The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 9 (1998)

US-Japan Relations and the Media in the
Information Age:
Coverage of the American Bases Issue in
Okinawa
Reimei OKAMURA*
Daito Bunka University

INTRODUCTION
It has become common parlance in academia and the media to talkabout to the “information age” that is profoundly affecting societies
throughout the globe. While no one is likely to be able to predict theeventual outcome of these developments, one thing is certain—an
information revolution is occurring and its impact on individuals andsocieties will require a broader and deeper understanding of the process underway in order to meet the challenges of these complex transformations. As a conduit for the ﬂow of information, the media has animportant role to play in this process. Journalists will have to understand the signiﬁcance of the information that they report in order totransmit that information accurately and effectively.
The study of international media is particularly concerned with theeffects that this information revolution will have on international relations.1 In the case of US-Japan relations, for example, technologicalinnovations and regulatory changes have spurred an increase in themutual exchange of information between the two countries, particularCopyright © 1998 Reimei Okamura. All rights reserved. This work may be
used, with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of thiswork may be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.
5

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REIMEI OKAMURA

ly over the last decade or so. But the increased volume of information
does not necessarily signify greater mutual understanding between thetwo nations. As we saw in the “Japan bashing” of the 1980s and theearly 1990s, biased and sensationalized reporting in both countries canfuel bilateral antagonism rather than foster mutual understanding and asearch for solutions.
From September 1995 to March 1996, I conducted research andinterviews at the Shorenstein Center for Press Politics at the Kennedy
School, Harvard University. My initial purpose for going to the UnitedStates was to research recent developments in media technologies andgovernment/press relations, including the US presidential campaign
and the media’s coverage of it. However, it was during this time thatquestions concerning the Security Treaty and the stationing of US
troops in Japan became a pressing political issue after the rape of ayoung school girl in Okinawa by three American marines. The incident sparked a wave of protest in Okinawa against the American bases
and spread to include debates about the future of US bases in Okinawa
and the US-Japan security arrangements in the post-Cold War period.
I left for the United States just after the incident took place and thus
was able to observe the unfolding of events in the Japanese andAmerican media. I was impressed by how instrumental the media wasin internationalizing the incident and bringing it to the attention of not
only the general public in the United States and Japan, but also to thehighest levels of government in both countries. Some argue that technological changes in recent years, exempliﬁed by the spread of theInternet, will reduce the role of traditional news media like newspapers and television in our society, but if the case in Okinawa is any
indication of what is to come, the role of the media in international
relations has the potential to increase rather than decrease in importance.
I

THE MEDIA IN US-JAPAN RELATIONS—A BACKGROUND

Former US ambassador to Japan Mike Mansﬁeld was often heard
saying that the most important bilateral relationship in the world wasthat between the United States and Japan. His words connote different
meanings to each side of the relationship and it is through the mass
media that messages like Mansﬁeld’s are transmitted to wider segments of the population in both countries. On the one hand, they

US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

7

appear as an attempt to get average Americans to realize that Japan ismore important to the United States than most think, while at the sametime Mansﬁeld seems to be warning the Japanese that they must bear
more responsibilities and not take US-Japan relations for granted.
While Mansﬁeld’s words were reiterated many times in the media inboth countries,2 in the exchange of information between the UnitedStates and Japan, it has often been considered a problem that a greatvolume of news about the United States is reported in Japan, but reporting on Japan in the United States has been very limited. According
to a study by the Japan Newspaper Association Research Institute,Japan is a massive importer of information from overseas, especiallyof newspaper articles from the United States.3 As for television, a detailed study conducted by the Mansﬁeld Center for Paciﬁc Affairs, theNHK Broadcasting Culture Institute, and the Japan National Association of Commercial Broadcasters Research Institute indicated that theamount of reporting on the United States in Japan was about twelve
times greater than the reporting on Japan in the United States.4
While it is clear that there is a gap when comparing the volume ofreporting between the two countries and that in Japan there is a long
history of importing information from other countries, it is also safe to
say that reporting on Japan in the United States has progressively increased in the last 30 to 40 years. Looking back on my personal experience as a student in the United States at the beginning of the 1960s, it
seems hard to believe the substantial changes that have taken place.
During the month of September, 1961, for example, there was only
one article on Japan printed in the New York Times—a scandal involving a Japanese politician. Nowadays, however, rarely is there a day
when there is not an article concerning Japan in the major newspapers.
In addition, there have been changes in television reporting ofinternational news in the United States. Television news reporting was
until quite recently centered on the three major networks (NBC, ABC
and CBS), but since the 1980s technological advancements in satellites
and cable television, combined with deregulation of the televisionindustry, have made possible the development of specialty news stations like CNN and other news channels like CNBC, MSNBC and Fox
News. As a result of this propagation of specialty news stations, theopportunities for reporting on Japan have increased and the volume ofcoverage of Japanese news in the United States has expanded substantially in recent years.5

