THE ＧＬＯＢＡＬＩＺＡＴＩＯＮ ＆ ＧＯVＥＲＮＡＮＣＥ ＰＲＯＪＥCＴ， ＨＯＫＫＡＩＤＯ ＵＮＩＶＥＲＳＩＴＹＷＯＲＫＩＮＧ ＰＡＰＥＲ ＳＥＲＩＥＳＯＫＩＮＡＷＡ:
Potential of Regional Governance in Japan
during the Era of Globalization
Ⅳ−１２

Jun Shimabukuro, University of the Ryukyus＊

Paper for the Workshop Local Governance in a Global Era –In Search ofConcrete Visions for a Multi-Level Governance, 7-8 December 2001＊

None of these papers should be cited without the author’s permission.

Potential of Regional Governments in Japan during the Era of Globalization
Dec. 7. 2001

OKINAWA:
Potential of Regional Governance in Japan
during the Era of Globalization

SHIMABUKURO Jun, PhD.
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of the Ryukyus

PROLOGUE
The Ryukyu Islands stretch 1,000 kilometers between Kyushu, one of theJapanese main islands, and Taiwan.
four hundred thousand.

The population of the islands is one million andOkinawa is the prefectural name created by the Japanese

Government, in addition to being the name of the largest island.
The Ryukyu Islands have a distinct historical background, and its identity isdifferent from mainland Japan.

In addition, it has experienced quite different

political and administrative systems in the past.
The king of the Ryukyus was formally nominated by the Chinese emperor since
the establishment of the kingdom, and the Kingdom of the Ryukyus remained until
1879 as a tributary state of China. After the annexation by Japan, Ryukyuan {orpeople of Okinawa Prefecture} never enjoyed the same level of civil rights as the rest ofJapan until 1925.
In 1945, the Japanese government made Okinawa as a barricade for the Japanese
mainland.

Their purpose was to concentrate and keep American military power on

the small island and postpone the mainland battle.

After the war, the Japanese

government agreed to transfer its governing rights of the Ryukyu Islands to the U.S.

1

Even after the reversion (re-annexation) of Okinawa to Japan, huge U.S. militarybases remained in opposition of most Okinawan people's hopes. 1 The purpose of thisessay is to clarify the governance of Okinawa in Japan after the Cold-War, the Era of
Globalization.

1 RISING OF GLOBALIZATION
1-1 Impact: End of the Cold War
After the end of the Cold War, the term "Globalization," became the prime
description for the status of the world and its international relations.
This word implies multiple definitions. "Prevailing or compelling American
standards to world economy" may be the best known.

Therefore, anti-globalism

contains anti-American meanings. In this essay, I would not deny this definition, butwould rather use "Globalizations'" wider implications.
The Soviet Union's corruption brought tremendous impact to world systems. As
state economies disappeared, the market economy expanded its territories worldwide.
With confrontation strategy eliminated, negotiation and discussion framework became
the eminent phenomena of military affairs.

Human rights has become theinternational consensus for international intervention.
Globalization implies not only the standardizations of the economic systems, butalso the explosion of international exchange and transmission of PEOPLE,GOODS andMONEY, concluding a fusion of values and systems.
For this analysis, I would like to point out three dimensions of globalization.
First, globalization of the economic system; second, globalization of military affairs;
and last, globalization of human rights.

In every phase, the U.S. superpower is themost influential, of course, but never can control the entire system.
Especially, in terms of human rights globalization, the U.S. has never contributed
but on the contrary, has interrupted establishment of world human rights judicial
systems.

"Human Rights" is just an excuse for U.S. military activities.

2

Globalization has a manifest impact to the Japanese economic system and politicalsystem, as well.

For adjusting to the world free market, most economic organizations,industries, and even government control systems had to be restructured.

The less

control there is to non governmental organizations (companies, NPOs, andlocal-regional

governments etc.) the more direct and huge linkage between theseorganizations and the world.

Voices for fundamental reform had become louder andlouder in the 90's.
Globalization brought, on the one hand, continuous pressure and crisis for local
budget cuts and decreases of fiscal support from the central government.

