Long-delayed Landfill Work Begins for a New US Base on Okinawa

The Battle of Okinawa was extremely cruel. From March to June 1945, more than 200,000 people from both Japan and the United States died, including 94,000 civilians. It is said that one in four Okinawans lost their lives at that time.

“There are no trees, no grass; everything is burnt to the ground. The food supply will be gone by the end of June. This is how the Okinawan people have fought the war,” Rear Admiral Ota Minoru, the final commander of the Japanese naval forces defending Okinawa, said in his final telegram to the vice minister of the Imperial Japanese Navy ministry before committing suicide in the underground headquarters on Okinawa.

“And for this reason, I appeal to you to give the Okinawan people special consideration in future ages,” Ota stressed.

But 79 years later, precisely the opposite is occurring. The Japanese government continues to force Okinawans to bear the burden of hosting the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan. About 70.3 percent of U.S. military facilities and areas in Japan are still concentrated within Okinawa Prefecture, which is only about 0.6 percent of the country’s land area, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry.

On January 10, despite strong local opposition to creating a new U.S. military base, the Defense Ministry began landfill work to reinforce soft ground in Oura Bay of the coastal Henoko area in the city of Nago on Okinawa. The landfill work is a necessary part of the plan to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, currently in the densely populated city of Ginowan.

Also on January 10, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hayashi Yoshimasa said, “The origin of the issue is to eliminate the dangers of Futenma Air Base, said to be the most dangerous in the world, as soon as possible.”

Okinawans have long demanded the removal of MCAS Futenma, but they want the air base to be closed entirely, not just relocated to another site within Okinawa.

Looking ahead, Tokyo will face four major challenges in implementing this relocation plan.

The first challenge involves the extremely long construction period. The government said the reclamation work will take around 12 years to be completed, including nine years and three months for the reinforcement of soft zones and other construction work, and around three years for the completion of the relocation process, including certification of the replacement facility.

Thus, the land used for the Futenma base is not set to be returned to Okinawa until the mid-2030s or later. This long-term schedule will not be able to accomplish the goal of eliminating the dangers of Futenma in the near-term.

The project is already over a decade behind schedule. Under the roadmap agreed upon by Japan and the United States in 2006, the relocation of Futenma was originally scheduled to be completed in 2014.

The second challenge is the ballooning cost of construction. The government has estimated total construction costs at about 930 billion yen ($6.3 billion), 2.7 times the original cost projection. The bill might balloon further due to necessary ground improvement work and other factors.

The government plans to drive more than 70,000 piles into the seabed at a depth of 70 meters to solidify the very soft ground on the Oura Bay side of Henoko, described by experts as mayonnaise-like in its consistency. But Okinawa Prefecture believes that the soft ground reaches up to 90 meters below the water’s surface at its deepest point.

Construction work to improve the ground on such a large scale has never been done before in Japan, and so the project is expected to be difficult.

The third issue is the military utility and effectiveness of the new base. The U.S. military’s East Asia strategy has changed significantly since April 1996, when then-Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Walter Mondale announced the return of Futenma to Okinawan control “within five to seven years.”

In response to China's growing missile capabilities, the U.S. Marine Corps is now pursuing a strategy of “dispersion,” “readiness” and “circuit.” Small units are dispersed along the coasts of remote islands scattered in Japan’s southwestern Nansei island chain, which spans about 1,200 km from Kagoshima to Okinawa, stretching southwest toward Taiwan. The chain includes the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan. The core force that executes these Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) is the Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR).

It is true that the Nansei Islands are becoming increasingly important in terms of security, and there is certainly an urgent need to strengthen deterrence and response capabilities there. But there is no convincing case for building a new, large military base there. Any such base will present an easy target for Chinese missiles.

Okinawa is also within range of ballistic or cruise missiles from North Korea. The country’s Korean Central News Agency claimed in November that a military reconnaissance satellite recently launched by Pyongyang took photos of the Kadena base, a U.S. Air Force installation in Okinawa.

The fourth challenge is the impact of construction on the environment. Oura Bay is home to one of the world’s largest coral communities and there are more than 5,300 species, including about 260 endangered species, living in the reef. Many experts point out that large-scale ground improvement changes water quality and has a negative impact on coral.

Given these issues, Okinawa Prefecture is urging the central government to abandon the plan and engage in dialogue so that a new solution can be found. But the central government argues that the Henoko relocation is “the only solution.”

Far from being given “special consideration,” Okinawans are still facing the destruction of their environment in the name of defending Japan. The battle of Okinawa in the 21st century still continues.