voiceofokinawa comments

Seems the area has been inhabited by people of India decent since time immemorial, and so India thinks the area is its own territory. On the other hand, China thinks the area is an integral part of Tibet, that is under effective Chinese control.

Was Buddha Indian or Tibetan? Is it important to distinguish? Similarly, we can ask: Was Christ an Israeli or a Palestinian? The idea of national borders is only a recent phenomenon.

NATO seems to be expanding its sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific region and reduce the enormous burden the U.S. has to pay for the defense of the region or, to be more precise, to defend its vested interests in the region. Thus, the U.S. is no doubt behind the scenes, instigating Japan, for example, to sign various treaties with NATO nations. This article confirms this assumption of mine.

Setting up a buoy in international waters by one country may not be so worrisome for another country to be. 

But isn't it courteous for the buoy-setting up country to inform its intention to the international community or at least relevant littoral countries as to why it's doing so? 

It's this assertiveness on the part of China that causes so much tensions in today's world.

Wallace,

Like you say, I'm sure that the U.S. and South Korea will not be attacking North Korea. But North Korea might take it differently. The U.S. and S.K. forces might be coming to take them over, they fear.’

 It is out of such a misunderstanding that a more serious conflict is engendered and flares up beyond anyone’s control.

The deployment of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in waters near North Korea no doubt signals that the U.S. is ready to attack North Korea anytime soon.

And so, one must know how they, the North Koreans, feel about it. Is a war really imminent on Korean Peninsula?

One thing I remember about Shigeru Ishiba is that he gathered five LDP lawmakers from Okinawa districts who had run and elected on a ticket against the central government's established timeline to build the Henoko new base. The scene was broadcast openly by NHK.

The five lawmakers were seated meekly on chairs like truants being chastised by a teacher

What is the real cause of this PFAS impact?

I've heard there was an intelligence corps in the U.S. army during WW II, that was solely composed of native American Indians. But I didn't know they were Navaho. The U.S. army was confident that the Navaho language was unfamiliar to anyone in Japan, no researcher there nor speaker of the language.

On the other hand, the Imperial Japan Army's cryptogram had already been deciphered by the U.S. Intelligence Corps as early as the time of the Pearl Harbor Attack.

And so, when artillery and aerial attacks by the advancing U.S. army were so pin-pointed in the Battle of Okinawa, IJA officers deployed to Okinawa had to suspect there were very many spies among the local people. How many locals were victimized for that?

If these barren islands really belonged to China, its coast guard ships had every right to chase away intruding Japanese boats.  

The catch is: Are the islands bona fide Chinese territory as China claims? China's claim to the islands is partly based on Chen Kwan's documentation of island's names  (1534). But Chen Kwan seems to have translated these names from vernacular names upon hearing what Ryukyu seamen aboard the same tributary ship told him. In other words, the islands had had local names long before Chen Kwan recorded them in his travelog.

Can China have right to chase away the Japanese fishing boats from the Senkaku/Diaoyu waters?

There is also a section, unnecessary for other no U.S. base-hosting prefectures, under the Governor's executive office that exclusively deals with Ｕ.S. base-derived problems that consume an enormous amount of money.

Droll Quarry,

Tamaki's traveling abroad is mostly to Washington. He travels to Washington just as his predecessors have done to appeal to reduce this huge U.S. military footprint somehow. Spending money for such a purpose is unnecessary for governors in other prefectures. Okinawa even has a liaison office in Wahington, a sheer extra for other prefectures.

Who’s been licking its lips to invade and occupy Okinawa? Commodore Mathew Perry, who pried open the closed doors of reclusive Japan in 1852, recommended his superiors in Washington that the U.S. occupy Okinawa and make it a bastion to advance to Asia. So, the U.S.'s scheme to occupy Okinawa is almost two centuries long.

Perry's recommendation was disregarded at the time because of a political turmoil in Washington, but was realized in full in 1945 when Imperial Japan lost World War II.

It's really regrettable that the Tamaki bloc lost the election. Among the electorate it was not the base issues that concerned them most. It was economic issues that concerned them most this time around.

As for the U.S. base issue, the electorate must have thought that maintaining the status quo was necessary because of the assertive activities of China Coast Guard ships in the Senkaku waters.

In a way, China helped Tamaki's opposition, LDP cohorts, win this election.

If 4 thousand Marines deployed to Okinawa can be transferred to Guam, all the rest of them can be. The two governments have already signed an agreement to the effect that JSDF, and not USFJ, has primary responsibility to defend Japan's own territory should a contingency over the Senkakus ever occur.  

So, there is no legitimate reason why U.S. Marines must be stationed in Okinawa., whereby the construction of a new Marine air base in Henoko, Nago City, Okinawa, for Ospreys to transport Marines has become sheer nonsense. No use to build a new base for the U.S. Marines anymore. Period.

How would Washington and Tokyo respond to such a voice?

A replay of the 1962 Cuban crisis? To my chagrin, the Cold War seems to die hard.

Are there people, the profiteers who want to keep the East-West tensions to go on like this forever?

Surprising. Surprising. Before anyone knew about it, Japan has become a big weapons producer. Japan seems to have remilitarized itself fully despite the post-war pacifist constitution and its repeated vows not to commit the same mistake. 

