The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 16 | Issue 24 | Number 2 | Article ID 5225 | Dec 15, 2018

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The Henoko Base Project: Okinawa’s Tamaki Government atthe Brink

Gavan McCormack

Since the death of Okinawan Governor OnagaTakeshi on 8 August, the Henoko baseconstruction plan has been in flux. With theissues coming to a head, the media in Japanand the world shows ever less interest, easingthe way for the Abe government to have itsway. Crucial phases in the long-running contestbetween state and prefecture have been notedmany times, but perhaps none is comparable totoday as the commencement of works toreclaim the base site on Oura Bay is imminent.1

The prefecture proceeded following the deathof Onaga with cancellation (31 August) of thepermit for reclamation works. On 30September it then elected Tamaki Denny asOnaga’s successor (with an 80,000 majority).Once in office, Tamaki repeatedly called fortalks on the base issue with the nationalgovernment. In due course talks, billed as“concentrated discussions” (shuchu kyogi) tookplace in November, but only after the AbeGovernment’s Minister for Land, Infrastructureand Transport, Ishii Kei-ichi, on 30 Octoberissued an order suspending the effect of thePrefecture’s August cancellation of the licenseto reclaim the Henoko site on Oura Bay. By thehighly unusual procedure of one section ofgovernment declaring the acts of another to belegal and proper, the way was cleared toresume works.2 Only then would the nationalgovernment agree to the “talks” with Okinawa.

The talks that followed through the month ofNovember were conducted in secret andscarcely “concentrated.” They involved justthree brief meetings on successive Mondaysbetween Deputy Cabinet Secretary SugitaKazuhiro and Okinawan Vice Governor Jahana

Kiichiro, followed by a 28 November meetingbetween Prime Minister Abe and GovernorTamaki. Between the government’s insistencethat reclamation and base construction proceedimmediately and the prefecture's that it becancelled there was no room for compromise.Under the cloak of “talks,” the governmentprepared for full-scale onslaught on Oura Baythat was to follow. Talks over, confrontationresumed.

The Abe government resumed site works andannounced that it would proceed to dump fillinto Oura Bay from "mid-December." GovernorTamaki commented, lamely, that it was" e x t r e m e l y u n f o r t u n a t e " t h a tgovernment should so act while he, asGovernor, had been "thinking that dialoguecould lead to a good outcome." Early inDecember Defence Minister Iwaya Takeshiannounced the actual date: reclamation wouldcommence: Friday, 14 December.3

For its part, following the fruitless November“discussions”, Okinawa prefecture launchedtwo initiatives. On 29 November, it formallyasked the Central and Local GovernmentDisputes Management Council to resolve thedispute between i t and the nat ionalgovernment . The prev ious (Onaga)administration had twice, in 2015 and 2016,attempted to have this nominally independentbody (a five-person experts committeeappointed by government) assigned anarbitration role, only to be knocked back. Firstit was told that the Commission had nojurisdiction to intervene and then was advisedto pursue “sincere negotiations” in order toresolve “the continuing undesirable relations

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between state and prefecture.” The prefecturalcase as submitted by Tamaki, a 79 page textwith further documents attached, argued firstthat the Okinawa Defence Bureau was not anappropriate body under the terms of theAdministrative Appeal Act to have sought theintervention by the Minister for Land whosuspended the operation of the prefecturalrescission order,4 and second that it wasinappropriate for one section of government torule on the legi t imacy of the acts o fanother.5 As its record suggests, the DisputesResolution Council is an unlikely venue to seek“resolution.” And even if it were to issue somerecommendation, by the time it does so underthe government’s plan Oura Bay is likely tohave been damaged beyond restoration by thedumping of sand and soil.

Okinawa Prefecture also announced inDecember that it would conduct a prefecturalreferendum on 24 February, asking the peopleof the prefecture whether or not theysupported the base construction project.Tamaki agreed - presumably under Abegovernment pressure - that he would adopt a"neutral" (churitsuteki) stance on the question.In other words, despite having been electedprincipally because of his stance opposingreclamation/construction, he would not lead theprefecture in voting against it. In response to anewspaper question as to what it would meanto conduct the referendum if the process ofreclamation is already underway by then,Tamaki responded, "rather than timing, it is theexpression of the people's sentiment thatcounts." A February referendum might wellproduce more evidence of anti-base sentimentbut that sentiment has been clear for twodecades without Tokyo paying attention.Furthermore, whatever the referendumoutcome, the government insists it will ignoreit.

This would seem to mean that reclamation ofOura Bay, scheduled to begin by mid-December, will have continued for two months

before the Okinawan people cast their 24February vote, and perhaps for three monthsbefore any decision is handed down by theDisputes Resolution Council. The nationalgovernment is committed to proceed withHenoko construction even if every singleOkinawan says “No” to it, so neither thereferendum nor the submission to the DisputesCouncil seems to offer much prospect ofblunting the state’s resolve.

