Photo/Illutration The Ground Self-Defense Force Camp Yonaguni in Okinawa Prefecture. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Yuki Asato was a first-grade student at an elementary school in 2013 when he portrayed his home island of Yonagunijima, the westernmost inhabited island of Japan, in the following poem:

“What is peace?/ I thought about it./ Being with good friends,/ Cats that laugh,/ A full stomach,/ Goats walking leisurely.”

The boy’s simple words remind us that the seeds of peace are all around us.

On this island from which Taiwan can be seen on clear days, U.S. Marines landed for the first time on Nov. 10 for “Keen Sword,” a large-scale Japan-U.S. joint exercise conducted mainly on and around Japan’s southwestern islands.

The drills involve more than 30,000 personnel from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military.

SDF vehicles with gun turrets are also landing on Yonagunijima on Nov. 17, and an air of tension fills the islands on the Japanese border.

With China overtly flexing its muscle as a superpower, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Defense Ministry couldn’t be the only parties now feeling compelled to prepare for a contingency involving Taiwan. Such a sentiment has become more widespread since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

I can appreciate that. However, what bothers me is the question of specifically whom this military preparedness is supposed to protect.

What about the islanders who happen to be on the front lines? In an emergency, the town of Yonaguni will evacuate locals from the island, but even with the regular ferry service, the evacuation process will take at least four to five days.

“In winter, when strong north winds prevail, docking the boats won’t be easy,” one town official once lamented. “That won’t help in an emergency, will it?”

During World War II, Okinawa was treated as a pawn in the defense of the Japanese mainland.

“Okinawa is again being positioned as the permanent base and front line of national defense. What a cursed island it is,” Seizen Nakasone (1907-1995), who was a teacher and supervisor of the Himeyuri Butai (Lily Corps) of female students mobilized as a nursing unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Okinawa, wrote about 50 years ago.

It was as if Nakasone was predicting the present reality.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 17

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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