On the other

hand, there arose new hope for regional development policy which relies oninterregional exchange of resources and products while lowering national bordertensions.
Regional leaders of the Japanese periphery who demanded to keep the amount ofcentral fiscal support, at the same time, had to consider new regional development
strategies and seek more power for regional policy.

1-2 Globalization and Okinawan regional policy framework
Governor Ota, of Okinawa was one of these at the beginning of his tenure in 1990.
He confessed that he anticipatedreplacement of the U.S. military bases on Okinawa

Island would necessarily take place in the near future.

He had just begun to constructa template for this new strategy for future Okinawan development without militarybases and special fiscal support from central government as the cost of maintaining
these bases.
Therefore, he was completely shocked when he read an American government
report which redefined the American military role in East Asia.
report,1995

This, Joseph Nye's

clarified the U.S military presence in Okinawa as the most importantfactor for the security in the Asia-Pacific region and should keep the functions andpersonnel of the military in Okinawa.
In

November,1996,

theOkinawa

Prefectural

Government

issued"The

Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept: Grand Design for a New Okinawa Aiming at
the 21st Century." The first Chapter; I Basic Concepts of the Plan, begins with the3following paragraphs.
Now that the cold war is over, the world is moving toward creating a new global orderwhich fits the structure of the post-cold war era.
Improvements on transportation and dramatic growth in information technology havebrought new levels of activity in trade, investment, and information exchange. The
world economy is growing toward globalization.
Today, the world faces a number of important issues in the structural change ofinternational situations. These include global problems relating to environment,
population, AIDS, increasing racial and regional conflicts, and the North-South
problem in which the economic gaps between the leading nations and the developing
countries are widening in serious proportions.
With its vast land and diversity in people, religion, and social systems, the Asian region
is becoming a growing center for the global economy, and its prospects to achieve
economic growth, which exceeds that of Japan in the near future, is high.

Exchangesof people and commodities within Asia will soon account for most of the world's trade.
As a result, we anticipate a rapid increase of exchange between Japan and the other
Asian countries.
Therefore, it will become increasingly important for our prefecture to be in active
involvement with other Asian countries, while observing developments in regional
economic zones which cross national boundaries (e.g., the Greater South China
Economic Zone) and effects of the forthcoming return of Hong Kong to China.2
This is the first general long-term development plan for Okinawa composed by
the Okinawa Prefectural Government(OPG) since Okinawa's reversion (re-annexation)
to Japan.
At the time of reversion, the Japanese Government declared the economic
development of Okinawa to be the responsibility of the Tokyo Government and made a
special regional branch for Okinawan development and its headquarters, Okinawa
Development Agency(ODA), whose head was nominated by the Prime-Minister as asecretary of the state. Since then, ODA was the main responsible agency for a general4

plan for Okinawan development. OPG could give advise and suggestions to ODA, but
ODA could accept or reject any OPG proposals.
The Third Okinawa development general plan was launched to prepare for the
first year of Ota's Governorship, He tried to put reductions of the U.S. military bases
on Okinawa into the plan, but ODA rejected his demands.

The reason was ODA had

the responsibility for Okinawan economic developments and does not have any
responsibility at all for military affairs and foreign affairs.
One of the most important aims of the Cosmopolitan City Concept was reductionof the U.S. military based on Okinawa as indicated in the following paragraphs.

The U.S. military bases have adverse effects on the community such as limiting socialand economic activity by its restrictions on the use of sea and air space, causing noise
pollution, and destroying the natural environment through military training exercises.
Traffic problems and overcrowding in areas adjacent to the bases create poor
residential conditions and create strains on the prefectural framework.
To remedy this situation, it is vital to promote planned and phased return of the land
used by U.S. military bases, to establish an environment where the people of Okinawa
can live with peace of mind, and to make drastic improvements on the structure of theprefectural framework.3
After the 1995 rape incident by the U.S. servicemen, an anti-base movement
exploded in Okinawa. Ota restated his demands to the Tokyo Government. At thistime, the Okinawan minister, the Director-General of ODA, was a member of thecabinet, but the lowest rank on the list of cabinet members, and had no power tocoordinate ODA's Okinawa policy with the foreign ministry and the defense agency ofJapan.