8

REIMEI OKAMURAIn the days when the three major networks dominated television
broadcasting, the time allotted to news coverage was a mere 24 minutes a program,6 and the time allotted to international news was evenmore limited, especially news about Japan. Some would argue ofcourse that there was a substantial number of news stories, but because
the time was limited it was difﬁcult to make anything more than shallow generalizations of important events. With the spread of specialty
news stations, however, the opposite is true in that news material,
including international news, is in demand to ﬁll in the news broadcasts.7 It is questionable, though, if the demand for news about Japan
has increased proportionately with the demand for news in general.
Another important development is the internationalization of information exchange. It is quite common in Japan to speak about johohasshin, or the “transmission of information,” which refers to the recognized need in the information age to send more information fromJapan in order to increase mutual understanding with other states andpeoples, so we are likely to see an increase in information about Japan
made available in the United States and elsewhere.
Undoubtedly, the development of information technologies has
allowed the transmission of tremendous amounts of information between the two countries. Since the 1980s, news from Japan is receiving more coverage in American newspapers, magazines and television.
For television in particular, programs from Japan have been madeavailable through cable and satellite broadcasts, while American television networks commonly use Japanese footage of events in Japan.
Major Japanese newspapers have also been printing and selling satellite transmitted international versions of their Japanese news coveragein Japanese and English.8 In addition, although the growth of theInternet in Japan still trails the United States, many Japanese newspapers, research institutes and government agencies have bilingual home
pages that are accessible from anywhere in the world. Reports ofevents in one country are often transmitted to another country and thecoverage of news itself becomes newsworthy. This is by no means a
new phenomenon, but the speed and volume of this ﬂow has expanded
tremendously in the last few years.
While these technological and regulatory developments have led toa greater ﬂow of information, at times this exchange of information
has not necessarily led to a greater understanding between the UnitedStates and Japan. The media on both sides of the Paciﬁc spurred ten-US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

9sions during the height of trade friction in the 1980s and early 1990s.
In contrast, some of the changes in the 1990s have been described as ashift from “Japan bashing” to “Japan passing.”9 While originally theterm “Japan passing” referred to disinterest in the Japanese market
after the burst of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, it is applicable to some extent for media coverage as well. The attention directed
toward Japan has decreased recently in all forms of media, whether
printed or televised, and this was epitomized during the 1996 presidential election when “Japan bashing” and other issues concerned withJapan were almost nonexistent.
One of the reasons for the reduction in Japan bashing is that the
1990s have witnessed a resurrection of American conﬁdence and thethreat from Japan appears to have withered away. With the end of theCold War structure, symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989,
the United States is the only military superpower and gives the impression of seeing itself as the hegemon on the world’s stage.10 From a
media perspective at least, the recognition that the threat from Japanhas passed and that even economically the United States has regained
its supremacy is exquisitely expressed by “Japan passing.”
II

COVERAGE OF THE RAPE IN OKINAWA—A TRIANGULARPERSPECTIVE

Despite the trend towards lesser coverage of Japan in the early
1990s, the rape of a young school girl by three American marines in
September 1995 escalated into a huge media event in both countries. It
sparked an intense opposition to the American bases in Okinawa that
had been smoldering amongst the local population for quite sometime. There was tremendous frustration resulting from the obstacles
the Japanese police faced when investigating the rape, while the factthat the suspects were not handed over right away to Japanese authorities for prosecution further increased the people of Okinawa’s grievances. It was natural that the focus of the incident shifted to dissatisfaction about the American bases themselves.
Against the background of the renewed sense of conﬁdence inAmerica’s position as the world’s military, political and economic
hegemon, and despite continued trade disputes and the volatile currency ﬂuctuations between the yen and the dollar, the atmosphere surrounding the bilateral relationship before the rape in Okinawa was

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REIMEI OKAMURA

relatively tranquil. It seemed that the Japanese in particular were indulging in a kind of peaceful dream. Despite some worries that Japanwas being relegated to a position of lesser importance for the UnitedStates, there was certainly relief in many quarters that the emotionaland sensational Japan bashing had subsided. In this dream-like atmosphere, who could have expected that a single event in the latter half of1995 would raise questions about the very foundations of the USJapan relationship?
Because the American bases are heavily concentrated in Okinawa(about three quarters of US forces stationed in Japan are located in
Okinawa) and because there was little hope this reality would change
in the future, the anger in Okinawa then shifted to the Japanese government and to the people in the rest of Japan. The strong response of
the Okinawans led to heightened demands for revision of the USJapan Security Treaty, especially the Status of Forces Agreement andreductions in, or complete removal of, the bases in Okinawa. Reporting of the incident reached its height when more than 65,000 Okinawans participated in a rally opposing the bases. The incident therefore
moved from anger against three men who raped an innocent young girlto anger against US military personnel and the US bases themselves,
and against the Japanese and US governments and the Japanese people
on the mainland.11
The media, especially the press in Okinawa, was instrumental in theescalation of the incident, and the unfolding of events demonstrated
the important role the media plays in international relations in theinformation age. In analyzing the reporting of the rape in Okinawa, it
is necessary to consider the interaction of three sources of reporting:the press in Okinawa, the Japanese national press (or for Okinawans,the mainland press) and the American media.
Local rivalry in Okinawa
The press in Okinawa played an extremely important role in politicizing the rape and bringing it to the attention of not only the press inJapan and the United States, but also to the highest level of government in both countries. There are two major dailies in Okinawa, theOkinawa Times, which has been circulating since before World War
Two, and the Ryukyu Shinpo, established during the American occupation. While their handling of internal Okinawan affairs differs, they are