However, for the national government to beable to make a decisive start on reclamation itmust resolve complex logistical problems,finding a way to transport huge volumes ofsand and soil to the site. On this front theprefecture might be able to create seriousproblems for the government. The scale of themain works now projected is so gigantic thatships – also easier than trucks to protect fromangry citizens – are designed to play the majorrole henceforth. Very controversially, inSeptember and November 2017 then GovernorOnaga granted permits for use of facilities atthe northern Okinawa ports of Motobu, Okuand Nakagusuku to bring sand and soil toHenoko. At that time, prominent citizenactivists (such as Yamashiro Hiroji) sharplycriticized the decision because it was at oddswith the prefecture’s stated insistence that theHenoko project not proceed.6

The question now is whether Governor Tamakiwill renew or extend these port use licenses. Ifhe follows the Onaga precedent of approvingthe permits, he might still offer minimalposit ive cooperat ion to the nat ionalgovernment by approving its “minor” requests– including permits for port use and for coralremoval7 – while opposing the project as awhole and appealing to the government to stop.That tactic for Onaga had slowed the works,but it had not halted them. As it confronted thenewly elected Tamaki administration, the Abegovernment strove to avoid frontal clash,insisting – in cases to which it knew theprefecture would be most unlikely to assent –

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that such assent was not necessary. It plannedto use the port facilities of Motobu for loadingfill materials onto ships for transport to the site, but that port suffered severe damage from atyphoon in September 2018, necessitatingrepairs that would take some months, so theprefecture declined to grant the necessarypermit.8 Government therefore decided to usethe Ryukyu Cement Company’s facility at Awa,on Highway 449 about five kilometres fromMotobu, in Nago City), maintaining that, as acommercial facility, prefectural consent wasnot necessary.9

The 14 December target date evidentlydepended on activating the Awa pier. On 3December, one ship was quietly loaded, and asecond was in preparation, when the prefectureintervened, dramatically, noting that theprocedures for confirming completion of portworks had not been filed as required, and therewere grounds for suspecting that RyukyuCement was using its facilities licensed forspecific operations (the cement business) forsomething quite other, or perhaps forunauthorized sub-leasing (to the OkinawaDefence Bureau) and prefectural regulationsgoverning control of red soil discharge into thesea had not been met.

Henoko Landfill Ready for Loading,Ryukyu Cement Works, Awa, December2 0 1 8 ( S o u r c e

(http://ospreyfuanclub.hatenablog.com/entry/2018/12/03/034536))

Governor Tamaki denounced the Awa works as“illegal” and ordered the port closed pendingsatisfaction of the legal requirements. Thatwould, it was thought, take approximately twomonths.10

However, after suspending loading operationsbriefly on 3 December, the governmentresumed them two days later. It made sure thatRyukyu Cement issued the necessary formalnotification of works completion – albeitretrospectively – and it announced that othermatters would be addressed within the law.11 Ifthe prefecture found something problematicabout the piles of sand and soil spread over thecement works site, the government would setthem aside and bring in other materials. Thisamounted to saying, “Trust us, we are thegovernment.” The government order to resumeworks was issued before the prefecture evenhad the opportunity to enter or inspect the site.Prefectural officials were shocked. In this high-stakes battle the Henoko national policy projectwas one in which local governments would notbe allowed to intervene. Reclamation, promisedfor 14 December, would commence on 14December.

The Awa Site: Barbed Wire and

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Sheeting (Source(http://ospreyfuanclub.hatenablog.com/ent

ry/2018/12/03/034536))

The contretemps raised the question: whatpowers does a Governor have? Nominally, atleast, the status of a prefectural governor isequal to that of the Prime Minister. Chaptereight of the constitution spells out the principleof “local autonomy” under which local publicentities “have the right to manage theirproperty, affairs and administration.” In hisruling in the Naha High Court case betweennational government and prefecturalgovernment in 2016, Judge Tamiya Toshio putit in these words:

“under the 1999 revision to the local autonomylaw it was envisaged that the state and regionalpublic bodies would serve their respectivefunctions in an equal, cooperative manner”(italics added).12

There has been little sign of that “equal, co-opera t i ve” re la t i onsh ip in the Abegovernment’s treatment of Okinawa. GovernorTamaki would appear to possess significantadministrative powers. We may soon learn if heis prepared to exercise them to block or delaythe planned December 14 construction of thebase. He could order a closure of the Awa pierand send in prefectural riot police to enforcehis order. He could also suspend or cancel alllicenses (for port use and for coral removal)issued during the prefectural administrations ofhis two immediate predecessors, NakaimaHirokazu and Onaga Takeshi, between 2013and 2018. Above all, he could announce hisintention to withhold prefectural consent fromthe major revisions of the construction planoccasioned by technical and engineeringproblems as the national government faces thenow publicly recognized problems of the soft"mayonnaise" floor of the Bay and theearthquake fault lines that cross it.

