okinawa was ‘purified’ as an anti-communist fortress for the Cold War.
Since then, Okinawa has carried a much heavier burden than Japan proper for the U.S. militarypresence in East Asia. The ratio of such a burden (the area of U.S. bases) between Okinawa andJapan proper has been 4 to 1 (75% to 25%). This has often been regarded as spatial inequality or
territorial injustice by Okinawan protesters. U.S. bases currently occupy approximately 20% of thearea of Okinawa Island. For the central region of the island, the figure goes up to 25% (Figure 5).
The occupation of the land of Okinawa by U.S. bases has also accounted for physical constraints or
obstacles to Okinawan socio-economic life.

12Figure 7. The area of the U.S. military bases and installations, 1945-1998.
Figure 2.2. The Area of the U.S. Military Bases and Installations (1945-1998)
Japan (other than Okinawa)

Okinawa

160

140

1,000 ha (=2,471acres)

120

100

80

60

40

20

1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1964
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998

0

Year

Sources: Okinawa taimusu sha (1959-72, 1997: 17), Okinawa ken (2000), andRyukyu seifu (various years).

In order to build new military bases, the U.S. military forces carried out forcible land seizure
without the prior consent of Okinawan landowners, the reasonable compensation for the seizure, orthe legal background for such forcible measures. Since the confiscation of land created landlessfarmers, the U.S. governing body attempted to absorb such a labor force into the job markets
created from the newly built bases. 2 The U.S. bases also provided various job opportunities for
Okinawans. Okinawans engaged in the provision of commercial goods, agricultural products, andvarious kinds of services for U.S. bases, servicemen, and their families.
The U.S. government also provided financial resources for the socio-economic recovery of
postwar Okinawa (i.e. GARIOA and EROA). 3 The U.S. government recognized that it was very
important to promote the socio-economic recovery of Okinawa in order to stabilize the U.S.
governance for a longer period of time. As long as the U.S. governing body gave priority to themilitarization of Okinawa, Okinawa’s socio-economic development tended to be delayed. In order
to counterbalance this delay, the U.S. governing body needed to create a regional economy
dependent on external income sources such as military bases and governmental subsidies. In
2

USCAR also encouraged migration to other islands and foreign countries.
GARIOA (Government and Relief in Occupied Areas Fund) was first applied to Okinawa to relieve its food shortage in
1947. As the U.S. decided to retain Okinawa for a long time, GARIOA was increased and changed the nature of the U.S.
fund to an economic one, which later contributed to the recovery of the Okinawa economy (Ryukyu shimpo sha 1998:
120). EROA (Economic Rehabilitation in Occupied Areas Fund) was added to GARIOA in 1949 and increased the
proportion of economic aids in the U.S. support for Okinawa. Behind this change was a shift in the U.S. foreign policies
toward East Asia (Nagumo 1996: 12-13).
3

13

addition, construction companies in Japan proper received an order to build new bases from U.S.
bases at that time. 4 Okinawa also became a place where Japanese companies obtained foreign
currency. It is, therefore, true that the U.S. military forces attempted to balance the forcible
transformation of Okinawa with its swift recovery of Okinawa, but this resulted in Okinawa’s
dependence on U.S. bases and external financial resources. Such dependence on external resources
also predetermined Okinawa’s post-reversion economy (Makino 1996: 25-36). The center-periphery
relations were thus created between Okinawa and the U.S. bases and later between Okinawa andJapan proper.
However, the relationship between Okinawa and the U.S. bases was not necessarily
harmonious. The forcible land seizure in the mid 1950s began to pose a threat to the U.S. military
governance of Okinawa. Since the U.S. military forces carried out the forcible land seizure without
careful consideration of Okinawans’ right to life, those who lost their land without reasonable
compensation opposed such a policy. Okinawan protest actions began with local resistance against
the forcible land seizure. They first took place in Ie Island and Isahama and later developed into theprefecture-wide movement in the mid 1950s when the U.S.’ land policy was applied to the whole
prefecture. The GRI began to negotiate with USCAR about the appropriate compensation for seizedland and requested a reconsideration of permanent leasehold and further confiscation of private land.
However, USCAR and the U.S. government did not change their policy of the construction of bases
due to the development of the Cold War. This attitude led to a series of large-scale mass protests
against the U.S.’ land policy in 1956 (Figure 8). The mass protests reportedly attracted 450,000
participants altogether out of 750,000 residents in the prefecture. They were called “the struggle
wrapping the island” (shimagurumi toso).
Figure 2.3. Numberof Collective Actions
from 1949-2000
Figure 8. Numberof collective
actionsfrom 1949-2000.
Total

Participants 1000 or more

Organized by municipality or residents

90

80

70

Number

60

50

40

30

20

10

Year

1999

1997

1995

1993

1991

1989

1987

1985

1983

1981

1979

1977

1975

1973

1971

1969

1967

1965

1963

1961

1959

1957

1955

1953

1951

1949

0

Source: The Okinawa Taimusu.

This land struggle first began as one demanding appropriate compensation for seized land andthe protection of Okinawans’ right to life, and later became a protest against foreign rule and a4

As the construction of military bases increased from 1949 on, companies from Japan proper and the U.S. also engaged in
the construction works (Miyazato 1966: 49).

14

movement for Okinawa’s reversion to Japan. In other words, the struggle to protect individual rights
changed into one to protect collective rights for oppressed Okinawans and further transformed itself
into a nationalistic reversion movement. As Yamazaki (2003) shows, during the struggle in 1956,
the frame of “protect our land” was shifted to that of “defend our territory,” and Okinawanprotesters redefined Okinawans as Japanese. They strongly demanded that the U.S. and Japanese
governments make a nation coincide with a state territory. Such identification of Okinawa(Okinawans) with Japan (Japanese) indicates that collective identity formation played an importantrole in political mobilization. The rhetorical shift of land (tochi) to territory (ryodo) also shows how
the concept of territory mediated between individualistic legal issues and a collective nationalquestion. Prior to the land struggle, the nationalistic reversion movement occurred in 1951 when
the Peace Conference with Japan was held in San Francisco. Okinawans expected Okinawa to bereunified into Japan at the same time that Japan restored its sovereignty. However, the Conference
resulted in the internationally recognized separation of Okinawa from Japan and the continuation of
a foreign rule over it. After the Conference, Okinawa’s reversion to Japan had been an earnest
desire among Okinawans. This underlying desire tended to appear when Okinawans protested
oppressive aspects of the U.S. military governance. The land struggle in 1956 was one such
example. The demand for appropriate compensation for seized land gradually turned into a desire
for reversion. The U.S. military governance of Okinawa continued to create strong resistance suchas this among Okinawans.
Construction of the conservative-reformist cleavage
Control over protest
The development of the land struggle in the 1950s not only strengthened Okinawan solidarity
but also revealed the internal cleavage among Okinawans. Nakano and Arasaki (1976) point out
that the 1956 mass protest promoted the formation of social movement organizations (SMOs) suchas labor unions, 5 which means that the social groups that countered the U.S. military administration
began to be created. However, the groups did not necessarily represent the interests of Okinawans
as a whole. The postwar socio-economic relationships between Okinawa and the U.S. also createdpro-U.S. social groups in Okinawa. 6
USCAR directly ‘repressed’ the 1956 mass protest using the “off limits” policy. Responding
to the radicalization of mass protest, USCAR announced that it designated the central part of
Okinawa Island as an “off limits”area to military personnel in case conflicts between them andOkinawans took place (Okinawa Taimusu 8/7/56 in Nakano 1969: 204). However, the fear of
conflicts was not the true reason for this policy. U.S. bases were concentrated in the central part of
Okinawa Island. Entertainment and amusement businesses in that area depended on U.S. military
personnel. To designate the central part as an “off limits” area meant to prohibit them from entering
the area and to do significant damage to these businesses. As Yamazaki (2003) argues, this policy
brought about conflicts of interests over U.S. bases among Okinawans and succeeded in weakening
the impact of the protest. In order to maintain the U.S. military presence in Okinawa, USCAR
resorted to such a non-democratic measure. However, the above-mentioned case of repression was
5

While there were only five approved labor unions with about 600 members in May 1956, there were about 50 unionswith 10,000 members at the end of 1958 (Nakano and Arasaki 1976: 108).
6
For example, the U.S. government sent more than 1,000 Okinawans to the U.S. for higher education before the reversion.
On this scholarship project, 28, 262, and 155 of them received Doctoral, Master’s, and Bachelor’s degrees in the U.S.,
respectively. These Okinawans constituted political and economic elites in Okinawa. Not all of them were pro-U.S., but
the U.S. government seems to have expected them to take over the leadership in Okinawan society (Miyagi 2000).

