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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
It is a commonplace of recent writing on Japan that the Abe Shinzo government is in trouble. Yet comment on Abe's disastrous Upper House election of July and on his subsequent cabinet reorganization of August, with few exceptions, ignores Okinawa, the prefecture where the burden of the reorganized US-Japan alliance is heaviest, the veneer of Abe “reformism” thinnest, popular discontent deepest, and the consequences of failure potentially most serious.
[1] Abe Cabinet E-mail Magazine No.44 (August 30, 2007).
[2] Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, London and New York, Verso, 2007.
[3] Client State, p. 165.
[4] See Makishi Yoshikazu, “US dream come true? The new Henoko sea base and Okinawan resistance,” Japan Focus, 12 February 2007.
[5] “Aso, Kyuma-shi fuyoi hatsugen,” Okinawa Times, 6 June 2007.
[6] “Okinawa shudan jiketsu – ‘gun kanyo’ de zenkai itchi,” Asahi shimbun, 23 June 2007.
[7] See my previous paper for brief discussion, “”Fitting Okinawa into Japan the ‘beautiful country’.“ Japan Focus, 30 May 2007.
[8] Kunitoshi Sakurai, “Kichi izon ga kankyo o kowasu,” Asahi shimbun, 31 May 2007, translated as “U.S. Bases bad for environment in Okinawa,” Asahi shimbun, 9 June 2007.
[9] Quoted in Makishi Yoshikazu, “Kankyo no asesuho – fuminijiru seifu no kyokosaku,” Shukan kinyobi, 15 June 2007, pp. 12-13.
[10] For a brief account, “Henoko oki chosa, sagyo chu kaichu no momiai,” Ryukyu shimpo, 22 July 2007.
[11] For a detailed account, with photographs, see “Kikko no ura nikki”.
[12] “Boeisho asesu hohosho teishutsu– chiji iken kyohi no hoshin,” Ryukyu shimpo, 8 August 2007; “Kenmin no ikari mushi suru ka,” Okinawa Times, 8 August 2007.
[13] “Kyo kara kokoku juran,” Okinawa Times, 14 August 2007.
[14] On his admiration for Churchill: Abe Shinzo, Utsukushii kuni e, Bungei shunju shinsho No. 524, 2006, p.41.
[15] The suit was launched in 2003 by six Japanese and US environmental groups arguing that the construction would damage the habitat of the internationally protected dugong. (Se David Allen and Jon R. Anderson, “Dugong take first round in suit opposing Okinawa base location,” Stars and Stripes, 6 March 2005.
[16] “Boeisho, toketsu o shisa – Hokubu shinko jigyo,” Okinawa Times, 31 July 2007; “Jimoto no hampatsu dake da,” Okinawa Times, editorial, 1 August 2007.
[17] See Miyagi Yasuhiro, “Okinawa and the paradox of public opinion: base politics and protest in Nago City, 1997-2007,” Japan Focus, 3 August 2007.
[18] A third figure, 31-year old Kawata Ryuhei, an independent, non-party representative elected for Tokyo, also identified himself with the Henoko cause and promised to visit the site as soon as possible. Kawata is known as a campaigner for human rights causes, including his own – as a victim of HIV-tainted blood transfusion when he was a ten-year old. (Tatsuya Ando, “Kawata vows to be a thorn in side of the health ministry,” Asahi shimbun, 2 August 2007.)
[19] “Futenma daitai, Takamura boeisho shusei ojizu,” Ryukyu shimpo, 1 September 2007.
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