Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki on Friday called on the Japanese government to ease tensions with China, warning that a war over Taiwan could make the island of Okinawa a target due to its heavy US military presence.
“Any escalation of problems over the Taiwan Strait and the contingency of Okinawa being a target of attack must never happen or be allowed to happen,” Tamaki told the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
Japan has been following the US in its campaign against China and has been working on expanding its military and boosting security cooperation with other countries against Beijing. Tamaki said Japan should take a different approach.
“I call for the Japanese government to always maintain calm and peaceful diplomacy and dialogue to improve its relations with China, while working toward easing US-China tension,” he said.
Tamaki said it was necessary to work to avoid another Battle of Okinawa, one of the last major battles of World War II that inflicted a massive civilian death toll. According to a monument at the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum, 149,584 civilians lost their lives during the battle.
Tamaki spoke ahead of the 50th anniversary of the US handing Okinawa back to Japan, which happened on May 15, 1972, 21 years after the US formally ended its occupation of other Japanese territories. Tamaki used the occasion to call for a reduction in the US military presence on Okinawa.
Tamaki pointed out that despite being only a small portion of Japan’s territory, Okinawa hosts the majority of US troops in the country. “Okinawa prefecture sought to become an island of peace and without bases. However, even today, despite the fact that Okinawa is a prefecture with only 0.6% of Japan’s total land, it hosts 70.3% of the total area dedicated to the US military,” he said.
Okinawa has a robust anti-US military base movement, and Okinawans have voted against a US plan to relocate a controversial facility elsewhere on the island. “Okinawa’s burden of the US military bases is a key diplomatic and security issue that concerns all Japanese people,” Tamaki said.
Okinawa is the poster child for unwanted American occupation against the wishes of the natives, Guantanamo is another.
Who are the “natives” in “Guantanamo”? There are no Cubans living there.
Cubans would be living there if there wasn’t a US base. It’s some pretty valuable real estate being used for an immoral purpose.
They want us gone and I agree with them
Just awful. Well, more like Globalist occupation. They look like us (commandeering the American government), but only on the outside, having dark murderous hearts of supremacy over all other people.
Half a century ago, the leftist government of Okinawa was saying the same thing; USA, go home. Thankfully, the Japanese government is made of wiser men. Leftists are basically the same everywhere.
They are in the US – the original military interventionists now referred to as neocon warmongers encompassing both political parties.
Someone espousing common sense?!—will wonders never cease.
Well, the Japanese are certainly an intelligent race. And the Japanese well recall the destruction rained down upon them in WWII. It’s going to take a war on Amerikkkan soil to get US to see the light.
It is China who is the threat to impotent Japan,not the other way around.however, the people of Okinawa should be able to decide their future for themselves.
Ryukyu will never know peace until it knows independence. Culturally, they have always been more Chinese than Japanese, and Japan has played at least as much of a role in their oppression as America.