Photo/Illutration The Ground Self-Defense Force’s Camp Yonaguni on Yonagunijima island in Okinawa Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Defining the applicable area of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty became a matter of contention in the latter half of the 1950s, when Tokyo and Washington were negotiating the terms of the treaty’s revision.

The issue boiled down to the treatment of Okinawa, which was still under U.S. administration at the time.

Fumihiko Togo (1915-1985), then director of the Foreign Ministry’s security bureau, believed the treaty should apply to Okinawa.

Washington disagreed, fearing that would provide an opening for Tokyo to interfere in matters concerning Okinawa, which could then lead to demands for the islands’ return.

Ultimately, the Japanese government caved in--as usual--and Okinawa was removed from the treaty’s applicable area.

Those were the circumstances under which Article 5 of the revised 1960 Japan-U.S. Security Treaty adopted the circumlocutory expression of “the territories under the administration of Japan” to exclude Okinawa, which was under U.S. administration.

Who could have foreseen this would result in a new interpretation, which was revealed on Jan. 12?

A meeting of the Japan-U.S. Security Consultative Committee in Washington, D.C., which Japan’s foreign and defense ministers attended along with their U.S. counterparts, confirmed the bilateral security treaty now applies to outer space, too.

The understanding now is that since Japanese satellites constitute “the territories under administration of Japan,” U.S. forces must defend them, too.

Were Togo alive today, I wonder if even he, a seasoned diplomat, would have been stunned by how times have changed.

The meeting also saw the announcement that defenses along the Nansei chain of islands in Kagoshima and Okinawa prefectures will be bolstered to counter China’s growing presence in the area southwest of Japan.

The Japanese government is trying to beef up the Self-Defense Forces in Okinawa at an astounding rate, envisioning installing missile units like steppingstones from Okinawa’s main island to the westernmost Yonagunijima island.

Come to think of it, Okinawa was forcibly transformed into an anti-China nuclear missile base in the 1960s.

“Okinawa, after all, is nothing but a military colony of Japan,” Okinawan novelist Tatsuhiro Oshiro (1925-2020) once said in a denouncement of Tokyo’s tyrannical ways.

At its own convenience, the Japanese government ruthlessly writes off Okinawa and uses “national defense” as an excuse for forcing a terrible burden on the people of Okinawa.

How many more times must this be repeated?

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 13

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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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