15

very rare in the postwar history of Okinawa. Rather, more indirect or ‘democratic’ measures seemto have been employed to control or mitigate the impact of protest against the U.S. militarypresence.
Party politics
The formation and consolidation of political parties after the Second World War reflected apolitical dynamism and translated the internal political cleavages in Okinawan society. Rather thandirect confrontation between Okinawans and USCAR, the internal political competitions among
Okinawans contributed to the maintenance or perpetuation of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa.
Let us first look at the formation of political parties under the U.S. military administration. After theSecond World War, the following parties were created in each group of islands (Higa 1965: 111;
Okinawa ken kyoiku iinkai 1994: 129).
The Amami Islands (Japanese name, month/year of foundation)
Amami Oshima Social Democratic Party (Amami oshima shakai minshu to, 8/50)
The Okinawa Islands
Okinawa Social Party (Okinawa shakai to, 9/47)
Ryukyu Social Party (Ryukyu shakai to, 10/47)
Okinawa Democratic Alliance (Okinawa minshu domei, 6/47)
Okinawa People’s Party (Okinawa Jinmin to, 7/47)
The Miyako Islands
Miyako Democratic Party (Miyako minshu to, 5/46)
Miyako Social Party (Miyako shakai to, 10/47)
Miyako Liberal Party (Miyako jiyu to, 9/49)
The Yaeyama Islands
Yaeyama Democratic Party (Yaeyama minshu to, 1/48)
Yaeyama People’s Party (Yaeyama jinmin to, 2/48)
Yaeyama Labor Party (Yaeyama rodo to, 1/46)
Since the U.S. occupation force did not regulate the formation of political parties, the basis of party
politics was established in the early stage of the occupation. As the names of the parties indicate,these parties did not necessarily represent the interests of “Ryukyu” as a whole. The reorganizationor consolidation of these parties was promoted through the archipelago government elections in1950 and the creation of an Okinawan central government in 1951.
While the Okinawa People’s Party (OPP) began its activity in 1947, the formation of a social
democratic party was delayed until 1950. The creation of the Social Democratic Party (Shakai
minshu to) was first planned in August 1950, but it was finally realized as the establishment of the
Okinawa Social Mass Party (OSMP) in October 1950 (Okinawa Taimusu 8/20/50: 2, 10/10/50: 2).
As mentioned above, the governors of the gunto governments were elected in the public election in
September 1950. In the case of the Okinawa Islands, Governor Tatsuo Taira joined the OSMP in
October 1950. Thus, the OSMP first became the government party of the Okinawa Archipelago
Government. On the other hand, the Republican Party was also formed from the Okinawa
Democratic Alliance in the same month. The Republican Party was a pro-U.S. and anti-communist
party and did not support the reversion to Japan. As a result, the Okinawa Archipelago Government
was to be based on the two-party system (Okinawa Taimusu 10/27/50: 1).
However, USCAR decided to abolish the archipelago governments, which accelerated thereorganization of Okinawan parties so that they could become “all-Ryukyu (zenryu teki)” parties forthe planned new central government. At the end of 1951, the following parties existed as the ones

16

that represented “Ryukyu.”
Republican Party (Kyowa to, 10/50)
Okinawa Social Mass Party (Okinawa shakai taishu to, 10/50)
Ryukyu People’s Party (Ryukyu jinmin to, 12/51) 7
The Republican Party aimed at the independence of “Ryukyu” under the U.S. trusteeship, but it lost
public support due to its party platform and faced the crisis of dissolution. The other two parties
supported the reversion to Japan (Okinawa Taimusu 3/19/51: 2, 4/24/51: 2). Particularly, theRyukyu People’s Party (RPP) supported party platforms similar to the Japan Communist Party,
which induced USCAR’s sanctions to the party (Senaga 1991; Monna 1996).
Since the Republican Party was finally resolved in February 1952, there was no party thatcountered the existing two reformist parties in the first GRI Legislature in March 1952. The result
was as follows (Okinawa sengo senkyoshi henshu iinkai 1984):
Party
Seats
OSMP
14
OPP
1
Other
1
Independent
15
Total
31

%
45.2
3.2
3.2
48.4
100.0

The victory of the OSMP was clear, but it did not occupy more than 50% of the seats. This indicatesthat the existing parties did not fully represent the interests of Okinawan voters and that a new party
could be created from the independent legislature members (Okinawa Taimusu 3/4/52: 2).
After the first GRI Legislature election, the GRI Office was established with no self-confessed
pro-U.S. party. However, the conflict between the appointed chief executive Shuhei Higa and the
OSMP became clear in a short time. Although Higa was a member of the OSMP, he expressed his
objection to the OSMP’s platform aiming at state socialism (Okinawa Taimusu 3/30/52: 2). Higa’s
attitude reflected an underlying cleavage among the OSMP members between social democratic andcapitalist ideologies (Okinawa Taimusu 4/12/52: 2). Higa decided to leave the party and create a
new conservative party. As a result, the Ryukyu Democratic Party (RDP) was formed from twoparties 8 and some OSMP members in August 1952. Since Higa remained the appointed chief
executive, the RDP became a conservative government party.
With some members leaving for the RDP, the OSMP strengthened its characteristic as one of
the reformist parties along with the RPP that later became the OPP. As mentioned above, the RDP
was not very active in the land struggle and the reversion movement. Therefore, the establishmentof the RDP in 1952 can be regarded as a manifestation of the conservative-reformist cleavage in
Okinawan party politics, which was represented by the rivalry between the conservative
government party that cooperated with the U.S. administration and the reformist parties that aimed
at the prompt reversion.
How the cleavage appeared after the first GRI Legislature election is shown in Table 1. As thechange of ARV shows, 9 there was a regular swing of votes between the conservative and reformist
parties until 1965. The introduction of the small constituency system in 1954 seems to have7

The temporary name of the Okinawa People’s Party (OPP).
The Public Welfare Club (Minsei kurabu, 4/52) and the Miyako Reform Party (Miyako kakushin to, 2/51).
9
ARV is the absolute rate (%) of votes obtained by each party.
817

contributed to distinguishing the swing, although the chief executives of the GRI were always
appointed from the conservative party. Therefore, in Okinawa’s political structure, the reformist
parties attempted to create political dynamism while the conservative party maintained the status
quo under the U.S. administration.
Table 1. Conservative-reformist cleavage (ARV) in the GRI Legislature elections.
%
Reformist
OPP
5.67
4.70

Conservative**
RDP, OLDP,ODP
31.66
38.93
21.56
40.07
34.91
36.62
36.86

Neutral***Year
Minren*
OSP
OSMP
1954
36.02
1956
23.05
1958
21.51
18.15
10.25
1960
10.01
2.20
25.96
1962
10.25
2.00
23.50
1965
10.09
2.98
21.75
1968
9.35
4.58
19.58
Average
Notes: * “Minren” was an anti-U.S. alliance of reformist politicians (the OPP and part of the OSMP).

Reformist

Conservative

41.69
27.75
39.65
35.97
35.74
34.82
33.51
35.59

31.66
38.93
21.56
40.07
34.91
36.62
36.86
34.37

** “Conservative” represents one of the RDP, the OLDP (Okinawa Liberal Democratic Party), and the ODP (Okinawa Democratic
Party).
*** “Neutrral” includes formerly conservative politicians.

In addition, the split of reformist votes into the OPP, OSP, and OSMP became eminent in the
1960s, indicating that the competition between the reformist parties was increasing. On the other
hand, the conservative government party also maintained internal conflicts and kept changing its
name. Conservative votes, however, became more predominant over time, meaning that voters’
preference to conservatism was becoming stronger.
Although stepwise regression analysis was conducted to the results of GRI Legislatureelections, it was not able to obtain statistically significant results. Each election district for the GRL
Legislature did not have both conservative and reformist candidates and sometimes had only one
candidate. If such districts are excluded from quantitative analysis, the analysis does not necessarily
have significant results due to the small number of observations. Moreover, the existence of many
non-voting districts makes it difficult to generalize the geographical pattern of voting. 10 For thesereasons, further quantitative analysis is not conducted for the election results in the 1950s. However,as mentioned above, through the land struggle and its development into the reversion movement,
the conservative-reformist cleavage was gradually constructed and became a basic element of
Okinawan politics in the 1950s. The cleavage thus constructed conditioned the course of politics inthe following periods.
Geopolitical representation of Okinawa in political competitions
Political tensions in the late 1960s
The island-wide land struggle in the mid 1950s quickly came to an end after USCAR
abandoned the policy of the permanent leasehold of land and raised the land rent to a substantial
degree. Okinawan’s grievances against the U.S. military governance, however, did not disappear.
The second wave of mass protest appeared in the 1960s, especially after 1965 (Figure 8). The
10

The only significant result was obtained for the conservative votes in the 1958 election. Its adjusted R2 was 0.327, but
the number of observations (municipalities) decreased from 69 to 29.