US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

11both critical of the American bases. The existence of two local newspapers of approximately the same size (they both have a circulation of
about 200,000) and focus is quite uncommon in Japan where most
local markets are monopolized by one regional paper. The ﬁerce competition between the two papers in Okinawa encourages extensive
coverage from various angles of all events, and this rivalry was animportant element in the escalation of events.
The rape happened on September 4, 1995 and was ﬁrst reported in
Okinawa by the Ryukyu Shinpo in the evening edition of September 8
in a small article of only two paragraphs. The next morning,
September 9, the Ryukyu Shinpo reported the incident again, but the coverage was only moderate, mentioning the three suspects as UnitedStates marines and the refusal by the United States military to handover the suspects to Japanese authorities.
In contrast, on the morning of September 9, the rival newspaper, theOkinawa Times, ran extensive coverage of the rape with close to fullpage coverage of the incident in its “Shakai-men” or city news page.12
It also ran commentaries on the problems of the transfer of suspects toJapanese police and demands for the revision of the Status of Forces
Agreement. It introduced the American argument that the rights ofAmerican citizens would not be properly guaranteed because of theJapanese judicial system, and the problem of the Status of Forces Agreement with South Korea which was taken up by the New York Times in
May 1995.13
The coverage by the Okinawa Times sparked a huge media campaign in the two local newspapers. The Ryukyu Shinpo ran a story at
the top of its front page on September 12 describing the incident,
Governor Masahide Ohta’s strong reaction, demands for a revision of
the Status of Forces Agreement, problems surrounding the land thatwas leased for the bases, and the apology by the American consul general. It also ran related articles in the Society section and the second
page of the newspaper. The same day, the Okinawa Times ran a story
on its front page and related articles in its Society section, which
included a demand for the revision of the Status of Forces Agreement.
As unfortunate as it may seem, cases of rape and murder by American
servicemen in Okinawa are not unknown, so the extent to which theincident was taken up in Okinawa was remarkable. There are two possible explanations for why the Okinawan press took up this one incident so actively. One of course is that, as rivals, both newspapers did

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REIMEI OKAMURA

not want to be outdone by the other and thus were keen on reporting as
much as possible once the Okinawa Times ran its ﬁrst extensive coverage. The second possible explanation, though, is related to a statementby the head of the prefectural education department, who suggested
that this case could lead to calls for revision of the Status of Forces
Agreement and demands to halt the renewal of leases for base land. It
appears, therefore, that the press in Okinawa was quite aware from the
beginning of the serious implications of the rape for the bases in Okinawa.
In effect, it was the combination of these two factors that led to suchintensive coverage. The rivalry between the two papers meant that theincident received wide coverage throughout Okinawa and tapped into
an anti-base movement that had been brewing for some time. In areferendum on the base issue a year after the rape, for instance, a vast
majority supported Governor Ohta’s demands for a reduction or evena removal of the bases in Okinawa, and this was representative of
Okinawan feelings toward the bases in general that went far beyond
the rape incident. The reporting set off a chain reaction that included
both the rivalry of the two papers and the statements concerning thebases issue made by high ofﬁcials in the Okinawan government.
US coverage
From the early stages of the incident, the media in the United States
covered developments in Okinawa fairly and accurately, more than I
had expected. While the events in Okinawa were being taken up extensively in Japan, reporting on Okinawa from the end of September into
October, November and December also increased in the United States.
The initial mention of the incident was later than that in Japan, but theﬁrst reports in the American media focused extensively on the politicalbackground of the incident. In the United States, the ﬁrst major newspaper to take up the incident was the Washington Post, which ran extensive coverage of the Okinawan issue in its international section on
September 20.14 The chief correspondent in Tokyo was sent toOkinawa to cover the story and an article of over 1200 words was dispatched from Naha, the capital city of Okinawa.15 The report was
remarkable in its coverage of the major issues involved. It started withthe apology from US Ambassador Walter Mondale to the Okinawan
governor Masahide Ohta and reported on the total number of rapes by

US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

13

US troops in Okinawa, the opposition movement in Okinawa, and thepolitical background of the redeﬁnition of the US-Japan Security
Treaty.16
The New York Times ran a similar story sent from its bureau inTokyo in its international section the same day.17 In both cases theAmerican reports recognized the main issues involved and the media
was relatively quick in reporting the incident. American television networks, using materials from Japanese news programs, started reporting
the incident around September 10, and the ﬁrst news station to intensively take up the issue was CNN.
While reporting was not as extensive as in Japan, the incident continued to make the news in the United States and was followed byreports of the Status of Forces Agreement, the redeﬁnition of the USJapan Security Treaty, the problem of the land appropriated for thebases, the police investigation, the hand-over of the suspects toJapanese authorities, and the trial. Not only the ofﬁcial reports by the
US and Japanese governments, but also comments from Okinawan
citizens and protesters were included, and of particular note was a longspecial story on Governor Ohta.
The Japanese press
The beginning of the reporting on the rape in Okinawa in theJapanese national press was nothing of great notice. The rape was ﬁrst
reported in the mainland press in the Asahi Shinbun on the morning of
September 9, 1995, the day after it was ﬁrst reported in Okinawa.18
Like the ﬁrst Okinawan reports, the treatment of the incident was
minimal and the Asahi ran only one paragraph of about ten lines in its
City section. The Mainichi Shinbun ran a similar article of only twoparagraphs in the evening edition of September 9, while radio and television reporting of the incident in Tokyo was also limited.19
Three possible reasons can be given for the minimal coverage of therape in the Japanese national media. First, as mentioned above, crimesby American soldiers, including rape and murder, are not an unknown
phenomenon in Okinawa, and perhaps the Japanese press did not feel
this crime warranted any particular attention. Second, as is usual,
reports of the incident were duly discouraged by authorities in theJapanese government hoping to prevent the issue from being politicized, and there is a tendency in Japanese journalism to take heed of

