The People of Okinawa Don’t Want to Be Pawns in a US-China Conflict
With growing talk of a possible conflict over Taiwan, the US and Japanese governments have put Okinawa at the heart of their war strategies. But the island’s people have suffered enough from great-power militarism and are organizing their own peace movement.
Anti–US military base protesters are surrounded by police in Okinawa, Japan. (Jinhee Lee / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
There has been growing speculation in recent years about the possibility of war over Taiwan, pitting China against the United States and its regional allies. If that catastrophe does come to pass, the US and Japanese governments seem determined to put Okinawa in the firing line.
The people of Okinawa suffered terribly during the final stages of World War II. Since 1945, the island has hosted some of the world’s biggest US military bases, despite a long-running campaign by Okinawans against the US presence. Now they are organizing again to challenge the idea that they should bear the brunt of another war shaped by decisions made far from Okinawa.
War Zone
On December 24, 2021, Okinawa’s two newspapers featured the same headline news. Washington and Tokyo had jointly announced that in the event of a “Taiwan contingency,” the “southwestern islands” would become a war zone. No other region of Japan received a similar warning.
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