The Tokyo Government was forced to make a new stronger post in thegovernment, and created the Okinawan minister for portfolio management.
KAJIYAMA Seiroku, Chief Cabinet Secretary, No.2 position in the government,
took over as the newly added ad-hoc Okinawan Minister.

The minister of ODA andorganization of ODA remained, but, after the creation of the new Okinawan post, policy
leadership has moved dramatically to the Chief Cabinet Secretary, the new Okinawan

5minister and his staff.

Later, in January 2000, they absorbed all of the ODA andbecame permanent.
Okinawan demands are much clearer than the Tokyo Government's policy.
Okinawa requires lower taxation and regulation for international trade and enterprise
activities, fiscal support for construction of ports, enlargement of its airport andindustrial parks, and reduction of the U.S. bases.

For Okinawa, all of the above

mentioned elements are necessary and crucial for Okinawan development in Asian
economic integration and economic globalization.
Therefore, a new powerful Okinawan minister was welcomed when Tokyo seemed
to respect Okinawan demands and the relationship between Okinawa and Tokyo was
good.

However, the Tokyo Government never mentioned anything about devolution of

the power to Okinawa in accordance with national policy to Okinawan demands, rather
they denied Okinawa's regional policy in favor of national policy.

The most importantnational policy of Japan is "following the U.S."
Therefore when Governor Ota rejected Tokyo's new offer (maybe last offer fromthe point of view of Tokyo) for relocation of Futemma Air Station to the north-easternrural coast of Nago City, a new system had changed to a powerful ruler of Okinawa
which never permitted Okinawa's original idea of regional development policy.

2 EMERGENCE OF NEW GOVERNACE IN OKINAWA
2-1 From Ota to Inamine
In the 90's, Democratic demands from the people became much larger.

Peopleutilized the referendum for big issues in many local communities in Japan.

In

September 1996, a referendum concerning Okinawa prefecture's U.S. bases reduction
was held.

And in December 1997, Nago City's referendum followed.

Anti-base

movements and civil groups campaign were prominent in both referendums.
Ota decided to accept the rejection of Tokyo's relocation proposal according to thereferendum turnout which resulted in victory of the anti-base side.
Okinawa seemed to be changed to more democratic.

6

Governance ofBut, the Tokyo Government

never admitted this change and used its old style ruling power or even made it harderfor overriding the decisionof Ota.

The Tokyo Government offered a new pork-barrel

system named the Northern Area Development Policy Package; the contents were notclear at all, though.
Tokyo stopped all the development policy negotiation with the Okinawa
Government after Ota's declaration of rejection and began to say "No Base, No Policy
Package."It means if Nago would not accept the new air station, Tokyo would nevergive sufficient fiscal support.

In the terrible long economic recession, the Nago City

mayor accepted the relocation of the U.S. Marines' air station to the east coast of thecity in January 1998.
The upper echelon of Okinawan business and industry felt a horrible threat ofconflict between the Tokyo and Okinawa Government because of the deep dependency
upon public works.

They, at the first time in Okinawan modern political history,

chose a candidate for the next governorship election from their own group members, ahead of Okinawan economic society and also a president of the largest cement company.
Conservative candidate, Mr. Inamine promised Okinawan people a policy
platform of 15 years usage limitation of the new air base in Nago in his campaign.
And he won the election over Ota. Ota's first plan of a total economic free zone of all
prefectural areas was to be reviewed as to be partial and only a small part of Okinawa
Island under influence of business and industries which strongly opposed the openingof the market because of the weak confidence and competence in global markets.
Nago City mayor and Inamine added new demands, including the international
financial tax free area in Nago, to Tokyo's new support plan for Okinawa.
started to develop two mutual contradictory policies at the same time.
was developing the free market oriented economy.

They

Number one

Number two was helping thegovernment supported businesses and industries
The approach of "One State, Two systems" became a sort of slogan to introduce
Okinawa to a different political and economic control system for the first time under
the Ota administration.