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REIMEI OKAMURA

such political pressure.20 Finally, Japanese journalists did not emphasize the connection between the bases in Okinawa, the redeﬁnition of
the US-Japan Security Treaty and the United States’ new global strategy, and they failed to foresee the complications that were sparked by
the incident.21
After the incident had become a major news event in Okinawa, coverage of the incident spread throughout the Japanese national media
like wildﬁre. The incident developed into a huge media event as television networks ran sweeping coverage daily, while newspapers throughout the country mobilized all their forces. Table 1 gives an example ofthe volume of coverage the incident received once it had been taken up
by the mainland Japanese press. Articles and pictures appeared in all
sections as well as in editorials, commentaries and columns throughout
the newspapers.22 However, it took a surprising amount of time for theJapanese national media to take up the incident in full force. The minimal coverage by the Japanese media immediately after the incident
can be attributed in part to the moderate treatment of the rape in the
Okinawa media, and undeniably, the ensuing process from the rape tothe calls for revision of the Status of Forces Agreement was a result
the extensive coverage by the two papers in Okinawa. Even after thetwo Okinawan dailies shifted emphasis from the rape to the Status ofForces Agreement and the leases for base land, however, the papers inTokyo were slow to focus on anything concerning the SFA for nearlya week.
Interaction and reaction
In comparing the media coverage in Okinawa, the Japanese mainTable 1. Volume of Reporting in the United States and Japan
1995
September
OctoberNovember
DecemberAsahi Shinbun
88
227 + 7*160 + 5*44 + 6*

New York Times
3
7
20
11

Total

519 + 18* (537)41* Special reports and feature articles.

US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

15

land and the United States, there was a remarkable process of interaction and reaction between the three groups. The ﬂow of informationfrom the press in Okinawa to the people of Okinawa, then to thenational media in both the United States and Japan, and then to thegovernments of both countries was a prime example of how public
participation in the political process transmitted through the media canhave repercussions on international relations. Not only did the press
heed to the pressure from Japanese authorities, but also the incident
did not really enter the highest level in the Japanese media until
American newspapers had taken up the issue. Reporting on Okinawa
reached the front pages of Japanese newspapers around the same timethat it did in the United States and the reports in the American newspapers were widely covered in the Japanese press.23
Okinawa and US post-Cold War strategy
The issues reported in American, Japanese and Okinawan media
escalated from the original reports of a rape of a young girl to discussion of revising the Status of Forces Agreement, the renewal of theleases for base land, and then to the US-Japan Security Treaty, including the current discussions about the new guidelines for security cooperation, and to the larger questions of US-Japan relations in general.
The reactive nature of the Japanese coverage was pointed out earlier,but the greatest shortfall of the Japanese media was its emphasis on
only the rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl. What the Japanese journalists failed to adequately convey to the Japanese public was that theincident happened at a time when the presence of US bases in
Okinawa was already being seriously questioned by the people of
Okinawa. As Governor Ohta persuasively stated after the event, theissue of the American bases did not start after the rape in September,but rather in February of the same year when the United States
released a report underlining its strategy in Asia. It is clear that theJapanese media failed to focus on the connection between the incident
in Okinawa and the United States’ global strategy, in contrast to their
American counterparts.
The key to understanding the bases issue in Okinawa is the “EastAsia Strategic Report” (EASR), which is the Pentagon’s blueprint for
its strategy in East Asia after the Cold War, including the role of US
military forces in Japan, the US-Japan Security Treaty and the bases in

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REIMEI OKAMURA

Okinawa. The central ﬁgure behind this report was Joseph Nye, whoseviews of US strategy and the American media’s understanding of thatstrategy in the post-Cold War world are particularly important for highlighting the different coverage of the incident in Okinawa.24 The report
was made public on February 28, 1995 and widely reported in the
media in Japan and the United States. Coverage in Japan was especially intense because the Asahi scooped its contents on February 23, ﬁve
days before the ofﬁcial announcement and the Mainichi ran an exclusive interview with Nye around the same time.25 The importance of thereport and the reaction to it was not limited to the closed circle of ofﬁcials and politicians involved, but received interest from a wide arrayof Japanese concerned with US-Japan relations.26
The key point of the report was that, because of the fear of continued instability in East Asia after the end of the Cold War, the UnitedStates should maintain 100,000 troops, concentrated in Japan and
Korea, to maintain stability in East Asia.27 More importantly, becauseof the situation on the Korean Peninsula, US forces in Korea would
have to be stationed there, whereas it became clear that the troops inJapan were to be “roaming” troops for strategic response to emergencies in the region and beyond. Therefore the maintenance of the USJapan Security Treaty was essential for the stability of the entire region. The report implied that the most important issue for US-Japan
relations is security, including an area that extends beyond theJapanese islands to include a more regional coverage.
In addition, two other important points stand out in the report. The
ﬁrst is that it dealt with the next ten years, and was premised on the
belief that in order to maintain stability it would be necessary to keep
the 100,000 US troops in the region for ten years. The second point
was that the EASR was one part of a trilogy that included Europe andthe Middle East. The signiﬁcance of this is that the report was part of
the US global strategy and meant that US troops in Asia, in particularin Japan and even more so in the bases in Okinawa, could be sent to
the Persian Gulf. Therefore, the redeﬁnition of the US-Japan Security
Treaty, including the maintenance of bases in Okinawa, has global aswell as regional implications.
On the one hand, this type of report is just one of the strategic
reports that are regularly issued by the Pentagon. After the end of
the Cold War, reports and reevaluations of strategic frameworks weremade in 1990 and 1992, and in principle these were made public. In