18

reasons why there was a wave in this period of time are manifold.
First, organizations such as the Okinawa Teachers’ Association and the Zengunro (Zenokinawa gunrodosha kumiai, the All-Okinawa Military Workers Union) developed the ability toorganize large-scale mass protests. In particular, the establishment of Fukkikyo (Okinawa ken
sokoku fukki kyogikai, the Okinawa Prefecture Reversion Council), which consisted of these andother organizations, contributed to the increase of large-scale mass protests. The development ofsocial movement organizations in the 1960s promoted the development of the conservativereformist cleavage in Okinawan politics. This cleavage was a product of the U.S. control over
Okinawan society through aids and sanctions. Okinawan social sub-groups benefiting from the U.S.
governance were gradually formed as opposed to anti-U.S. ones (Nakano and Arasaki 1976: 95-96).
The former were connected to conservative parties while the latter to reformist parties.
Second, U.S. bases in Okinawa provided many soldiers and equipments for the Vietnam War.
Okinawan protesters were also influenced by anti-Vietnam movements in the world and organizedmany protest actions against U.S. bases. Such anti-U.S. or anti-war sentiments led to moreradicalized reversion movements. Unlike those in the 1950s, the reversion movements in the 1960s
did not have a strong tone of nationalism. Rather, it emphasized that Okinawa must ‘return’ to theJapanese Constitution, meaning that the democratic and pacifist Constitution must be applied to
Okinawa. Such a reinterpretation of reversion was called “anti-war or complete reversion”(hansen/kanzen fukki). Under the U.S. military administration, an ideology countering militarism,
colonialism, and the Japan-U.S. security arrangements sustaining them needed to be constructed.
Third, as the reversion movement was radicalized, Okinawa was divided into two. One wasthe above-mentioned radicalized movement for which reversion without removing U.S. bases from
Okinawa was unacceptable. The other was the camp that accepted U.S. bases and the Japan-U.S.
security arrangements after the reversion. The position of the latter was called “the reversion under
the security arrangements” (ampo fukki) by the former. Therefore, such a development of thereversion movement in the 1960s was also a manifestation of the conservative-reformist cleavage in
Okinawan politics. The assessment over the direction of the reversion often became an issue inelections in Okinawa and stimulated political competition over the GRI Legislature. A kind of
two-party system called “the ’68 system” was formed through such competition. 11
Potato or war? conflicting geopolitical visions of Okinawa
As the reversion to Japan became realistic, contradictions in the U.S. military administration
over Okinawa were revealed at every corner of society. This led to the reawakening of Okinawans
as political ‘subjects.’ The reawakening was reflected in the increase not only of collective action
but also of reformist votes in the three major elections (for Chief Executive, the GRI Legislature,
and Mayor of Naha) in 1968, which gave rise to the reformist chief executive, Chobyo Yara, who
was elected through the first popular vote. Okinawan voters chose the candidate who opposed the
security policies of the U.S. and Japanese governments. In this peak of political mobilization,collective action against the U.S. military presence was clearly connected to voting for reformist
candidates.
Among such elections, the chief executive election in 1968 was the most heated elections inpostwar Okinawa. It was the very first public election for Okinawans’ own representative of the
GRI. The election’s voter turnout was as high as 89.11%. In this election, the future direction of
Okinawa was questioned in relation to the Japan-U.S. security arrangements. Employing a large
11
The ’68 system actually consisted of one conservative party and more than one reformist party, reflecting theconservative-reformist cleavage in Japan’s National Diet after 1955.

19

constituency system, it directly translated the cleavage structure within Okinawa. Due to theconstruction of the Reformist Joint Council (kakushin-kyoto-kaigi) countering the Okinawa Liberal
Democratic Party (OLDP), the election campaigns (for the three major elections) represented thedichotomous, conflicting political visions of Okinawa. While the Japanese and U.S. governments
began to negotiate about Okinawa’s reversion to Japan, how Okinawa reverted to Japan in relation
to the existence of the U.S. bases became the central issue of political debates in Okinawa anddivided Okinawan society into two.
Two candidates ran for the chief executive election: Chobyo Yara and Junji Nishime. Yara
was a joint candidate for the reformist, opposition parties. He served as President of the Okinawa
Teachers and Stuff Association and committed himself to the land struggle and the reversion
movement in the 1950s and 60s. Nishime was a conservative candidate of the OLDP who led the
GRI. He was President of the OLDP and had served as Mayor of Naha since 1962. These twocandidates represented the cleavage structure of Okinawan society and the contested issues for theelection were presented to the voters very clearly.
The conservative-reformist cleavage incorporated in the campaign appeared in the frames thatoversimplified, and therefore constructed, reality over Okinawa. Contested issues for the threemajor elections were summarized as “potato or war (imo to senso).” The “potato” frame stood forthe poverty in which people had to live on potatoes and was used by the conservative camp tocriticize the reformist policies that emphasized a prompt reversion without effective measures for
economic development. The “war” frame represented a life threatened with the possibility of war
and was employed by the reformist camp to blame the conservative policies sustaining the U.S.
military presence in Okinawa. The Okinawa Taimusu (10/14/68: 3) explained that these frames
were used as demagogues and that they distorted actual contested issues.
The conservative and reformist campaigns for the chief executive election summarized such
issues in different ways. Yara and Nishime realized that the contested issues in the three major
elections concerned the reversion and the relationship between the treatment of U.S. bases and theeconomic life of Okinawans. While Yara insisted on the immediate reversion and removal of bases,
Nishime emphasized the realization of the reversion in five years based on the negotiation between
Japan and the U.S. Nishime, however, emphasized “hondo tono ittaika” or the integration of
Okinawa into Japan proper, which actually meant to narrow socio-economic gaps between Okinawa
and Japan proper before the reversion. This idea was not necessarily proposed by Nishime or the
OLDP whose president was Nishime, but by the LDP in Japan proper. Although Yara strongly
objected to the remaining of bases from a pacifist point of view, Nishime believed that theacceptance of bases was inevitable for some years to come. Nishime believed that U.S. bases werestill important income sources for Okinawans and that under the cooperation of the U.S. andJapanese governments, Okinawa would be able to develop socio-economically. Yara argued thatafter the removal of the U.S. bases, the Japanese government was basically responsible for the
rehabilitation and development of Okinawa (Okinawa Taimusu 10/19/68: 3, 11/3/68: 3).
This election was important for Okinawans in that it would determine the course of Okinawa
for the coming years, but it questioned the significance of Okinawa for the security of the Far East.
The LDP-led Japanese government was concerned about how U.S. bases could be maintained in
Okinawa for the Japan-U.S. security arrangements. Nishime, who accepted the U.S. militarypresence in Okinawa seemingly for economic reasons, represented the position of the LDP and theJapanese government that supported the Japan-U.S. security arrangements. Yara was backed up by
the Reformist Joint Council and supported by reformist parties in Japan. They opposed andattempted to challenge the security arrangements. Therefore, the chief executive election became ‘awar by proxy’ for parties in Japan over the military security of Japan.
Although the frame of “potato or war” oversimplified the contested political issues and did not20

necessarily constitute any geopolitical discourses, the argument over the socio-economic merit anddemerit of the continuing U.S. military presence tended to conceal the geopolitical reality or
structure that Okinawa was facing. As shown in the visions and pledges of the candidates, economic
realism (fear of poverty) was put against political idealism (anti-war pacifism or fear of war). In
order for the Japanese government as well as the U.S. counterpart to maintain the security
status-quo, it became necessary to control the rise of political idealism by emphasizing Okinawa’s
economic weakness and backwardness and by making the public aware of Okinawa’s economic
dependence on U.S. bases.
Regression analysis of the elections
As a result of the 1968 chief executive election, Okinawan voters elected Yara as their chief
executive. Yara’s absolute rate of the votes obtained (ARV) amounted to 45.92% as opposed to
40.02% for Nishime. According to the result of stepwise regression analysis (Table 2), employees
in the manufacture industry supported Yara. Although the industry’s composition rate in all theindustries was 9.63%, this sub-group became a social base of reformist votes in this period. It canbe inferred from this that labor unions in the industry mobilized votes for the reformist candidates.
In addition, Table 2 shows that voters in the central region (represented by CENTRAL) and urban
areas (represented by COMM) tended to support reformist candidates while those in rural areas(represented by negative COMM) and in the municipalities with a high proportion of theconstruction industry (represented by CONST) tended to do the opposite. Therefore, theconservative-reformist cleavages in Okinawa were constructed in complex relation to the vocationaland geographical features of Okinawan society. As mentioned above, this cleavage structure wasformed according to the dependence of voters on the economies from the U.S. bases and statesubsidies.
With regards to the other elections held in the late 1960s and early 1970s (for the full results,
see Yamazaki 2004a), whether they were prefecture or national elections, similar results repeatedly
appear. Although adjusted R2 is not necessarily high for each result (less than 0.35), it is possible touse it for a descriptive purpose. Unlike the GRI Legislature elections that were highly influenced by
local communal contexts (Higa 1965: 226-229), the elections for the chief executive, governor, or
national assemblymen reflected more ‘politicized’ or generalized preferences of voters. During thisperiod, conservative and reformist parties competed actively with each other, and the gubernatorial
and national elections became another channel in which Okinawans’ protest against the U.S.
military presence was expressed as the mobilization of reformist votes.
As the U.S. military governance ended, political conflicts over the U.S. military presence andthe future of Okinawa were internalized within Okinawa, which was brought about partially by theapplication of the ‘fully’ democratic institutions implemented in Japan to Okinawa. Since then, thegubernatorial elections have represented such internalized conflicts. As Figure 9 shows, theconservative-reformist cleavage in Okinawan politics have appeared as swings of votes. With asimilar interval, each camp has occupied the Prefecture Office. Although these swings can be
regarded as results of the ‘democratic’ choice by Okinawan voters, the U.S. military presence has
been maintained due to the swings. Radicalization of Okinawans against the U.S. and Japanese
governments has been thus moderated. As long as the maintenance of the U.S. military presence in
Okinawa is approved by Okinawans themselves through ‘democratic’ channels, it can belegitimated. Therefore, this type of control over a marginal locality and population is more subtle
and effective than authoritative repressions or sanctions. Democracy is not only a means ofliberation from oppression but also a tactic to maintain oppression so as not to let the oppressed feelso.

21

Table 2. Gubernatorial elections in which the incumbent governor (camp) was replaced.
Year
Dependent var.
Independent var.
USBASE

1968
Con.

53 obs.

2.214

0.598

2.405

-2.166-2.785-1.527-2.072-2.850-0.464-3.099t-value

Con.

7.531
-1.028Coef.

1998
53 obs.

CONST
COMM

t-valueCon.

INCOME
-3.460Coef.

1990
53 obs.

t-value-0.842t-value

Con.

Coef.