Probably, Japan’s possession of nuclear arsenal may be near at hand. All this with the sanction by Washington, I’m afraid.

As far as these weapons are not used against the U.S., it’s all right for Japan to remilitarize and build up arms, Washington may think, I'm afraid.

.

It's amazing that over 30 % of the readers of this thread have given noncredit to my post of June 8. Probably, they think that Okinawa (Ryukyu Kingdom) was a vassal of China under the old tributary system, and so, if the island group in question is part of Ryukyu Kingdom, they naturally fall into China's sovereignty.

It's true that Ryukyu Kingdom was a tributary to China, but note that so were Korea, Vietnam, etc. In the same vein, then, China may claim Korea's Cheju Island on the north-eastern helm of the East China Sea is China's territory and Vietnam's offshore islands on the Bay of Tongking are theirs. Can the world community accept that right then and there?

Shame on the Chinese leadership.

They think the Senkakus/Diaoyudaos belong to China because the names of the islands are recorded in documents in early Chinese history authored by Chen Kwan. I argued against this by pointing out the islands had already had local names, which Chen Kwan seems to have merely translated into Chinese.

I do not want to claim the islands are ours, but I can definitely say that the island group doesn't belong to China at all

How will Japan alter its stance on Ukraine?

 If Ukraine is part of Russia, Vladimir Putin is right and Russia's invasion of Ukraine may be justified. But if Ukraine is a sovereignty independent of Russia, Putin is completely wrong.

Thus, the matter boils down to if Ukraine is an independent sovereignty or not.

I wonder where the wherewithal of the cost for launching these missiles comes from. Is the U.S. letting North Korea squander the money on purpose until North Korea exhausts all of its resources up and succumbs? But that's a dangerous escapade.

When the nuclear-powered USS George Washington replaced the conventional USS Nimitz at Yokosuka, wasn't there a similar controversy between Washington and Tokyo concerning if a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was a nuclear arsenal?

Tokyo seems to have succumbed to Washington, that insisted that a nuclear-powered warship was no different from a conventionally powered one, citing nuclear power plant. as an example.

That reminds me of the late former PM Yasuhiro Nakasone, who had visited Washington in 1983 and suddenly became a fervent promotor for nuclear energy after the return from his U.S. trip. Japan started building nuclear power plants one after another thereafter.

 Now, some poster here argues that nuclear fusion in the core of a nuclear power plant and nuclear warships are the same, whereby arguing against nuclear-powered warships making Yokosuka its permanent home base is nonsense.

China is very assertive, and so its assertiveness must be checked by all means before it's too late. So must the U.S. be thinking. But, at the same time, the U.S. seems not to want to be directly involved in any conflict with China, letting JSDF to deal with such conflicts, if any. 

In other words, U.S. forces’ deployment to Japan is just a make-it-believe justification for the defense of Japan. They are deployed here ultimately to not let the genie out of the bottle. So, what’s the use of building Futenma’s replacement, a completely new base, in Henoko, Nago City, Okinawa?

Why did U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rham Emanuel visit Yonaguni Island despite the fact that there is no U.S. base planted on the island. However, JSDF has recently built a missile base there and, as expected, he made the first-hand observation of the base as if it was a U.S. base. It may be natural for him to make such a visit, for Japan was virtually under U.S. occupation and if indeed JSDF and USFJ were all part of the same gang.

USNinJapan2,

A kitchen knife is a very useful tool for cooking. But it can be an awesome weapon if attached to the head of a spear. Are the kitchen knife and the spear all the same?

USNinJapan2,

According to Japan's three non-nuclear principles, Japan will not possess nuclear arsenal, manufacture them, nor let them in.

Do you insist to say that none of these principles applies to nuclear-powered warships like the USS Ronald Reagan, nor nuclear-powered submarines which often call at the White Beach Naval Base in Okinawa?

Desert Tortoise,

You seem to say that nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are not military arsenal, and so it is quite permissible for them to make Yokosuka their permanent home base? LOL.

Good grief. The nuclear-powered Ronald Reagan leaves Yokosuka, but another carrier, also nuclear-powered, the George Washington, will come soon there to replace it, thus making Yokosuka a permanent U.S. naval base in this Pacific region. Japan's three non-nuclear principles and, above all, its sovereignty, are virtually nonexistent.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Rham Emanuel, was there to make farewell handshakes with the crew members. A good job, Mr. Ambassador.

It was the next-generation fighter jets that Japan signed with the U.K. and Italy to jointly develop. This time, it is the hypersonic missiles that Japan signed with the U.S. to co-develop.

Hey, there is something unforgivable going on in the Japan-U.S. relations to make Japan an abominable military country once again. Have they forgotten the national pledge inscribed on the Hiroshima epitaph that partly says, "We will never repeat the same mistake"?

New Caledonia, a French colony? This is anachronism indeed, the last remnant of jungle-law colonialism, when other colonies by Western powers seem to have been all liberated.

They have a countermeasure to prevent such an intrusion, by defusing the drone's AI system, don’t they?

But then your antagonist will develop a countermeasure to it. At any rate, a future war will be fought mainly with AI-controlled war machinery and cruise missiles.

What's the use then of building Futenma's replacement in Henoko, Nago City, Okinawa, with Ospreys to transport troops in mind?