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Yonaguni: Dilemmas of a Frontier Island in the East China Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Gavan McCormack
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Tension rises throughout the East China Sea and especially in the vicinity of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands where Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese fishing and coastguard vessels jostle, each insisting that the islands and their adjacent waters are their own sovereign territory. National, and to some extent global, attention focusses on an “Okinawa problem” that has, until recently, been almost entirely seen in the context of the main island of Okinawa, where the “world's most dangerous base,” Futenma Marine Air Station, continues to sit in the middle of Ginowan City 16 years after its promised return, where works on a projected new base to replace it at Henoko in Nago City to the north remain blocked, and where plans to introduce the highly controversial tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey aircraft have roused the entire prefecture to fierce united protest. Yonaguni opens a new front in the contest between the agenda that the governments of Japan and the United States are intent on imposing and local aspirations for an order of peace and cooperation that would finally supplant Cold War confrontation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 40 , September 2012 , e1
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Copyright © The Authors 2012

References

Notes

1 Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense, United States, “The US Rebalance Towards the Asia-Pacific,” Keynote presentation to the First Plenary Session, The 11th IISS Asian Security Summit The Shangri-La Dialogue, Singapore, June 2, 2012.

2 See, for example, Jan Van Tol, et al, AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept, Washington, D.C., Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, 18 May 2010, pp. 11-13. These notional lines may or may not reflect some corresponding Chinese strategic concepts, though the general thrust - to concentrate on establishing naval dominance within the First Line (its “near seas”), followed by freedom to manoeuvre within the Second (its “mid-far seas”), and eventual global naval presence - seems soundly based.

3 Fija Bairon, Matthias Brenzinger, and Patrick Heinrich, “The Ryukyus and the new, but endangered, languages of Japan,” The Asia-Pacific Journal - Japan Focus, 9 May 2009.

4 For details, see chapter 1 of Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States. On the “phantom treaty,” Sato Masaru, “Nihon seifu ni yoru 1952 nen no Okinawa kirisute o kangaeyo,” Shukan kinyobi, 11 May 2012, pp. 24-25.

5 Ouchi Taro, Mitsuboekijima: waga saisei no kaiso, Naha, Okinawa taimususha, 2002.

6 “Dunan no kuju,” part 2, Ryukyu shimpo, 8 July 2012.

7 Mayor Hokama, interview with this author, 15 November 2011.

8 According to Mayor Hokama, speaking with Sakurai Yoshiko, 2 September 2009. Sakurai Yoshiko, “Tokushu - kokubo saizensen o ninau saihate no shima ‘Yonaguni’ rupo,” Shukan shincho, 1 October 2009.

9 http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/96/kokusaitoshi/.

10 “Okinawa 21 seiki bijon,” Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, March 2010.

11 62.8 per cent to 33.7 per cent, in a 70.5 per cent poll. Glenn D. Hook, “Gurobaruka, chiikika e no oto - Okinawa ken oyobi Yonaguni cho no baai,” in Furuki Toshiaki, ed., Rijon no jidai to shima no jichi, Tokyo, Chuo University, 2006, pp. 93-123, at p. 111.

12 Okinawa ken Yonaguni cho, “Yonaguni, jiritsu e no bijon - Jiritsu, jichi, kyosei - Ajia o musubu kokkyo no shima Yonaguni,” Hokokusho, March 2005.

13 “‘Jumin tohyo jorei hiketsu’ jumin kan no daiwa no michisagure,” Okinawa taimusu, 26 September 2012.

14 “‘Kokkyo koryu sokushin kyodo sengen’ ni choin, Taiwan tobu chiiki to 3 shicho cho,” Yaeyama mainichi shimbun, 16 April 2009.

15 “Dunan no kuju,” part 4, Ryukyu shimpo, 12 July 2012.

16 Revealed by Wiki-leaks in 2011. “First USN civilian port call in Okinawa a success,” Kevin Maher, secret despatch, 27 June 2007. See also McCormack and Norimatsu, op. cit.

17 Maeda Sawako, “Yureru Yaeyama no kyokasho erabi,” Peace Philosophy Centre, 16 September 2011.

18 Details in McCormack and Norimatsu, op. cit.

19 Kitazawa on 24 September 2009, “Rikuji Yonaguni haibi o hitei, ‘rinkoku shigeki suru’ boeisho kyo raiken,” Okinawa taimusu, 25 September 2009.

20 Japan, Ministry of Defense, Summary of National Defense Guidelines, FY2011.

21 Sugio Takahashi (Japanese Ministry of Defense), “Counter A2/AD in Japan-US Defense Cooperation - Toward ‘Allied Air-Sea Battle’,” http://project2049.net/documents/counter_a2ad _defense_cooperation_takahashi.pdf

22 Interviewed by this author, 15 November 2011.

23 Sakurai Yoshiko, “Tokushu - kokubo saizensen o ninau saihate no shima ‘Yonaguni’ rupo,” Shukan shincho, 1 October 2009.

24 “‘Tsushima to Yonaguni’, kokkyo no shima o koryuten ni,” editorial, Okinawa taimusu, 14 October 2011.

25 Total signatories were 2,331, of whom 1,775 were non-Yonaguni citizens. “Rikuji yuchi no ketsugi tekkai o,” Yaeyama mainichi shimbun, 21 November 2011.

26 Quoted in Maeda, op. cit.

27 Ryukyu shimpo, 7 September 2011, quoted in Watase Natsuhiko, “Yonagunijima ni jieitai wa hitsuyo ka,” Sekai, February 2012, pp. 144-152, at p. 150.

28 “Jieitai kohochi shimesu machi to boeisho jumin setsumei ka, Yonaguni,” Ryukyu shimpo, 18 November 2011.

29 “588 ninbun no shomei teishutsu,” Yaeyama mainichi shimbun, 25 July 2012.

30 “Yonaguni jumin tohyo joreian, hantai tasu de hiketsu,” Okinawa taimusu, 24 September 2012.

31 “Yonaguni, min-i tou kikai tonoku,” Okinawa taimusu, 25 September 2012.

32 Quoted in Chico Harlan, “With China's rise, Japan shifts to the right,” The Washington Post, 21 September 2012.

33 “Asu wa kenpo kinenbi. Shizuka ni natta kaiken rongi, sono ippo de,” Yaeyama mainichi shimbun, 2 May 2012.

34 Kevin Maher, Consul-General, Naha, “First USN Civilian Port Call In Okinawa A Success,” 27 June 2007, Naha. Secret.

35 Kebin Mea (Kevin Maher), Ketsudan dekinai Nihon (The Japan that can't decide), Bunshun shinsho, no 821, 2011, p. 163.

36 Ibid.

37 Ketsudan dekinai Nihon, p. 137

38 Jan Van Tol, et al, AirSea Battle: A Point-of- Departure Operational Concept, Washington, D.C., Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, 18 May 2010, p. 32. The CSBA Report also includes the line: “prepare plans in cooperation with the US Navy for establishing ASW barriers that take advantage of the geography of the Ryukyu island chain.” (p. 92)