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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the role of US military bases in on Okinawa in East Asian geopolitics. The bases are justified due to their 'deterrent' function. However, the paper finds that rather than 'deterrence', these bases are highly vulnerable and would be 'magnets' for missiles in a conflict.

Paper long abstract:

Okinawa has a complex and tragic history. The string of small islands running from Kyushu south to Taiwan have, at various historical junctures, found themselves at the centre of regional and global geopolitics. Annexed in order to secure Japan’s frontiers against the encroachment of the Western Powers in the 19th Century, sacrificed in order to protect the home islands in World War II, and militarized in order to enable the rapid deployment of troops against communist forces in the 20th, the islands’ history has been shaped by geopolitical decisions made thousands of kilometres away in Tokyo and Washington DC. Okinawa is today caught in the middle of the developing rivalry between China and Japan-US alliance.

The plan to relocate a US Marine Corp base from Futenma, Okinawa, to Henoko, also on Okinawa, has been framed by Japanese politicians, officials and analysts as crucial to deterrence. Critics respond that deterrence is a pretext and the relocation is a convenient solution which unfairly burdens Okinawa; meanwhile the majority of Okinawans want it relocated off the island entirely. This paper draws on deterrence theory to evaluate the deterrence claims made by relocation proponents. It finds little evidence: against the massive US forward deployment, including the Seventh Fleet and the Fifth Air Force, the Marines’ capabilities are negligible. As for the local balance of forces, the Marines are unlikely to participate in a local conflict and their geographical location leaves them highly vulnerable. Other US bases in Japan play a more important ‘tripwire’ role, and US extended deterrence to Japan is as credible as possible under the circumstances.

The paper concludes that the current treatment of the islands is unsustainable and counterproductive. The presence of massive military bases makes the islands a ‘magnet’ for missile attack in a regional crisis. This fact, combined with decades of second-class treatment, have led to the development of a victim identity, combining the anti-base movement and Okinawan nationalism. In order to maintain long-term credible deterrence against China, Tokyo and DC must reconsider the Futenma base relocation.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines Okinawa’s colonial legacies from a layered perspective, traversing international, national and sub-national spheres to illuminate a decentred perspective on the contested concept of security which incorporates key political, commercial, societal and academic actors.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines Okinawa’s colonial legacies from a layered perspective, traversing international, national and sub-national (local) contexts. By adapting a synthesis of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and qualitative content analysis to a risk-based theoretical framework, the discussion reveals how intersections between stakeholders such as ministers of state, political parties, mass media, commercial interests (private-sector businesses), local government and a diverse range of activists, have created a highly complex, asymmetrical tapestry of layers within Okinawan society, all of which aspire to realise a subtly or starkly differing state of security within the postcolonial space that demarcates contemporary Okinawa. These different concepts of security are articulated via competing and contradictory narratives. Ultimately, it is argued that multi-fold layers of security on Okinawa are misrepresented and decoupled from one another to the point where key actors are not mutually engaging empathetically or extensively enough to address a number of critical (and mostly shared) challenges facing the Islands and their inhabitants. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that this decoupling process is the result of complex colonial legacies, but cannot be solely or satisfactorily accounted for only by the postcolonial dialectics present within this confined space. Massive material power and resource imbalances between the US military, Government of Japan (GoJ) and the Prefectural Government of Okinawa are in one sense a function of colonial legacy, but their contemporary interactions have created a more nuanced reality than a simplistic decolonising perspective, from a US or Japanese-centric viewpoint, can provide. Therein, in response, the paper proposes that multiple, decentred narratives be integrated via the creation of a targeted dialogue mechanism that incorporates political, commercial, societal and academic contributors in order to galvanize the chronically diffuse interests that have resulted from this discursive "chanpuru" on Okinawa.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to elucidate the triple subjugation of Ryukyun/Okinawan art, the importance of forgotten modern Okinawan paintings, and the 'identity movement' in local and global perspectives by post-war artists and contemporary Okinawan artists who are challenging Decolonisation.

Paper long abstract:

Decolonisation is a crucial process, and much effort still needs to be made. The decolonisation debate should be beyond the dichotomic relationship between colonisers and colonised. This notion of 'moving beyond being colonised' is an important topic, and should be regarded as part of decolonisation, providing possibilities for Okinawan people to move beyond the single identity of being colonised.

This 'single identity of being colonised' was reinforced by recent Japanese Liberal Democrat Party (LDP) administrations (for example, when Suga Yoshihide, Chief Cabinet Secretary, went to Okinawa on a 'divide and rule' mission to bribe local authorities to oppose former Governor Onaga Takeshi effectively and also sued Onaga and Tamaki Denny for their roles in opposing the new base at Henoko). How could Okinawan art challenge such interventions?

This paper attempts to give voices to Okinawan painters, who struggled to absorb and manage the changing political relationships between the U.S. and Japan. How art production in that "contact zone" reflects the cultural, social, and political complexities from three regions (Japan, the U.S., and Okinawa)? Okinawan artist Yuken Teruya (b.1973) uses the term 'datsu-hishokuminchisha', meaning 'moving beyond being colonised'. He explained that the depiction of rulers and the violence they cause is an attempt to be 'beyond being a colonised people', such as post-war painter Adaniya Masayoshi's 'Longing for Home' (1965), which depicted a U.S. soldier on a U.S. military base in Okinawa during the Vietnam War.

Yuken's bingata artwork entitled 'You-I, You-I' (2002- ) embodies Okinawa's culture, which is a mixture of its traditional history and the legacy of foreign policy between Japan and the U.S. The complexity of Okinawa's history and the political situation are depicted on the bingata patterns, such as images of U.S. soldiers with parachutes and Osprey.

Finally, this paper also discusses new perspectives on the diversity and decolonisation of contemporary Okinawa by discussing the arts outside the main island of Okinawa.