MANU

Coef.

1978
69 obs.

-0.691-3.729

0.288

2.026

STSUB
DVEX
NORTH

19.308

4.104

CENTRAL-11.599-4.18118.421

2.933

CAPITAL-8.136-2.20626.514

2.301

SOUTH

24.850

3.873

SAKISHIMA

12.1132.752

22.586

2.504

Cons.

54.673Adjusted R-squaredYear
Dependent var.
Independent var.
USBASE

21.40060.476

0.291
1968
Ref.

20.9330.334

1978
69 obs.

44.325

Ref.

6.308
0.407

1990
53 obs.

Coef.

t-valueCoef.

t-value

0.754

2.996

1.328

3.462

Ref.

0.279
1998

53 obs.

Ref.

53 obs.

Coef.

t-valueCoef.

t-value-0.786-2.780-0.814-3.275

1.145

2.636

2.451

2.907

-0.248-2.125

8.031

2.738

INCOME
CONST
MANU
COMM
STSUB
DVEX
NORTH
CENTRAL

13.621

4.604

CAPITAL

9.391

2.410

SOUTH

9.141

2.701

7.722

2.590

SAKISHIMA
Cons.

30.447

11.29926.0089.616

48.6137.700-11.715-2.649-10.382-2.550-16.998-3.313-9.941-2.19046.7197.948

Adjusted R-squared
0.309
0.290
0.322
0.227
Notes: The 1968 election was for the Chief Executive. Con. = conservative votes (ARV%), Ref. =reformist votes(ARV%), obs.= the number of municipalities.Using stepwise regression analysis, only the coefficients with p<0.05 areshown.
For each independent variable, the census data collected in the closest year were chosen. INCOME: per-capita income(1982-99). USBASE: % of the land occupied by U.S. military bases (1956-1999). CONST: % of the employees in theconstruction industry (1961-2000). MANU: % of the employees in the manufacture industry (1961-2000). COMM: % of
the employees in the commercial industries (1961-2000). FDEP: % of external revenue sources (1955-65). STSUB: % ofstate subsidies in the municipal revenue (1970-2000). DVEX: % of developmental expenditure in the municipal
expenditure (1955-2000). CAPITAL: dummy variable for Naha. NORTH: dummy variable for the north region of
Okinawa Island. CENTRAL: dummy variable for the central region of Okinawa Island. SOUTH: dummy variable for thesouth region of Okinawa Island. SAKISHIMA: dummy variable for the Sakishima Islands.
Sources: Ryukyu seufu (various years), Okinawa ken (various years), Okinawa sengo senkyoshi henshu iinkai (1984,1996), and the Okinawa Taimusu.

22

Figure 9. Conservative-reformist swings in the chief executive and gubernatorial elections,
1968-2002.
Reformist

Conservative

Turnout

100
90
80
70

ARV (%)

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
CE-68

GU-72

GU-76

GU-78

GU-82

GU-86

GU-90

GU-94

GU-98

GU-02

Elections

Prefecture politics in the 1990s 12
In the 1970s and 1980s, economic recovery and development to reduce the gap between
Okinawa and Japan proper were prioritized in the agendas of the Okinawa Prefecture government.
Such policies were successful in increasing the prefecture’s products and population. The
conservative prefecture government from 1978-1990 was able to promote material gains (Okinawa
Taimusu 11/24/90: 3) and Okinawans became more satisfied with the result of the reversion. 13
Although protest actions against U.S. military bases continued during these decades, they were
fragmented and attracted fewer participants for each collective action event compared to theprevious decades of the U.S. military control (Figure 8). The era of Okinawa’s economic recovery
led by a strong Japanese economy seems to have completed its role when the Japanese economy
reached its peak in 1990 (Figure 10). Furthermore, the end of the Cold War about the same time
provided an opportunity for Okinawans to rethink the political status of their own islands. This shiftof Okinawan political preference was reflected in the result of the 1990 gubernatorial election, in
which a new reformist governor defeated the conservative incumbent.

12

Most of the arguments in the following sections are based on Yamazaki (2004b).
According to the public opinion survey in 1989, 84.7% of the Okinawan respondents showed satisfaction with thereversion (Naikaku soridaijin kanbo kohoshitsu 1989: 41).

13

23

Figure 10. Economic growth rates.
10.0

8.0

Rate (%)

6.0

Japan

4.0

Okinawa

2.0

0.0
86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

-2.0
Year

Sources: Okinawa ken tokei ka (1999) and Toukeikyoku (2000).
The period between 1990 and 1998 was one of the most important historical epochs in
Okinawa since two significant contextual changes happened. First, the end of the Cold War
increased the expectation that Okinawa’s long-term military burden would finally end in the near
future in conjunction with the withdrawal of the nuclear threats of the former Soviet Union. It wasalso expected that the demise of the Soviet Union would promote the democratization of East Asia.
Second, the end of the Cold War shifted policy priorities from military security to economic
prosperity in the world. Anticipation rose in Okinawa based on the belief that riding on
globalization would create a new stage of economic prosperity. For example, the Bogor Declarationof the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference (APEC, of which Japan is a member) in1994 requested that developed member states liberalize trade and investment by 2010. In this newcontext, globalization was viewed as an alternative for Okinawa to overcome excessive dependence
on Japan’s national economy and public finance and establish a local self-supportive economy.
In addition to these contextual changes, there were also local factors that promoted theorientation towards globalization. First, U.S. servicemen raped a twelve-year-old Okinawan girl in
1995, which drastically increased Okinawan grievances and led to a series of mass protests against
the U.S. military presence in the second half of the 1990s. These political mobilizations
underpinned a new stage of reformist politics seeking pacifism in Okinawa. Second, Masahide Ota
was elected as Governor in November 1990. He was the third reformist governor in post-reversion
Okinawa. In his second term from 1994-1998, he actively attempted to promote anti-war, pacifist
policies by taking advantage of the political upheaval after the rape in 1995. In addition, theprefecture government led by Ota attempted to frame unique policies linking globalization to
Okinawa’s economic self-supportiveness.
In order to understand the nature of the interaction between Okinawa and Japan and theinternal dynamism of Okinawan society in the 1990s, we must examine the political processes

24during the terms of Governor Masahide Ota from 1990-1998. Ota had been Professor in Journalism
at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa and was well-known for his leftist opinions. His
predecessor, Junji Nishime, by contrast was renowned as a conservative governor from 1978-1990.
Successive governors in Okinawa have been replaced at similar intervals according to the politicalcircumstances of the times. 14
Seemingly tired of “the logic of development based on public works” promoted by theconservative governor (Okinawa Taimusu 11/24/90: 3), Okinawan voters expected the newreformist governor Ota to change the course of prefecture politics (Okinawa Taimusu 11/19/90: 1).
The years around 1990 were the peak of recent economic prosperity in Okinawa as well as in Japan.
For the previous two decades, the growth rates of the GDP and the Gross Prefecture Products (GPP)
were the highest while the unemployment rates of Japan and Okinawa were the lowest (Figures 10
and 11). Okinawan voters relieved of the worry of economic underdevelopment expressed theirpolitical preference for the more pacifist, anti-war politics that Ota pledged to embody.
Following the end of the Cold War, Ota’s first term from 1990-1994 had few political issues,
resulting in his election victory by a huge margin in 1994. Voters’ interest in prefecture politics wasshown in the second lowest voter turnout (62.54%) in the gubernatorial elections since 1972
(Okinawa Taimusu 11/21/94: 1). Ota’s second term, however, was dramatically different from his
first term after the rape of the twelve-year old in 1995. This incident drastically changed the courseof the prefecture politics.
A series of large-scale political rallies followed this incident (Figure 8). It reverberated with asignificant impact on the Japan-U.S. security relations. The political rally on October 21, 1995
attracted approximately 85,000 participants in Okinawa Island and 3,000 in the Sakishima Islands(Okinawa Taimusu 10/22/95: 1). As well as denouncing the crime, these rallies blamed the Japaneseand U.S. governments for their continuing unfair treatment of Okinawa, and requested that bothgovernments revise the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) 15 and reduce U.S. militarybases (Okinawa Taimusu 10/22/95: 1-3). Unable to ignore the explosion of Okinawan grievances,
the Japanese and U.S. governments began to revise the SOFA and to develop a plan to return (theland used for) U.S. military bases to Okinawa.

14
The terms (years) of successive governors (or a Chief Executive) are 8 (Yara, reformist 1968-76), 2 (Taira, reformist
1976-78), 12 (Nishime, conservative 1978-1990), 8 (Ota, reformist 1990-98), and 7 (Inamine, conservative 1998 topresent). See Figure 9.
15
SOFA was concluded in 1960 to determine the status of the U.S. military force stationed in Japan. What SOFA provides
is Japan’s obligation to offer facilities and areas to the U.S. military force, U.S.’ authority to control its military
installations, and the jurisdiction over U.S. military servicemen. The jurisdiction over the U.S. servicemen who commit a
serious crime has been a focal point of protest actions in Okinawa. From Okinawa’s point of view, SOFA unfairly protects
the status of the U.S. military force and servicemen.