US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

17

this sense, the Japanese media might be forgiven for not recognizing
the true nature of this report. The EASR issued in February of 1995,
however, was particularly important, especially from the point of viewof the Okinawan base issue and US-Japan relations. This is so because
the EASR was not just another strategic report, but was a completely
new conceptualization of America’s strategy for East Asia based on
the actual and perceived changes in world politics. A cornerstone of
the strategy, the US-Japan Security Treaty, was not just the maintenance of the bilateral treaty, but also was a new strategic framework ﬁtinto an old treaty. The form of the old treaty remained, but the treaty
was transformed into something else as though a completely new
treaty had been drafted.
The background to the Okinawa incident is important because,
while the Japanese media were aware of the Nye report to a considerable extent and covered the new strategic plan of the United States,
during the reporting on Okinawa they did not fully report the background connection between the opposition movement in Okinawa andAmerican global strategy. For the American side, the rape in Okinawa
had implications for the maintenance of the bases in Okinawa, theredeﬁnition of the US-Japan Security Treaty, US-Japan relations, thepost-Cold War strategy in East Asia and the global strategy of theUnited States as the world’s remaining superpower. This was recognized and clearly conveyed by the American media.
In contrast to the American media’s logical treatment of the key
issues, the Japanese media dealt with mainly emotional issues like themisfortune of the young girl and the unfortunate circumstance of
Okinawa which has a history of being caught between both the US and
the Japanese central government’s policies. Undeniably these issues
are very important for the media to take up, especially since they deal
with the pain that Okinawans have had to endure in the past and thepresent. At the same time, however, the Japanese media did not focus
on the broader implications of the event for the US-Japan Security
Treaty, US-Japan relations and America’s hegemonic strategy in the
post-Cold War world. As a result of the EASR, Okinawa’s fate as acornerstone of US global strategy for at least ten years was sealed. The
Japanese media became so involved in reporting mainly the victimization of the young girl and of Okinawa’s disproportionate share of US
bases in Japan that they failed to see that the Okinawan opposition also
stemmed from the fear of being a pawn in America’s global strategy.

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REIMEI OKAMURA

Table 2 illustrates graphically the development of the coverage ofthe incident in the Japanese and American media and indicates that theAmerican media made a much more focused analysis of the global
implications of the American bases in Okinawa.
Table 2. Unfolding of Media Coverage in the United States and Japan
Japanese MediaAmerican Media

rape
rape
↓
↓
Japanese police/Status of Forces
military/police/Status of Forces
Agreement
Agreement↓↓bases in Okinawa/anti-baseanti-base movement/threat to bases
movement↓↓
threat to redefinition of the security
pity for the Okinawans’ pain
treaty↓↓emotional reporting
logical reportingIII

THE MEDIA IN THE GLOBAL INFORMATION AGE

The information edge
In addition to the EASR compiled by Nye, an article he co-authoredwith William A. Owens in Foreign Affairs entitled “America’s Information Edge” is of interest for what it suggests about the backgroundto the EASR.28 Nye and Owens’ central argument is that the information revolution has changed the nature of international security, where
we can potentially speak of an “information umbrella” to replace thenuclear umbrella. In addition, the American information edge will be a“force multiplier of American diplomacy including ‘soft power’—theattraction of American democracy and free markets.”29 One of thepoints that Nye and Owens stress is that in order for the informationumbrella to work it requires a certain amount of openness and accessto information among allies.
The information umbrella thesis smells strongly of American attempts to dominate the world as the only truly global superpower.
However, the recognition that we are moving into an age in which

US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

19

information and knowledge are power in themselves is obvious, andthis suggests some important aspects of the information age other thanmilitary affairs that will have an impact on international relations. The
transmission and manipulation of information is likely to have profound repercussions not only on military security but also on a broader
deﬁnition of security that includes economic, environmental and individual security.
Undoubtedly, Okinawa will play a key role if an information umbrella is achieved, especially considering the military surveillance rolethat Okinawa presently performs and the importance of the US-Japan
Security Treaty in East Asia.30 However, the information umbrella thesis has contradictory implications for the Okinawan bases issue in particular. On the one hand, in order for the information umbrella to succeed, it will require a certain amount of openness, as Nye and Owens
argue. However, openness of information in a more general sense will
also permit the general public to make their views known. In terms of
military security, for instance, US-Japan security cooperation will
require the continued presence of the bases in Okinawa, but the
Okinawans are likely to argue that their personal security would bebetter preserved if the bases were reduced or even removed from theislands. In this tension between the sharing of information between
governments and the expression of citizens’ demands in an open society, the media’s role as a conduit and distributor of information is
likely to increase.
The media and public participation in decision making
The media coverage of the events in Okinawa demonstrated how
important public participation is in forcing governments to act. The
incident in Okinawa escalated not because of initial high-level involvement of the American and Japanese governments but because thepeople in Okinawa and their local representative, Governor Ohta, wereable to express their anger through the media. In Japan, the central
government was forced to deal with the incident despite attempts torestrain the media’s coverage. In the United States as well, President
Clinton’s radio address on September 23, 1995 spoke about the rape in
Okinawa. It is likely that Clinton and his advisers felt it necessary to
respond to the American people, and indirectly to the Japanese
populace.

