Okinawa marked the 49th anniversary of its reversion to Japan on May 15.

The southernmost prefecture’s economy, which is heavily dependent on tourism, has been ravaged by the new coronavirus pandemic. The unemployment rate in the prefecture hit 4.4 percent in March, far above the national average of 2.6 percent.

As it happens, fiscal 2021, which runs through March 2022, is the last year of the fifth and latest 10-year plan to promote Okinawa’s development. Governor Denny Tamaki’s team is working on a new 10-year development plan.

The prefectural government’s principal worry is how Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s administration will respond to its policy blueprint for the next decade.

Suga has vowed to stay close to the people of Okinawa and do all that can be done for the prefecture. But his behavior during the years since he served as chief Cabinet secretary for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has consistently contradicted his promises.

Suga, for example, has taken no notice of strong local opposition to the plan to build a new U.S. military base in the Henoko district of Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, to take over the functions of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which is located in the crowded city of Ginowan, also in the prefecture.

Voters in Okinawa have repeatedly and emphatically expressed their objections to the plan through elections and a prefectural referendum.

Since 2014, when Tamaki’s predecessor, Takeshi Onaga, was elected governor on a pledge to oppose the plan to build a Futenma replacement facility in Henoko, the national government has cut or refused to increase the budget for the Okinawa development plan.

The lump-sum state subsidies for the prefecture, which the prefectural government can use more or less at its discretion, have been reduced by nearly half from its peak of 175.9 billion yen ($1.6 billion). Instead, the amount of grants the central government provides directly to municipal governments and businesses without any consultation with the prefectural government has increased.

The government has been leveraging its power to allocate state subsidies to pressure the prefecture into submission. Suga, who has been leading this approach, is now in power.

It is hardly surprising that local government chiefs and assembly members in Okinawa, both in the ruling and opposition camps, are nervously waiting to see how the Suga administration will deal with the new development plan.

The administration should work closely with the prefectural government to determine what kind of policy measures are needed for Okinawa’s future and map out the new plan from the viewpoint of local residents.

No wasteful projects should be included in the plan. But it is unacceptable for the national government to ignore the spirit of the law, which imposes a duty on the state to support development of Okinawa in light of the prefecture’s “special circumstances.”

After being devastated by a fierce ground battle, Okinawa was placed under U.S. rule for 27 years. Infrastructure in Okinawa remained underdeveloped during these years as Japan’s policies were not applied to the prefecture.

U.S. military bases still occupy a large portion of the land, hampering the development of the local economy. These bases are sources of noise and pollution as well as crimes and accidents involving U.S. service members. 

When Onaga, who died in 2018, once told Suga about Okinawa’s history of suffering, Suga said, “I don’t know how I, a person born after the war, should respond to stories about the past (before my birth),” leaving many people agape.

A person is not qualified to be a national leader if he or she is not committed to facing the nation’s past in a humble attitude, learning lessons from history and taking the responsibility for dealing with the consequences of dark chapters of the history.

Should he still have the same view about Okinawa’s history, Suga needs to correct it immediately and start confronting the pain Okinawa has been enduring over such a long time.

Even if a carrot-and-stick policy seems to work, its effectiveness is only temporary. Such an approach will only create and deepen public distrust of politics.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 15