25Figure 11. Unemployment rates.
9.0

8.0

7.0

Rate (%)

6.0

5.0
Japan
Okinawa
4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

0.0
86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

Year

Sources: Okinawa ken (various years) and Tokeikyoku (2000).
A second development was that Ota promoted a series of pacifist policies in 1996 by buildingon the anti-base protests. He first refused to sign the land lease contracts for U.S. military bases
instead of the Okinawan landowners refusing to sign the contracts.16 The Japanese government sued
Ota for the refusal, and this lawsuit was finally brought to the Supreme Court that decided against
Ota in August 1996. Responding to the signatures collected from prefecture residents, Ota carriedout a prefecture referendum in September 1996 asking whether the SOFA should be revised andwhether U.S. military bases on the islands should be reduced. Although the result of the referendum
was non-binding, the revision of SOFA and the reduction of bases won easily. 17 The growing
collective movement supported Ota and protested against the Japanese and U.S. governments.
Finally, this tense political environment motivated Ota to outline a grand design for Okinawa
in January 1996, which was embodied in the Action Program for the Reduction of U.S. Military
Bases (the Action Program) and the Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept. These policies
stimulated debates over Okinawa’s subordinate situation and internal political economic structure in
conjunction with the increasing pressure of globalization in the form of economic liberalization.
Okinawa’s Grand Design
The Okinawa Prefecture government led by Governor Ota published the Action Program andthe Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept in January 1996. These policies were framed after theJapanese and U.S. governments formed the Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) in
November 1995 to develop a plan to consolidate and return eleven U.S. military bases andinstallations. Departing from SACO’s plan, the prefecture government drafted the Action Program
for the phased removal of all the U.S. military bases by 2015 since piecemeal return of the bases
16
According to the law, in order to allow the U.S. military force to use the land of Japanese citizens, the Japanese
government leases the land and offers it to the U.S. military force. If Japanese landowners refuse to rent their land, theJapanese government has legal power to force them to do so. In this coercive process, the head of the pertinent local
government must sign the land lease contracts instead of the landowners. Since Ota refused to sign as the head of
Okinawa Prefecture, the Japanese government sued him for violating the law.
17
The results were as follows: approval votes amounted to 88.0%; objection votes 8.24%; and voter turnout 59.5%.

26

according to the convenience of the U.S. military forces would prevent the prefecture and municipal
governments from devising a long-term, consistent development plan. The implementation of the
Action Program, therefore, was considered a necessary premise for the further development of
Okinawa as well as the restoration of peaceful life for Okinawans.
The Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept was a concrete, if unrealistic, measure for thedevelopment in parallel with the reduction and removal of U.S. military bases by the Action
Program. As the title of the policy implies, the Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept was an
attempt to develop and locate Okinawa in the context of globalization in the Asia-Pacific region
following the model of Hong Kong. The implementation of the Cosmopolitan City Formation
Concept required the use of the large acreages returned from the U.S. military bases according to
the Action Program. Since the removal of the bases would result in a loss of job opportunities andincome sources for many Okinawans, 18 it was evident that new efforts were needed to create newindustries to counterbalance the loss. Thus, these two policies complemented each other toconstitute “Okinawa’s grand design for the 21st century” (Okinawa Prefecture Government 1997:
Preface).
The Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept was embodied in the New Industrial Promotion
Policy for Cosmopolitan City Formation in November 1997 by extending a free trade zone (FTZ).
Even though the term “globalization” appears only twice in the text of the Policy, the idea of
economic and cultural globalization in the Asia-Pacific region was set against the militarization of
the islands. As the original English text states:
The Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept is Okinawa's grand design for the 21st
century and its goal is the promotion of regional characteristics which will contribute to
the self-supportive economic development of Okinawa, and continuous development of
the Asia-Pacific Region, as well as assisting in maintaining peace.
The concept also aims to transform a military-based island into a peaceful island,
and to positively promote various policies based on three basic principles: peacefulexchange, technological cooperation, and economic/cultural exchanges.
Above all, it proposes to implement decisive measures based on a thorough reviewof the rigid economy of Okinawa today and its progress toward globalization inside andoutside the territory to achieve the goal of “creating and promoting new industries
suitable for the 21st century.” (Ibid, emphasis added)
The Policy based on the Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept has three general orientations: theadvancement of the FTZ, the integration and enhancement of the information and communicationindustry, and the formation of a hub for international tourism and destination industry. Among thethree policy directions, the advancement of the FTZ was the core strategy to promote Okinawa’s
economic self-supportiveness and competitiveness in the Asia-Pacific region by encouraging
Japanese and foreign direct investments and opening Okinawa to the world-economy. Thus it wasmost closely related to the idea of globalization. As the text states:
Okinawa's problems in relation to the promotion of industry include the limited
availability of land due to the existence of vast U.S. military bases, delayed improvement
18

Base-related economy in Okinawa consists of base-related employment (8,400 workers in 1999), construction, rent,
national subsidies, and other economic impacts. The ratio of base-related consumption, employment, and rent in the Gross
Prefecture Expenditure is estimated as 5.2% in 1997 (Okinawa ken 2000: 45).

27

of locations for industrial development as a direct result of having been excluded fromvarious post-war industrial promotion policies, and comparatively high transportation
costs because of its geographical distance from other parts of Japan and being aprefecture of many relatively small islands.
The industrial promotion of Okinawa has been relatively slow due to the above
factors, and relatively weak economical structure that depends largely on mainland Japan
still remains. Okinawa is in economically critical condition since Okinawa's per capita
income remains the lowest in Japan and the unemployment rate is two times as high as
the national average.
Other economic factors include the reduction of public investment and a decreasein base-related income which is a result of the consolidation and reduction of U.S.
military bases in Okinawa. Thus, it is feared that further economic sluggishness anddecreased job opportunities will worsen.
On the other hand, Japan's present economic condition, including an industrial
migration to foreign regions and rapidly growing neighboring countries in Asia, should
be taken into consideration for meeting the needs and adapting to changes of the times,
such as advanced internationalization and information technology so that Okinawa's
self-supportive development will be realized.
Thus, it is necessary to develop new industrial promotion policies which utilize
Okinawa's regional characteristics and resources in a positive way. Improvements
designated to attract domestic as well as foreign industries need to be expanded byintroducing a free trade zone with tax incentives, focusing on deregulation, andconstructing an infrastructure which includes an international airport, harbors, andinformation and communication facilities. (Okinawa Prefecture Government 1997:
Chapter I, emphasis added)
From the contents of the Policy as well as the Action Program, it seems clear that the prefecture
government was attempting to ‘liberate’ Okinawa from the U.S. military bases and from Japan’snational economy and public finance at the same time. The prefecture government sought toweaken the long-time yoke of the Japanese nation-state and to promote the economic autonomy of
Okinawa.
Mapping Okinawa in the context of globalization
In Okinawa’s Grand Design, the territory of Okinawa was represented in a particular way. The
inner space of Okinawa tended to be described as a space of opportunities for new development
following the elimination of the U.S. bases. Unlike the years during the Cold War, the outer spaceof Okinawa tended to be described as connected to Okinawa through economic and informational
networks. According to the CD-ROM version of the Okinawa Taimusu, there were 54 articles in1996 that included in their headlines the term “kokusai toshi keisei” (Cosmopolitan City
Formation), four of which had maps of Okinawa. They were drawn by the newspaper according tothe official documents related to the plans. Figure 12 was attached to the article to visually explain
Okinawa’s Grand Design. One of the maps (left) shows the distribution of U.S. bases that were to
be removed by 2015. The other (right) illustrates the image of the Cosmopolitan City Formation
following the elimination of the U.S. bases. It shows that Okinawa’s inner space would be filledwith resort and redevelopment areas and that cosmopolitan cities (darker circles) would be formedin the southern region of Okinawa Island. These two maps contrast the current location of the U.S.
bases with the future development of Okinawa’s inner space and indicate how Okinawa would be28

transformed in the future.
Figure 12. Visual representation of the internal space of Okinawa (Okinawa’s Grand Design).

Source: The Okinawa Taimusu (1/30/96: 3).
Figure 13 was attached to the article on the draft of the Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept
in June 1996. While the map on the left shows a similar vision of redevelopment areas andcosmopolitan cities, the other map describes the outer space of Okinawa in which Okinawa wasconnected to Japan, China (Northeast Asia), ASEAN, Pacific islands, and the U.S. through various
exchange projects. Okinawa was resituated in the Asia-Pacific region in face of an era ofglobalization. What was emphasized in the Concept is the construction of economic and cultural
networks beyond the territory of Okinawa. Although the contents of these networks were quite
abstract in the article, the image of deterritorializing Okinawa came to the fore in the media.
Figure 13. Draft for the Cosmopolitan City Formation (left) and Strategy for the Formation of the
Cosmopolitan City Networks (right).

Source: The Okinawa Taimusu (6/1/96: 3).

29

In December 1996, the Ministry of Postage announced the Project of Okinawa Multimedia
Special Zone that would attempt to reconstruct Okinawa as the cosmopolitan city that would
become an information and communication hub in the Asia-Pacific region. Although this was anational project promoted for Okinawa by the Ministry, the Okinawa Taimusu (1/30/96: 3)
suggested that the project could become the first step for the Cosmopolitan City Formation. The
visual representation of the project (Figure 14) expressed in a map both the technologicaltransformation of Okinawa’s inner space and the expansion of information/communication
networks beyond it.
Figure 14. Okinawa connected to the Asia-Pacific region(Okinawa Multimedia Special Zone Concept).