20

REIMEI OKAMURAIn the past, diplomacy between states was a very closed affair, withinformation hidden from the public view. However, in the informationage, policy making is no longer solely the domain of politicians,bureaucrats and diplomats. Public participation, transmitted throughthe media via print, audio or visual means, has the potential to shapeand change the course of international relations. Despite attempts tothe contrary, governments are no longer able to suppress all pertinent
information and the media has an important role in the transmission of
the public’s will. Policy is no longer the domain of the power elite,
even in Japan where the government has historically tended to control
the press.
Manipulation of information through the mass media
While governments are forced more and more to gain approval for
their policies and to respond to public demands that are transmitted
through the media, it is quite clear that they are also capable of manipulating information internationally for their own purposes. What thissuggests is that in the information age governments, with the UnitedStates being a prime example, are increasingly utilizing a two-edged
strategy of disclosure and concealment to achieve their foreign policy
goals. When diplomacy was a matter for diplomats behind closed
doors, the emphasis was on preventing information from reaching the
public in general, whereas we are increasingly witnessing the selecteddisclosure of information to manipulate the general public.
The redeﬁnition of the US-Japan Security Treaty is an example ofthis trend. Throughout the process of “redeﬁning” the security treaty,much emphasis has been placed on the “maintenance” of the treaty
despite the fact that the role envisioned for Japan in America’s postCold War global strategy is a major redeﬁnition of the treaty’s initial
purpose and is actually an attempt to restructure the security relationship within the skeleton of the existing treaty. It is clear that the UnitedStates had a schedule and an agenda in mind when it was drafting the
EASR and reconsidering US-Japan security relations. The Asia Paciﬁc
Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Osaka in November 1995,
when the American and Japanese leaders were scheduled to meet, wassupposed to be the highlight of that schedule.
Already in January 1995 President Clinton spoke of the reafﬁrmation of the commitment to maintain the US-Japan Security Treaty. In a

US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

21

meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in thesame month the United States proposed a redeﬁnition of the US-Japan
Security Treaty and the maintenance of bases in Okinawa. When the
two leaders met, the Japanese side seemed to agree to all the proposals. Many Japanese had doubts as to why the United States wanted tomaintain the US-Japan Security Treaty, the raison d’être of which was
based on Cold War thinking, even after the Cold War had ended, butthere is no indication that Prime Minister Murayama expressed any
reservations about the American proposal. In fact, having recently renounced the long-standing opposition to the US-Japan Security Treatyof his Socialist Party, it must have seemed to the Americans that everything would go as planned.
In early 1995, Nye released a memo of the “Nye Initiative” to US
politicians, high-level bureaucrats, diplomats, journalists and others
outlining the ideas of the EASR before its ofﬁcial announcement. Suchaction is commonly used to break the ground before proposing animportant policy and can be called US-style nemawashi.31 After thisinstance of nemawashi, the “Nye Initiative” was written and the EASR
was unveiled. It is evident that APEC and the scheduled summit meeting between the US and Japan would have been an ideal occasion topresent to Asians the concept of a renewed US-Japan security allianceand a new security strategy for Asia, especially because of the highmedia coverage that APEC would receive in Japan.
After the rape in Okinawa, and Clinton’s sudden cancellation of his
trip to Japan to attend the APEC meeting because of problems with
Congress over the next federal budget, the Americans failed to accomplish their media triumph in Osaka. By selectively manipulating therelease of information, it seemed as though the redeﬁnition of the USJapan Security Treaty along the lines the US had envisioned would
have progressed smoothly had the incident in Okinawa not occurred.
A partially successful example of media manipulation was theannouncement in April 1996 of the return of the Futenma Base in
Okinawa in ﬁve to seven years. 1996 was the year of the presidential
election and during the primaries, Clinton’s top aid George Stephanopoulos, while campaigning in New Hampshire, stopped off at Harvard
and had a discussion with a small group of professors and researchers.
I was in attendance at the meeting, and I asked Stephanopoulos about
the tendency in the United States towards “Japan passing” and if the
President had any plans regarding the bases issue to present to the22

REIMEI OKAMURA

Japanese side at his scheduled meeting with Japan’s new Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in April of that year.32 Although he did not
mention anything in particular at the time, about a week later anannouncement was made that Prime Minister Hashimoto would ﬂy toSanta Monica and meet with President Clinton. The previously
unscheduled meeting was only for about 30 minutes, but it was animportant media event that helped to show the American support for
the new Prime Minister and attempted to demonstrate the top-level
concern about US-Japan relations and the bases in Okinawa.
At the ofﬁcial meeting in April in Washington D.C., the Americanside announced that, with some conditions, it would return theFutenma Base within ﬁve to seven years.33 The announcement was
taken up by the Japanese press, but again the major focus was on theemotional reactions to the issue in Okinawa rather than on the fact that
Okinawa was a cornerstone of American global military strategy. The
announcement of the return of one base was an impressive media
event, but the apparent American concession was not a revision of theAmerican global strategy. Some time after the meeting in Washington,
there was a proposal made to create a ﬂoating heliport offshore, but,
more than one year after the return was reported, there are still no concrete plans for where the site will be moved. On the surface, it seems
like the government’s manipulation was successful, but the underlying
cause of the disenchantment in Okinawa still remains and it may takemore than a few good media kudos to address Okinawan concerns.
In Japan it is more common for the government to control what
information is made public than to purposefully release bits of information to promote its agenda. This control does not always succeed,
however. In addition, there is the danger that this manipulation may
increase the declining conﬁdence in democratically elected governments.34 Sometime after the media coverage of the rape, a conservative
politician in Japan, Cabinet Secretary Seiroku Kajiyama of the Liberal
Democratic Party, was very critical of the Okinawan press and wasquoted as saying that the rape would never have become a politicalissue in US-Japan relations had the two Okinawan papers made attempts not to sensationalize the incident.35 What is clear is that
Kajiyama did not understand that the pent-up frustration among thepeople of Okinawa was only transmitted through the media rather thanbeing created by the press’ treatment of the incident. While Kajiyama
would probably have liked to suppress the voices of the people of