Inamine and his supporters still insist upon the slogan but

the meanings of the term now sounds just like tax-relaxation.

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2-2 Globalization of the Japan-U.S. military alliance
Chinese economic growth in these two decades are amazing.

It has impacted the

Okinawan original idea of regional development, although, the growth became a new
threat for both the U.S. and the Japanese Governments in terms of national security.
Therefore, even though the cold war ended or because of the end of the cold war,
Japan and the U.S., in wider terms, searched for a way of the tightening the alliance.
Both country's experience and memory of war with China appeared to be raising thethreat and distrust to this new power.
However, Okinawan people, as a five hundred years friendly nation, could not
sympathize with their recognition of China's threat the same as Japanese mainlanders
and the American nation.

The Chinese threat was not reasonable enough to keep thehuge U.S. bases on Okinawa eternally.
In addition to the policy to the new threat, old type confrontation policy to China,
the American Government requires Japan to be a complementary power of American
global militaristic hegemony which endorses the economic globalization.
A militaristic

globalization

which

was

tightly

connected

globalization became the new trend in Okinawa and Japan.

toeconomic

The Japanese

Government was reluctant to adjust the latter globalization, and delayed the economic
policy negotiation with the international organizations and the American Government.
Instead of adjusting the Japanese economic globalization, they actively responded to
the globalization of the Japan-U.S. security treaty.
As a result,

91% of voters' voices on the reduction of the U.S. bases in thereferendum and a removal plan of the U.S. bases proposed by the Ota Government wasneglected.

Okinawa's dissatisfaction was severely increased.

In 1999, the Prime-Minister Obuchi decided three things which directly relate to
Okinawa's problem.

The first decision is that the G8 summit 2000 hosted by theJapanese Government would be held in Nago City, Okinawa.

And the second isadoption of a report by the prime-minister's advice committee which included famous
Okinawan scholars.

The last is the revision of Local Government Law which include

8

the right of the people concerned to the land expropriated for the U.S. bases.
The G8 summit was held in Okinawa in July 2000.

In March, four months

before the summit, three Okinawan professors advocated a report named "Okinawa
Initiative" at a conference held in Naha, sponsored by Tokyo's organization.

Two ofthem were members or participants of Obuchi's advisory committee.
The report redefined the role of the U.S. bases on Okinawa under the militaristic
globalization.

It was "good" propaganda to Okinawan people for accepting theJapan-U.S. globalizing military alliance and importance of Okinawan bases for it.

Ofcourse, these are also the reasons why they held the summit meeting in Okinawa.
The last is the policy concerning both the redesigning Japanese local governancein general terms and strengthening the special power of the central government for
militaristic purposes. This contained depriving the procedural commitment rights ofthe persons and local governments concerned in the case of land expropriation.
The U.S. bases on Okinawa were constructed under the U.S. rule after the Second
Wold War.

They ignored all the due process of law for small land owners, and justrobbed farmers of fields and properties by the armed troops.

All these are incontradiction of international laws.
After the reacquisition of governing rights of Okinawa, The Japanese
Government had to legitimate this somehow, because the continuous free use of bases
in Okinawa was an absolute condition of the transfer of Okinawa rule.
The pork-barrel policies for the followers and fiscal support cuts threat against
the opposition is the standard policy framework of the Japanese Government.

By thismeasure, many land owner accepted the contract of land lease offered by the Tokyo
Government.

However, there remained the land owners who never accepted the landlease contract.
In accordance with the Japanese Land Expropriation Law, if the land ownerrejected the contract, the Mayor and Governor have to commit the procedure on behalfof land owners and Prefectural Land Expropriation Committee supposed to deliberateeach expropriation case.

9

Before 1995, under strong pressure of the central government, governors signed
the contract instead of land owners, there were no actual deliberations in thecommittee at all because of the pressure of central power.