Source: The Okinawa Taimusu (12/9/96: 3)
The last article related to Cosmopolitan City Formation concerns public intellectuals’
discussion about Okinawa’s future (Figure 15). With the headline reading “From ‘the misfortune ofgeography’ to ‘the advantage of geography.’ How we draw the future of Okinawa?” this article
argued that by changing the perspective towards Okinawa in a map, the misfortune of its location
during the Cold War could be converted to an advantageous one in the post-Cold War era. There
were four comments in the article, each of which estimated the location advantage of Okinawa as
follows:
Let’s build the place for international trade aiming at self-sufficient economy after thebases are removed. (Kei Kakazu, university professor)
Geographic conditions carrying potentials. (Seiji Tsutsumi, corporate president)
Construct international tourist destinations by making use of Okinawa’s culture. (Hiroshi
Takeuchi, think-tank director)
Become an economic center in the East China Sea. (Ken’ichi Omae, business consultant)

30

All the comments highly evaluated the geographic location of Okinawa in the Asia-Pacific region.
In an era of globalization and the borderless world, Okinawa was expected to become a node of
economic and cultural networks spreading in the region. This article also showed the map in which
Okinawa was located at the center to indicate that Okinawa would be able to build connections withneighboring regions and cities. Unlike Figure 4 that suggests surviving geopolitical tensions in theregion, this map attempted to describe Okinawa’s potentials for self-supportiveness and prosperity
through free trade and communication in the deterritorializing world. In sum, responding to the
publication of Okinawa’s Grand Design, the media such as the Okinawa Times visualized andmapped Okinawa’s new location in the Asia-Pacific region.
Figure 15. Media representation of discursive ‘space’ over Okinawa’s future.

Source: The Okinawa Taimusu (4/15/96: 28)
The nature of such visual representations of Okinawa can be contrasted with that of a national
developmental plan. Figure 16 illustrates Okinawa’s location in the 5th Comprehensive National
Development Plan (Grand Design for the 21st Century 19 ) by the Japanese government in 1998. The
Plan designated the region including Okinawa as a “base for peaceful exchanges on the Pacific
Ocean (pacific crossroad)” and partially employed the prefecture’s Cosmopolitan City Formation
Concept. According to the Plan, the territory of Japan would be divided into four Axial National
19

Its subtitle is “Promotion of Regional Independence and Creation of Beautiful National Land.”31

Zones in which regionally-tailored development projects would be carried out. Okinawa was
located in the New Pacific Ocean Coastal National Axial Zone (taiheiyo-shin-kokudo-jiku) where
exchanges with the rapidly-developing Asia-Pacific region would be further promoted. Due to its
nature as a national plan, the visual representation of Okinawa by the Okinawa Taimusu was quite
marginal and de-centered and did not clearly illustrate how Okinawa could be connected to its outerspace. Rather, the map shows that the territory of Okinawa was included, or reterritorialized, into
“the national land (kokudo).” With regards to Okinawa’s Grand Design or the Cosmopolitan City
Formation, the Okinawa Taimusu visually represented the deterritorialization of Okinawa that was
implied in these plans, as opposed to the territorial framework of the National Development Plan.
Figure 16. Okinawa’s location in the National Development Plan
(Grand Design for the 21st Century).

Source: The Okinawa Taimusu (3/26/98: evening version 1).
The watering down of Okinawa’s Grand Design
In order to implement Okinawa’s Grand Design, the prefecture government began to examine
possible measures to improve its political economy. One of the most widely-debated measures was
the establishment of the prefecture-wide FTZ probably because the economic liberalization of
Okinawa contained the symbolic meaning of the complete transformation of the territoriality of theislands by the prefecture itself in the face of globalization.
In order to implement the Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept, the prefecture government
established the Committee of Industrial and Economic Promotion and Deregulation Study led by awell-known economist, Naoki Tanaka (hereafter the Tanaka Committee). Following the rape in1995 and the Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept of 1996, the Tanaka Committee examined32

desirable options for Okinawa in the face of globalization and published a final report in July 1997
(Okinawa Taimusu 7/25/97: 13).
The report recommended that the prefecture government employ a “decisive” measure forindustrial promotion such as “two systems within one state” (the Hong Kong model) and proposed
the introduction of the prefecture-wide FTZ in 2001 to attract foreign direct investment. Following
the Bogor Declaration of the APEC, which expected developed member countries to liberalize tradeand investment by 2010, the Tanaka Committee emphasized that the establishment of theprefecture-wide FTZ would become a model that could be extended to Japan proper. The report also
stated that the people of Okinawa Prefecture needed to end the reversion programs 20 by themselves
and tackle “the creation of new Okinawa” based on the principles of self-determination andself-responsibility. Although what the Tanaka Committee recommended was straightforward
liberalization, it sparked heated debates. While the tourist industry and ambitious smaller businesses
welcomed the prefecture-wide FTZ, the manufacture, agricultural, and food processing industries
expressed serious concern about the damage liberalization might cause (Okinawa Taimusu 7/31/97:
11, 8/1/97: 9, 8/2/97: 11, 8/5/97: 9, 8/6/97: 11, 8/7/97: 13). These industries feared that the cutthroat
competition Japanese and foreign corporations would bring into Okinawa might destroy theirbusinesses.
Based on the Tanaka Committee Report, the prefecture government began to devise its own
plan for the FTZ. The draft for the plan was published in September 1997 (Okinawa Taimusu
9/2/97: 3). Compared to the Report, the draft had a more protectionist nuance and demanded further
preferential treatment of Okinawa from the Japanese government, indicating the increased pressureof concession. After issuing the draft, the prefecture government published the plan titled “theDevelopment of the Industrial Promotion Policies for Cosmopolitan City Formation” (Okinawa
Taimusu 10/28/97: 2-3). This plan accepted the public objections to the introduction of theprefecture-wide FTZ in 2001 and stated that it was appropriate to attempt the phased expansion of
sub-prefecture free trade districts while introducing the prefecture-wide FTZ in 2005. With regard
to the favorable treatment of taxation, the plan listed the reduction of the corporate tax as well as theinvestment tax and the exemption of the local tax. The prefecture government accepted theobjections from the businesses protected by existing special measures and demanded the continuing
favorable treatment of Okinawa from the Japanese government.
The prefecture government finally completed its plan for the FTZ in “the New Industrial
Promotion Policy for Cosmopolitan City Formation” (Okinawa Prefecture Government 1997). This
policy basically followed the above-mentioned plan, stating that the introduction of theprefecture-wide FTZ would be suspended until 2005 and the favorable treatment of taxation as wellas other measures would be adopted to promote foreign direct investment. In this stage, the internalpressures from various Okinawan industries succeeded in attenuating the contents of the “decisive”
Tanaka Committee Report so as to minimize the impact of liberalization on the weaker industries.
As the prefecture plans were presented, the intentions of the Japanese government, especially
the LDP and the Ministry of Finance, were often reported in Okinawa. The Okinawa Small
Committee of the LDP Tax Commission in Tokyo decided to refuse the idea of the prefecture-wide
FTZ (Okinawa Taimusu 11/18/97: 3). The LDP held a protectionist stance toward Okinawa that wasin line with its local party position in Okinawa. 21 Another obstacle for Okinawa was the Ministry of
20“The reversion programs” refer to post-reversion developmental measures for Okinawa to fill the socio-economic
disparities between Okinawa and Japan proper.
21
Parties in Okinawa first expressed mixed feelings toward the proposal of the prefecture-wide FTZ (Okinawa Taimusu
7/25/97: 3). Among the governmental parties, only the Komei Party overtly supported the proposal while the JCP objected
to it because it might weaken smaller businesses and the primary industry. On the other hand, the LDP and the New
Frontier Party showed a positive understanding of the proposal. Even though the prefecture government was a reformist

33

Finance. The Tanaka Committee Report attempted to avoid measures creating problematic “twosystems within one state” such as the reduction of the corporate tax and visa exemption because of
their effectiveness and/or constitutionality (Okinawa Taimusu 7/27/97: 1). Since these kinds ofmeasures might violate the integrity of the state, it was predicted that the Ministries of Finance andJustice would refuse the measures. In spite of the Committee’s consideration, the final prefecture
plan listed the reduction of the corporate tax and the exemption of the local tax in order to attract
foreign direct investment. The Ministry of Finance was already negative about the inclusion offavorable tax systems in the prefecture’s draft when it was published in September 1997 (Okinawa
Taimusu 9/3/97: 2).
The response of the Japanese government to the final prefecture plan was revealed in the
speech given by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto at the ceremony for the 25-year anniversary of
Okinawa’s reversion (Shusho kantei 1997). Although Hashimoto promised that the Japanese
government would help to promote Okinawa’s self-supportiveness with a new economic promotion
plan, he mentioned neither the prefecture-wide FTZ nor the reduction of the corporate tax. Instead,he proposed the establishment of a regionally limited FTZ and taxation measures for investment. 22
In sum, the Japanese government acted in order to protect local Okinawan businesses and theintegrity of the state, indicating that the debated developmental plan for Okinawa resulted in theamalgamation of liberalization and protectionism. One of the cores of Okinawa’s Grand Design was
thus watered down by both internal and external pressures (Hook 2003).
Okinawan resistance and political economic processes
The other core of Okinawa’s Grand Design was the Action Program. Following the rape in
1995, Rengo Okinawa (the Okinawa Prefecture Branch of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation)
initiated a signature-collection campaign in January 1996. This campaign was for the enactment ofa prefecture ordinance to carry out a non-binding prefecture referendum, which would question thenecessity of U.S. bases in Okinawa (Okinawa Taimusu 1/23/96: 23). After the successful campaign,
the ordinance was enacted in June and the referendum was to be carried out in September 1996,
about a year before the Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept was embodied. When the prefecturereferendum was carried out, the prefecture government had not yet presented any concrete plan tocounterbalance the economic losses the removal of the U.S. bases would bring about. For thisreason, military landowners and base employees objected to or expressed concerns about thereferendum. The prefecture LDP opposed for the same reason. Furthermore, the Japanese
government regarded the Program as a denial of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty (Okinawa taimusu
sha 1996: 79). The result of the referendum showed that more than half (53.04%) of the votersapproved the revision of SOFA and the reduction of U.S. bases.
Meanwhile, the Japanese and the U.S. governments agreed on the phased reduction andremoval of U.S. bases in 1996 but this gave rise to new problems. The most surprising response
from both governments was the complete return of the Futenma Air Station, but its removal becamea highly controversial issue since its removal to Japan proper was strongly refused by the possible
host municipalities. As a result, the Air Station needed to be removed to some place within
Okinawa. The Japanese government mostly neglected the intentions of the Action Program.
Okinawans ridiculed this situation by calling it “tarai mawashi” of bases, indicating irresponsibly
one, centrist or conservative parties first supported such a neo-liberal policy as the FTZ. However, as the FTZ waspublicly debated, the LDP as well as the JCP and OSMP (one of the governmental parties) began to show overt objections
to the prefecture-wide FTZ, and other parties remained cautious about the proposal (Okinawa Taimusu 9/26/97: 2).
22
The final version of the Japanese government’s plan in 2000 did not mention any tax system (Shusho kantei 2000b).