US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

23

Okinawa, he was unable to, and the government was forced to takepolitical action to address the people’s demands.
CONCLUSION: US-JAPAN RELATIONS IN THE INFORMATION AGE
The mass media is undergoing a major transformation as we approach the twenty-ﬁrst century. In the past, the media reached only asmall group of educated elite, but as a result of education and technology, the media spread throughout national societies and beyond
national borders. At present we are witnessing a globalization of themedia in which the exponential growth of information—accelerated bytechnological advances in satellite broadcasting of text, video andaudio—not only transcends borders, but is also part of an interactive
process that breaks down those boundaries.
There are some who argue that in light of the globalization of information and the spread of new means of transmission like the Internet,
traditional media and the journalism that it produced will become
obsolete. Undoubtedly, traditional media like newspapers and television will have to compete with, or at least incorporate, these newmeans of information transmission. However, the press in general andindividual journalists in particular will have a greater, more challenging social and political role to play in the information age. This isbecause the massive volumes of information are often transmitted inbits and pieces and do not reveal the background, the hidden agenda or
the purpose for which those bits and pieces of information are being
used. Journalists will therefore be required to analyze the massive volumes of information, while understanding the meaning, the true agenda and the purpose of the information that they transmit to the generalpublic in order to make some sense of the exponential growth of allsorts of information.
The role of journalists is particularly important when considering
US-Japan relations in the new millennium. With the redeﬁnition of the
US-Japan Security Treaty that is underway, Japan will become aneven more vital cornerstone of the United States’ global strategy, anddevelopments in the bilateral relationship, good or bad, will have global consequences. It will therefore require a greater mutual understanding between the two countries if the challenges of the next century are
to be met.
In recent years, the massive ﬂow of information has meant that

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basic information about each other is available in both countries, but
the quality of information has not matched the quantity. The elite
media in the United States seems to have taken a more balanced viewof Japan, but the popular media is still full of stereotyped and often
negative images. On the other hand, the Japanese media is for the mostpart only able to see things from a narrow Japanese view and they areoften unable to transmit a broad, global view of events at home andabroad. Journalists in both countries, therefore, will have to work onthese weaknesses if we are to overcome the barriers that still separate
the two peoples.
I am convinced that journalism can play a very positive role in USJapan relations in the coming century. The media is probably the bestmeans to promote an open and lively debate on the common values of
democracy, free markets and individual freedoms that both Americans
and Japanese alike share. At the same time, however, it is clear thatgovernments on both sides of the Paciﬁc will whenever possible manipulate information for their own purposes. In the United States, in particular, there is a realization that not all information can be suppressed,
so the government tries to selectively disclose information in order tohide some ulterior motive. In Japan on the other hand, as Kajiyama
exempliﬁed, the government still believes that it is best to suppress
information to control the ﬂow of events. As the case in Okinawa
showed, this manipulation is not always successful, but this was inmany ways an exception. The ability of the Japanese government tocontrol the information that the media transmits gives credence to theargument that Japan is still only a quasi-democracy and lacks a press
that is more than just a tool for the power elite.
The dawn of a new millennium and the global spread of the information society will undoubtedly induce a combination of hope andanxiety for all segments of American and Japanese societies. The
manipulation of information will continue to be a powerful social andpolitical force that will be used by those who are able to control that
information—both the power elite and the general populace—and that
control will ultimately inﬂuence the future course of the bilateral relationship. The time has come for journalists in the United States andJapan to seriously consider their role in the information society andplay their part in guaranteeing that information is accessible, accurate
and balanced in order to foster mutual understanding between our two
peoples.

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25

NOTES
* I would like to extend my appreciation to many people at Harvard University who
assisted me during my stay from September 1995 to March 1996, with special thanks
to Professor Marvin Kalb, director of the Shorenstein Center, and to Mr. Bill Kovach,curator of the Nieman Foundation.
1“International media” is not a separate discipline in itself, but rather it is concerned with the technological and sociological implications of the interaction between
the mass media and international relations. The author was a journalist for over thirty
years and is now a professor of international media concentrating on the transnational
impact of media in the information age.
2
Many Japanese, however, did not realize that he was implicitly criticizing theJapanese for not fulﬁlling their international responsibilities.
3
See inter alia Kondo Ken and Saito Makoto, Tokyo Hatsu Joho Senso [TheReporting Wars from Tokyo] (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinpo Sha), 1994.
4
NHK Broadcasting Culture Institute, “A Comparison of Television Reporting in
the United States and Japan: How Television is Shown in the Other Country,” 1996.
5
Based on interviews with representatives at the CNN head ofﬁce in Atlanta andthe Atlanta bureau of TV Asahi.
6
The evening news programs of the three networks usually lasted 30 minutes, but
because of commercials only about 24 minutes was actually devoted to news.
7
Although there are indications that there has been a tendency in the last two to
three years to put more emphasis on domestic rather than international news. See, forexample, Garrick Utley, “The Shrinking of Foreign News,” Foreign Affairs (March/
April 1997): 2–10.
8
International versions of Asahi, Yomiuri and Nikkei printed from satellite transmissions are available throughout the United States. I was able to obtain these from astore called “Out of Town News” at Harvard Square.
9
The term “Japan passing” is now commonly used but the author ﬁrst learned theterm from Clay Chandler of the Washington Post, formerly the Tokyo Correspondentof the Wall Street Journal.
10This sense of supremacy has led to a return of conﬁdence in the United States andperhaps even has some connection with the steady economic expansion America has
been experiencing in recent years.
11“Mainland” here refers to the four main islands of Japan that are viewed from
Okinawa as the Japanese mainland. In addition to the written newspaper reports of therally, photographs and televised audio-visual broadcasts played a major role. As the
tempo of the demonstration and the rally picked up, it was undoubtedly a prime topic
for television news programs. I watched the events on the three major networks andnews specialty channels like CNN and New England Cable News from my apartment
in Cambridge. I was able to see the news from Fuji Television and listen to NHK
short-wave broadcasts. NHK international television services are technically available, but require a satellite dish so they are not available as readily as the cable broadcasts.
12
The “Shakai-men” or city news page in Japanese newspapers is in some ways
similar to the “City” section in western newspapers, but it incorporates not only local
affairs, but also major news stories that do not fall into the International, Politics andEconomy sections. The “Shakai-men” is located on the second to last page, and in