But, Ota did not sign anddeliberation of the each expropriation case in the committee became actual.
This was the first procedure in Okinawan history that the committee accepted all
the appeals and complaints of contract-refused land owners and their advocacy at themeeting, and accountability of the central government was so demanded in the proper
procedure.
At the moment that new regional governance seemed to be established, thecentral government rejected all the explanations of the reasons for expropriation cases,
and they prepared the revision of law concerned in this case and deprived proceduralcommitment rights of Mayors and Governors and the power of prefectural land
expropriation committee and absorbed them.4
The old type of national interest (we may name it "state interest" here), state
power and state government clashed with new and more democratic types of regional
governance in Okinawa.
2-3 People's Security and Human Rights globalization
The Tokyo Government thought The G8 Okinawa Summit 2000 held in Nago
City would be the final trump card for appeasing and coaxing Okinawan people's
increased discontent and distrust of Tokyo.5 Eighty billion Yen in total had poured fromthe national budget for the summit.

The large proportion of the money was spent in

Okinawa.
Anti-base Okinawa civil groups organized many international conferences before
and after the summit.

During the summit meeting, thousands of foreign government

officers and media staff and Japanese police officers occupied most of the flights to thetiny remote island of Okinawa and its hotel rooms.

Without any strong support

groups from off the island, 25,000 people succeeded to make a human chain
surrounding Kadena Air Base of the U.S. Air Force, the largest base on Okinawa.

10The civil groups made a series of the meetings, and declared the alternative
security regime, "People's Security" in Asia.

The following paragraphs are part of"The Declaration of Okinawa International Forum on Peoples Security Towards
People's Security in the Asia Pacific Region"(July 2, 2000 Urasoe, Okinawa)
Militarized Security: A Source of Our Insecurity
We have reached the conclusion that :The U.S. military, whose presence in the region continues to be centered on theJapanese and South Korean territories and is supported by the ruling elite in many of
our countries, has no intention of protecting the interests of the vast majority of thepeoples of Asia and the Pacific. It serves to safeguard the interest of U.S. hegemony as
the core of neo-liberal globalization which has been plundering our natural resources,
destroying our environment, and exploiting the vast majority of our peoples,particularly women, children, farmers, workers, migrant workers, tribal communities
and indigenous peoples. In other words, it has no other aim but to protect corporate
profit and U.S. and allied economic interests. The expansion of U.S. military power inthe region, in alliance with Japan, is a form of military globalization, shaping,protecting, and often enforcing political and economic globalization, and serves as athreat to, and not as a guarantee of, our security as peoples.
Our action toward people's security
It is people's security that is subverted and undermined by corporate-led globalization,
the acceleration of which is the agenda of the G-8 Summit in Nago. Ultimately, it is
this process of destructive globalization that is guarded by the U.S. military presence.
And ultimately, the struggle for equality, decent work and standards of living, genderequality, and ecological stability cannot be separated from the dismantling of
oppressive military structures.
Acting together, we must:-Come to terms with our own histories, with the complicity of our societies, and of ourown selves, in the toleration or perpetuation of violence or violent structures, relationsand values. We must endeavor to raise our mutual trust by being sensitive to thelikelihood of this complicity permeating our mutual relationships.
- This is especially urgent in Japan, whose government and people still have to takeresponsibility for their imperial past including aggression, colonial domination and11accompanying atrocities such as military sexual slavery. Furthermore, they must
assume responsibility for the impact of current Japanese economic domination andre-emerging militarism. This applies in different ways to the United States.
- Overcome through frank dialogue and interaction the people-to-people conflicts,
hatreds, and suspicions of the past that have often been instigated by the war
machinery itself and allow the U.S. military to pose as the "preserver of the peace" andprevent us from creating the regional structures to solve our problems among
ourselves.
- Address the situation of conflicts in our own societies and work towards the buildingof mutual trust and respect amongst our communities, nations, and peoples. One
community's security should never be another community's insecurity.
-Work towards a peaceful and de-militarized and nuclear-free Asia-Pacific region which
promotes alternative ways of people-to-people and state-to-state cooperation and which
is based on multilateral systems enhancing people's security.
- Take action so that people's security is pursued and created not only in the military,
diplomatic, and political areas but also in the areas of everyday life, such as family,
gender relations, social movement, and culture.6

Activities of a civil association, Indigenous People in the Ryukyus(IPR) is uniqueand important in terms of People's Security and globalization of human rights.