34

passing around the bases within Okinawa (Okinawa Taimusu 12/22/96: 1).
Many protest actions over the removal of U.S. bases, especially the Futenma Air Station, took
place from 1996-1997. 23 In particular, Nago City was chosen as a candidate recipient of theremoved (i.e. newly built) base and became a center of protest. The removal of existing U.S. bases
to the north region illustrated another ambivalent aspect of Okinawa. As the economy of Okinawa
improved after the reversion, socio-economic disparities between the north region and the rest of
Okinawa became larger. 24 For the north region, these disparities needed to be narrowed. Therefore,
the removal of bases to that region meant not only transferring the source of problems but also
providing a new opportunity for economic promotion. Local economies in Okinawa, affected by the
decline of Japan’s economy, needed such promotion measures.
Nago City carried out a municipal referendum in December 1997. The issue was whether thecity should accept a new offshore base substituting the Futenma Air Station. Although 52.8% of thevotes were cast against the new base, the mayor of the city announced the acceptance of the newbase for the reduction of U.S. bases and the further development of the city in exchange for his
resignation (Okinawa Taimusu 12/26/97: 1). In the mayor’s election of February 1998, thecandidate supporting the new base was elected in spite of Governor Ota’s objection to theintra-prefecture removal. The Japanese government welcomed the result because U.S. bases could
be maintained in Okinawa. In November 1997, the Japanese government already included the planfor the promotion of the north region in the Okinawa Promotion 21st Century Plan.
U.S. bases have been resources for political and economic deals between Okinawa and theJapanese government. The existence of U.S. bases in Okinawa and the provision of state subsidies
for Okinawa’s development have been inseparably interwoven. As long as the bases were used forsuch deals, building a new link between bases and globalization was not necessarily an easy task.
While many Okinawans have accumulated strong grievances against U.S. bases and the Japanese
government, Okinawan political choice has often been constrained so that they have finallyaccepted the U.S. military presence. Due to Okinawa’s dependent economy, economic
considerations have driven the vote choices at critical moments, both overall and at the local levels.
This is why Okinawans have been swinging between resistance against and integration into the state(Arakawa 2000; Idaka 2001).
In the highly tense relationship between Okinawa and the Japanese government from1995-1998, Governor Ota sometimes made concessions to Tokyo in order not to lose financial
resources for Okinawa. An attitude such as this, however, induced criticism from Okinawanprotesters for being inconsistent and weakened their solidarity. Being concerned about long-term
economic stagnancy, business circles as well as the prefecture LDP decided to select Keiichi
Inamine as their candidate for the 1998 gubernatorial election. Ota also decided to run for his thirdterm.
The issues for the gubernatorial election were quite clear. In their campaigns, Ota emphasized
the implementation of the Action Program and the prefecture-wide FTZ while Inamine pledged torestore the relationship between Okinawa and the Japanese government and to overcome economic
stagnancy using state promotion measures for Okinawa. Inamine’s side tactically used the strategy
that ascribed the economic stagnancy to the failure of Ota’s policies. As seen in Figures 10 and 11,
economic stagnancy was not necessarily brought about by Ota’s local policies but by the overall
23
According to the Okinawa Taimusu published during the period, 18 rallies took place, most of which were in the northregion such as Nago City.
24
According to Okinawa ken’s Okinawa ken tokei nenkan, per capita annual income by region in 1995 is as follows: Naha
2.34, south 1.90, central 2.06, north 1.77, Sakishima 1.84, and isolated islands 2.06 million yen. The figure of the northregion is the lowest.

35

downturn of the Japanese economy. However, by calling the stagnancy “kensei fukyo,” meaning therecession caused by the prefecture politics, Inamine’s side implied that Ota overemphasizedanti-base and pacifist ideology and neglected effective economic promotion measures. This
negative campaign succeeded in (falsely) transforming the national problem into a local one.
Structural constraints Okinawa had been experiencing, such as dependence and subordination in thecenter-periphery relations, were effectively hidden from the voters. The result was Ota’s
prefecture-wide defeat and suggested that the majority of Okinawans worried about the decline of
Okinawa’s economy that was dependent on external resources and refused Ota’s policies. The
multiple regression analysis indicates that Ota lost in most of the sub-prefecture regions (Table 2).
Responding to this result, the Japanese government promptly resumed state economic promotion
measures for Okinawa. Municipalities such as Urasoe, Kin, and Nago began to offer their land forthe new U.S. military bases removed from other parts of Okinawa. The rewards for accepting thebases were developmental subsidies from the Japanese government. As economic realism began toprevail, the reformist era came to an end. 25
Conclusion
As detailed above, globalization was a key concept from 1996-1997 for the reformist Okinawa
Prefecture government. It represented a new space in which Okinawa could be located for newprosperity and self-supportiveness as opposed to the constraining territory and national rules ofJapan on which Okinawa had been dependent. Okinawa’s Grand Design and related policies
depicted a new geopolitical and geo-economic context for Okinawa in the post-Cold War era.
However, Okinawa’s dependence on Japan through economic and financial flows was so profoundthat the political economic cleavages there finally hindered its ‘liberation’ from state economic andfinancial control. In this center-periphery relation, political issues over the removal of U.S. bases
were transformed into economic ones, and political decision-making tended to be an outcome of the‘rational’ choice based on relatively short-term economic calculation.
Unlike discourses against globalization such as seen in the Chiapas rebellion, Mexico, thosefor globalization in Okinawa constituted alternatives to such an instrumental rationality. Although
the problematic of globalization was sometimes presented in the political economic arguments thispaper examined, the framing ‘Okinawa more open to the world’ or ‘Okinawa situated in theinternational trade network’ were represented as ideals substituting for the closeness and fixity of
the nation-state. The prefecture-wide FTZ embodied such an idealistic geopolitical vision and, forthis very reason, induced a great deal of realistic opposition from the sectors protected by theJapanese government.
Part of the Okinawan population continued to need the protection of the nation-state and,
therefore, significant cleavages remained among the local people. The results of the elections andreferenda mentioned above basically followed such cleavages. As long as the cleavages are
reproduced through the center-periphery relations between Okinawa and Japan, a new consensus
over the self-supportiveness of Okinawa will be difficult to construct. Since the concept of
economic globalization failed to construct such a consensus, ‘riding on’ globalization was denied asa way to ‘liberate’ Okinawa, However, it is noteworthy for a locality to make an attempt to detour
25

The result of the 2002 gubernatorial election showed a further decline of the reformist camp. The reformist parties
failed to support a single candidate the first time in post-reversion Okinawa. The election whose result was easily
predicted lowered voter turnout to 57.22%, which was about 20 points lower than the previous election and the lowest in
the gubernatorial elections. Inamine was reelected by the biggest margin (about 210,000 votes) in the gubernatorial
elections (Ryukyu Shimpo 11/18/02).

