Photo/Illutration Tsunehiro Iha, left, co-chair of a citizens’ group opposed to a Ground Self-Defense Force training site, speaks at a news conference on April 11 in Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture. (Satsuki Tanahashi)

Acknowledging a total misread of the local situation, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara announced the scrapping of plans to build a Ground Self-Defense Force training site in Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture.

“It is impossible to meet the training requirements while maintaining harmony with the lives of the residents,” Kihara told reporters on April 11. “We are canceling our plan to build a training site.”

The ministry will look for another candidate site within the southern island prefecture.

Earlier in the day, Uruma Mayor Masato Nakamura and others sent a request to Kihara to withdraw the plan.

The ministry had planned to acquire a former golf course in Uruma in fiscal 2024 for the training site. It cited the need to accommodate an increasing number of personnel required to upgrade the GSDF’s Naha-based 15th Brigade to a larger division.

However, the proposed site is near residential areas and educational facilities, and local residents were concerned about noise and accidents from GSDF activities.

The Liberal Democratic Party’s Okinawa prefectural chapter could not ignore the objections voiced in the community because the prefectural assembly election is scheduled in June. The chapter also decided to oppose the project.

In the course of the ministry’s study, a proposal was made to turn the training site into a facility that could be used by local residents as well.

But local opposition was strong toward the acquisition of the land itself, and the ministry decided to go back to the drawing board for the plan, sources said.

Kihara admitted that the ministry “did not have a sufficient understanding, analysis or examination of the local situation.”

Despite the ministry’s decision, Tsunehiro Iha, 73, a former prefectural assembly member who co-chairs a citizens’ group that demanded the abandonment of the GSDF plan, remained angered over the matter.

“The central government has intruded too arrogantly into the community. I am furious,” Iha said.

Word of the plan first spread after a local newspaper reported on the project last December.

The ministry did not hold a briefing session for local residents until mid-February this year, fueling opposition to the project.

A council consisting of all 63 neighborhood associations in the city unanimously decided to oppose the project.

The Okinawa prefectural assembly also handed a letter of opinion to Kihara, demanding a full withdrawal of the plan.

With China in mind, the Defense Ministry in recent years has been promoting a “southwest shift” to reinforce the SDF in Okinawa and other southwestern islands.

Many residents in Okinawa Prefecture have grown anxious about the rapid changes, including the opening of a number of GSDF garrisons around the prefecture.

Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki on April 11 told reporters that “the ministry has been carrying out various plans in secret” and the people of Okinawa “have a strong sense of distrust.”

The governor said that if the ministry considers an alternative training site within the prefecture, it “should consider the closure and return (to Japan) of U.S. military bases at the same time, and show a long-term plan for how the SDF wants to do this.”

(This article was written by Nobuhiko Tajima, Satsuki Tanahashi and Taro Ono.)

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