Theysend their members to the human rights committees and conferences of the U.N. all
most every year in these past five years.
They present the military depression and human rights offences in Okinawa fromthe point of view of international human rights laws.

And, they collaborated to makea counter-report to the Japanese Government which has an influence to the discussion
to the committees.

In March 2001, a commission ordered the Japanese Governments,

who had never admitted any human rights offences in Okinawa by their state security
policies including the U.S. bases, to scrutinize and report Okinawan human rights
affairs.

12

Furthermore they sent one of their members to the East Timor, Indonesia as anelection watch volunteer.
security.

NGOs are the crucial actor for this kind of preventive

And the role of NGOs in security is doubtlessly expanding.

These phenomena are the examples of reasons why the U.S. Government is
oppose to ratification of most human rights laws and establishment of an International
Criminal Court, which will be the global organization for criminal justice.

There is ahigh possibility (maybe "risk" for the U.S.) of legal litigation concerning American
military activities by the global institutions and laws which can not be controlled byAmerica.
The civil activities recently observed in Okinawa are so-called anti-globalism inmany contexts.

Actually it is against an American led economic and militaristic

globalization even though, it is globalized civil activities and still a dimension of
globalization.

I would rather globalization of Human Rights.

CONCLUSION
Economic and military globalization dominated by America was the big trend in
the 90's.

The G8 Summit was planned to be held in Okinawa in order to define

Okinawa as a keystone of this trend.
On the contrary, Anti-American-led-globalism also became globalized.
civil society became globalized too.

A global civil society is rising.

OkinawanNGOs and global

justice organizations developed the definition of human rights more fruitfully,
adjusting diversity and universality.
Global human rights NGOs and organizations, used to be a closed Western richpeople's volunteer circles, are opening their door to all the minority, indigenous andpoorest people in the world.

And their humanitarian activities became more and more

important for world peace.

The values of peace, liberty and human rights areprevailing all over the world.
Can American so-called "New War" reverse these trends backward in the name ofholy war protecting civilization?

Is a "Global Totalitarianism" led by the U.S. coming

13

next?

Can the continuous war condition legitimate government's restrictions ofhuman fundamental rights?

I hope "NOT."

humanity's development in history.

I would rather like to believe

In other words, development of more democratic

governance is inevitable in the world.
Okinawan politics have to be analyzed in this global context. And changes ofgovernance of Okinawa have to be reshaped, more by the Okinawan people, not by
Tokyo. All of the old style government powers, revision of laws, media control, andpork-barrel, etc., were fully mobilized to sustain the support for the Tokyo
Government's policy in these 5 years.

However, policies and systems neglecting thedesire for Okinawan democratic governance would inevitably fail.

The development of

more democratic governance is inevitable, even in this country.

Notes:
1 Shimabukuro, Jun "Regionalism in Japan: Is it comparable to West European

Experiences," Journal of Island Studies, World Association for Island Studies,
Volume 2,No.1 Spring 1999,pp65-74.
2 Okinawa Prefectural Government "The Cosmopolitan City Formation Concept: Grand
Design for a New Okinawa Aiming at the 21st Century," November,1996,.
OPG official web-site URL:http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/96/kokusaitoshi/tosiindex.html
3 op.cit.
4 Sasamoto-Collins, Hiromi and Shimabukuro, Jun "OKINAWA: State Power and Civil
Resistance, "Bulletin of the College of Education, Universtiy of the Rykyus,No58,
March,2001,pp257-282.
5 Gabe, Masaaki “Okinawa Summit No Solution” Japan Quarterly, January-March
2000, pp. 10-16.
6 Okinawa International Forum "The Dclaration of Okinawa International Forum on
People's Security: Towards People's Security in the Asia Pasific
Region"Urasoe,Okinawa July 2,2000.
URL:http://www.jca.ax.org/ppsg/Doc/urasoede.htm

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