36

around the structural constraints of the nation-state by opening directly to the world-economy. The
case of Okinawa shows that the concept of economic globalization can become a way to mobilize,
if not liberate, a locality against the pressure of the nation-state. Whether the practical potential of
globalization for localities can be beyond a mere ideological strategy remains to be seen.
The examination of the political dynamism of postwar Okinawa from the viewpoint of thecenter-periphery relations tells us how locality acts against the state in relation to the global political
economy. Okinawa makes a case of such a locality but can be different from other localities. In
order to clarify the significance of this paper in a global context, let us compare Okinawa to Chiapas
in Mexico. In its rebellion in the late 1990s, Chiapas as a locality in Mexico opposed the statewishing to be in the North (NAFTA) in the context of globalization. For Chiapas, opening Mexico
to the globalizing world meant its further marginalization and alienation. Not only the
problematization of globalism but also Mexico’s democratization for locality and local population
were the objectives of the protest. In this sense, the politics of democracy employed in the Chiapas
rebellion had a bottom-up aspect and, therefore, attracted global sympathy.
To the contrary, Okinawa’s protest in the late 1990s was the case where a locality wishing tobe globalized (more connected to the globalizing Asia-Pacific region) protested against the state in
the North. As mentioned in the previous sections, behind this protest was Okinawans’ impatience
with the continuing oppression from and dependence on the state. Several democratic measures
such as referenda as well as the formation of Okinawa’s Grand Design were employed in thisprocess. The wave of protest, however, came to an end under the declining local economy. The
conservative-reformist cleavage, which was constructed during the U.S. military governance tosemi-perpetuate its presence, prevented the radicalization of local protest. From the case of
Okinawa, it can be said that democracy as an institution has an ambivalent meaning; democracy asa legitimate means of revealing political preference (i.e. the politics of democracy from the bottom)
and as a means of control over or mitigation of popular sentiments (i.e. the politics of democracy
from the top). For a peripheral locality such as Okinawa or Chiapas, the implementation of
democratic institutions may become a means of changing its oppressed situation, but thecenter-periphery relations in which the locality is firmly situated may convert such institutions into
a new means of control or more subtle domination. In the process of conversing (watering down)
democracy, as shown in Okinawa, there can be intense conflicts over the geopolitical and/or
geo-economic visions of the locality. Not only the institutional nature of democracy but also thefeasibility of such visions can become a key to determine the fate of the locality and its people.
Therefore, political struggle over any locality may be constructed not only on abstract institutions
but also on realistic or idealistic geographical (re)imaginations of the locality. In other words, thepolitics of democracy in a peripheral locality can be a form of struggle over the geopolitical visionsof the locality.

37References
Agnew, J.A. 1987. Place and Politics: The Geographical Mediation of State and Society. Boston:
Allen & Urwin.
Arakawa A. 2000. Okinawa: togo to hangyaku (Okinawa: Integration and Rebellion). Tokyo:
Chikuma shobo.
Arashiro, T. 1997. Kotogakko Ryukyu Okinawa shi (High School History of Ryukyu and Okinawa).
Naha: Toyokikaku.
Arasaki M. 1996. Okinawa gendaishi (Contemporary History of Okinawa). Tokyo: Iwanami shoten.
Flora, P. ed. 1999. State formation, nation-building, and mass politics in Europe: The theory of
Stein Rokkan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hechter, M. 1999. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development. New
Brunswick (USA): Transaction Publishers.
Higa M. 1965. Okinawa: Seiji to seito (Okinawa: Its Politics and Parties). Tokyo: Chuo koron sha.
Hokama S. 1986. Okinawa no rekishi to bunka (History and Culture of Okinawa). Tokyo: Chuokoron sha.
Hook, G.D. 2003. Responding globalization: Okinawa’s Free Trade Zone in microregional context.
In Japan and Okinawa: Structure and subjectivity, ed. G. D. Hook and R. Siddle, 39-54, London:
RoutledgeCurzon.
Idaka H. 2001. Soto no Okinawa: Aidentiti kuraishisu (Bicephalous Okinawa:Iidentity Crisis).
Tokyo: Gendai kikaku shitsu.
Kokuba K. 1962. Okinawa no nihon fukki undo to kakushin seito: Minzoku ishiki no mondai ni
yosete (Movement for the reversion to Japan and reformist parties in Okinawa: On the issue of theformation of national consciousness). Shiso 452: 215-228.
Makino H. 1996. Saiko okinawa keizai (The Okinawan Economy Reconsidered). Naha: Okinawa
taimusu sha.
Miyagi E. 1968. Okinawa no rekishi (History of Okinawa). Tokyo: Niho hoso shuppan kyokai.
Miyagi E. 2000. Beikoku ryuugaku to kinmon kurabu (Studyin in the U.S. and the Golden Gate
Club). In Okinawa wo shiru jiten (The Encyclopedia to Know Okinawa), ed. “Okinawa wo shiru
jiten” henshu iinkai, 107. Tokyo: Nichigai asoshiehtsu.
Miyazato S. 1966. Amerika no okinawa tochi (The U.S. Governance of Okinawa). Tokyo: Iwanami
shoten.
Miyazato S. 1999. Amerika wa naze okinawa wo nihon kara kirihanasita ka (Why the U.S. Cut off

38

Okinawa from Japan?). Okinawa: Okinawa shi.
Monna N. 1996. America senryo jidai Okinawa genron toseishi (The History of the Regulation of
Freedom of Speech in Okinawa under the U.S. Occupation). Tokyo: Yuzankaku.
Nagumo, K. 1996. Senryoka no Okinawa beigun kichi to rodo undo (U.S. Bases and Labor
Movements under the Occupation). Kyoto: Kamogawa shuppan.
Naikaku soridaijin kanbo kohoshitsu. 1989. Okinawa-kenmin no ishiki ni kansuru yoron chosa(Public opinion survey on the consciousness of the people of Okinawa Prefecture). Tokyo: Naikaku
soridaijin kanbo kohoshitsu.
Nakano Y. and Arasaki M. 1976. Okinawa sengoshi (Postwar History of Okinawa).
Tokyo: Iwanami shoten.
Oguma, E. 1998. “Nihonjin” no kyokai: Okinawa, Ainu, Taiwan, Chosen. Shokuminchi shinai kara
fukki undo made. (The Boundaries of the Japanese: Okinawa, Ainu, Taiwan, and Korea. From theColonial Rule to the Reversion Movements.) Tokyo: Shin’yosha.
Okinawa ken. various years. Okinawa ken tokei nenkan (Okinawa Prefecture Statistical Yearbook).
Naha: Okinawa ken.
Okinawa ken. 2000. Okinawa no beigun kichi oyobi jieitai kichi (Bases of U.S. Military Force andthe Self Defense Forces in Okinawa). Naha: Okinawa ken.
Okinawa ken kyoiku iinkai. 1994. Kokosei no tameno okinawa no rekishi (The History of Okinawa
for High School Students). Naha: Okinawa ken koto gakko shakaika kyoiku kenkyukai.
Okinawa ken tokei ka. 1999. Heisei 11 nendo kenmin keizai keisan (Prefecture People’s Economic
Account in Heisei 11). Naha: Okinawa ken.
Okinawa sengo senkyoshi henshu iinkai. 1984. Okinawa sengo senkyoshi (The Postwar Electoral
History of Okinawa) Vol. 1-3. Naha: Okinawa ken choson kai.
Okinawa sengo senkyoshi henshu iinkai. 1996. Okinawa sengo senkyoshi (The Postwar Electoral
History of Okinawa) Vol. 4. Naha: Okinawa ken choson kai.
Okinawa taimusu sha. 1959-72. Okinawa nenkan (The Okinawa Yearbook). Naha: Okinawa
taimusu sha.
Okinawa taimusu sha. 1996. 50 nenme no gekido: Soshu okinawa beigun kichi mondai (The
Ferment in the Fiftieth Year: The Highlights of U.S. Base Problems in Okinawa). Naha: Okinawa
taimusu sha.
Okinawa taimusu sha. 1997. Okinawa kara: Beigun kichi mondai dokyumento (From Okinawa: The
Documents on the Problems of US Bases). Tokyo: Asahi shimbun sha.
Rokkan, S. & Urwin, D.W. 1983. Economy, territory, and identity: Politics of West European

39peripheries. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Ryukyu seifu. various years. Ryukyu tokei nenkan (Ryukyus Statistical Yearbook). Naha: Ryukyu
seifu.
Ryukyu shimpo sha. 1998. Okinawa konpakuto jiten (Okiawa Compact Encyclopedia). Tokyo:
Ryukyu shimpo sha.
Senaga K. 1991. Senaga kamejiro kaisoroku (Kamejiro Senaga’s Memoirs). Tokyo: Shin nihon
shuppan sha.
Shusho kantei. 1997. Okinawa fukki nijugo-shunen kinen shikiten naikaku sori-daijin shikiji (Prime
Minister’s speech at the 25-Year Anniversary of Okinawa’s Reversion). Available atwww.kantei.go.jp/jp/hasimotosouri/speech/1997/1121soriokinawa.html (accessed July 3, 2003).
Smith, N. 1992. Geography, difference and the politics of scale. In Postmodernism and the Social
Sciences, ed. J. Doherty, E. Graham, and M. Malek, 57-79. London: Macmillan.
Tanaka A. 1997. Anzenhosho: Sengo 50 nen no mosaku (Security: Fifty-Year Search After the War).
Tokyo: Yomiuri shimbun sha.
Toukeikyoku. 2000. Dai 50 kai nihon tokei nenkan (The 50th Edition Japan Statistical Yearbook).
Tokyo: Nihon tokei kyokai.
Watts, M. 2000. North-South. In The Dictionary of Human Geography, ed. R.J. Johnston, D.
Gregory, G. Pratt, and M. Watts, 558. Oxford: Blackwell.
Yamazaki T. 2003. Politicizing territory: The transformation of land struggle in Okinawa, 1956.
Jinbun kenkyu 54 (3rd vol.): 31-65.
Yamazaki T. 2004a. Political Space of Okinawa: Geographical Perspectives on Ethno-Regional
Integration and Protest. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the University of Colorado,
Boulder.
Yamazaki T. 2004b. Dreaming of ‘liberation’ by riding on globalization: Oppositional movements
in Okinawa. In Globalization and its Outcomes, ed. J. O’Loughlin, L. Staeheli, and E. Greenberg,
337-360. New York: Guilford.
Yoshida K. 2001. Democracy Betrayed: Okinawa Under U.S. Occupation. Bellingham: Center for
East Asian Studies, Western Washington University.
Cited newspapers
The Okinawa Taimusu.
The Ryukyu Shimpo.

40