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REIMEI OKAMURA

Japan is considered second in importance only to the front page, as many people readthis section ﬁrst or immediately after reading the front page.
13
A similar incident occurred in Korea, sparking the same kind of opposition to the
US bases there. Interestingly, in July 1996 when Japanese police requested that an
American serviceman stationed at Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture suspected of theft
and attempted murder be handed over for questioning, the American authorities werevery quick in handing him over in order to prevent another outcry like that in
Okinawa. See Mainichi Shinbun, July 20, 1996, morning edition, p. 2.
14“Rape of 12 Year-old Fans Okinawans’ Anger at US Military Presence,” A15.
15
Considering that its Japan bureau is in Tokyo, dispatching the report from Naha
was representative of the seriousness with which the newspaper viewed the incident.
16
The word “redeﬁnition” is used rather than revision because there was no actual
revision of the US-Japan Security Treaty (UJST) itself. Rather, new “guidelines” arebeing formulated to stipulate what Japan can and cannot do to support the UnitedStates in the event of a regional military emergency. Thus, the original UJST is being“redeﬁned” to meet the international situation of the post-Cold War era, but the actual
treaty has not been revised.
17“Rape Case in Japan Turns Harsh Light on US Military—An Apology from the
US to Ease Tensions over its Troops’ Behavior,” A5.
18
Asahi Shinbun, September 9, 1995, morning edition. Two paragraphs covering theincident were in the evening edition.
19
In Japan the major newspapers run a morning and an evening edition. They do not
run the same articles in both editions and should be thought of as one day’s newspaper divided into two sections.
20
In Japan there is a press club system where small groups of reporters are invitedby politicians or ministries to cover speciﬁc topics. What often happens is that thesegroups become self-contained, with the reporters reporting what the bureaucrats andpoliticians want reported and thus reporters are easily manipulated by the authorities.
Karel von Wolferen has made a fairly thorough review of the press club system. See
his The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Vintage Books, 1990).
21
These issues will be discussed in detail in section III.
22
The increase in sheer volume of reporting is exempliﬁed in the Asahi from midSeptember onwards. See Table 1.
23
Reporting of what has been reported in the American media is common because
the American media is viewed in Japan as an authority on what is considered newsworthy.
24
Coincidentally, after the rape incident occurred in Okinawa and the bases issue
was becoming a pressing issue in US-Japan relations in September 1995, Nye—thenUndersecretary of State—was announced as the new Dean of the Harvard Kennedy
School.
25
The coverage in the Asahi was made on the front page, with other related articles
in the international section and in the editorial.
26
All the major newspapers in Japan reported the outline of the report after it wasannounced.
27
This was particularly important considering that the United States lost its bases in
the Philippines in the early 1990s.
28
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and William A. Owens, “America’s Information Edge,”
Foreign Affairs (March/April 1996): 20–36. This was published right after Nyereturned to Harvard from his post as Undersecretary of State.
29
For an example of “soft power,” see also Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The

US-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION AGE

27

Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990): 107–112.
Although Nye and Owens stress the ideological importance of democracy and freemarkets, I feel that the attraction of American culture and the American way of life ingeneral should be included as well.
30
Coincidentally, Governor Ohta mentioned in an interview with Japanese newspapers that knowledge and information is more important in the post-Cold War period.
31
Nemawashi is a Japanese term that literally means to “turn the roots” and is commonly used to refer to the custom in Japan of sounding out ideas with important people before any concrete proposals are made and actions are undertaken.
32
Prime Minister Murayama abruptly resigned in January of 1996 and was replaced
by Ryutaro Hashimoto, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. The coalition between
the LDP, the Socialists and the Sakigake did not change, but it is important to notethat an LDP member was back in power as Prime Minister.
33
The Nihon Keizai Shinbun was the ﬁrst to report this proposal to return the baseand received an award from the Japan Newspapers Association for its reporting.
However, it appears that the report was intentionally leaked to the Nihon Keizai
Shinbun as a public relations move to smother the opposition to the US-Japan
Security Treaty.
34
For an example of the declining conﬁdence in government, see Joseph S. Nye, Jr.,“The Media and Declining Conﬁdence in Government,” The Harvard International
Journal of Press/Politics (Summer 1997): 4–9.
35
The two papers responded by arguing that their reporting was fair and accurate,
and that while their reporting was highly emotional at times, their treatment of therape was very representative of what most Okinawans were feeling.