The fact that Tamaki is an avowed supporter of

the base system in general (opposed only to the“new” base construction project at Henoko)and that he has also declared his support forthe Pentagon’s call for shared (US and Japan)military base usage, makes it unlikely that hewill launch such a virtual war against the Abestate. But no one can say how he might act ifthe government continues its discriminatory,undemocratic and even illegal measuresagainst Okinawa and if prefectural pressure toresist mounts. Ultimately it is the people ofOkinawa who have the right to decide howtheir prefecture is to be governed and howtheir environment is to be protected (orsacrificed).

The Okinawa Times reports that althoughreclamation of the Henoko site is only at itsvery early stage, the cost has alreadyballooned, multiplying the original Departmentof Defence estimate of 240 billion yen by afactor of ten, to two and a half trillion yen(roughly 22 billion dollars), and, even in theunlikely event that construction proceedssmoothly and according to significantly revisedplans from now on, another 13 years will benecessary before the “Futenma ReplacementFacility” will be ready for the Marine Corps tomove in.13 That means that the Abe governmentcan offer no relief for at least the next thirteenyears to the people of Ginowan from the threat(and nuisance) posed by the giant base sittingin the middle o f the ir town. Henokoconstruction does not constitute any, let alonethe “only,” solution to the Futenma problem,or, indeed, to Abe’s “Okinawa problem.”

National policy pursued ruthlessly by PrimeMinister Abe requires the crushing of theOkinawan will and the sacrifice of the land andsea of Henoko-Oura Bay. Still less than threemonths after he was elected by a huge majorityon a mandate to stop that process, GovernorTamaki faces the full force of the Abegovernment’s determination to press aheadwith reclamation and base constructionwhatever the cost, beginning in just under a

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week a process which could spell extinction forthe multiple life forms of Oura Bay.



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Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor at the Australian National University and afounding editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. He is author of many works onmodern and contemporary East Asia, most recently Resistant Islands: Okinawa versus Japanand the United States, co-authored with Satoko Oka Norimatsu, 2nd, revised and expandededition, Rowman and Littlefield, 2018, and The State of the Japanese State – ContestedIdentity, Direction, and Role, Renaissance Books, 2018.

Notes1 This essay follows closely upon, and may be read as a sequel to, my “Grappling withClientelism: the Japanese State and Okinawa under Abe Shinzo(https://apjjf.org/2018/23/McCormack.html/),” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 23November 2018.2 For discussion of this legally dubious 30 October government declaration of the legitimacy

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of its actions, see my “Grappling with clientelism.”3 “Ju-yokka Henoko dosha donyu, hoji kokka no hakai yurusarenu,” editorial, Ryukyu shimpo,4 Deember 2018.4 This law was designed to offer relief for citizens aggrieved by some governmentmalfeasance, not to provide government an instrument for sweeping aside protest.5 “Okinawa-ken, keiso-i e no shinsa moshide, tekkai taishi ni fufuku, chiji dosha tonyu hoshinni hanpatsu,” Ryukyu shimpo, 30 November 2018.6 See my discussion in The State of the Japanese State, p. 113.7 When it came time for renewal of permits for removal of coral from Oura Bay in 2017, thegovernment announced it would not seek renewal, thus avoiding a prefectural refusal. Itsimply continued its coral-removal works ignoring permission. (“Henoko dosha hanshutsuchudan ho mushi wa muri suji no shirushi,” Okinawa taimusu, 5 December 2018).8 Repairs were estimated to call for about three months work.9 “Seifu, Henoko ni dosha tonyu e, minkan sanbashi o tsukatte de mo nennai ni,” Asahishimbun, 2 December 2018.10 “Dosha hanshutsu ‘iho’ Tamaki chiji kokyo yosai kanri kisoku ihan da, Ryukyu semento oshido ni,” Ryukyu shimbun, 4 December 2018.11 “Henoko dosha tsumikomi saikai, tonyu meguri kobo gekika, Okinawa ken no taiko saku gashoten,” Ryukyu shimpo, 6 December 2018.12 The State of the Japanese State, p. 91.13 Figures reported in “‘Keiso-i ni shinsa de’ ‘jichi’ tou jisshitsu shinri o,” editorial, Okinawataimusu, 30 November 2018, and “Ju-yokka Henoko dosha,” op. cit., Ryukyu shimpo, 4december 2018.