The Land od the Rising Yen

ingenious and eager to learn,
absorbed the lesson as they saw it: nuclear bombs are not to be copied — as
battleships, torpedoes and military devices were in the last century — but
avoided as evil. They perceived that no nation will have the choice of being
bomb-thrower or target in a nuclear war: participants will be both. Japan is the only nation which knows what it means to be a target in an atomic war. She has
had enough of it.
     
    Japan has turned away from aggressive military
chauvinism and has embraced a substitute nationalism: economic glory.
    Old-fashioned nationalism survives
mostly in one issue: Okinawa. This is inevitable. Okinawa touches too many
chords in too many hearts and appeals to everyone, from the extreme right to
the extreme left. Some people talk of Communist exploitation. Sure enough, the
Communists try to exploit the issue but they did not create it. As a choice for
exploitation it is perfect: it is the one issue which unites the old-fashioned
chauvinists with the anti-American left.
    The left, Socialists and Communists
alike, want the Americans out and want to harm American interests. But the
extreme right, too, wants the Americans out. The postwar era is over, they
feel, and as Japan has now become an important economic power, and an equal and
trusted partner, war-time conquests and military bases must be given up. The
Americans would be quite willing to comply with these wishes: they do not want
to retain political sovereignty over Okinawa as long as they can keep the bases
— after all, they have nearly a hundred and fifty other bases on Japanese
territory and no one ever protests against their existence. But there is a
grave complication in the case of Okinawa: it is the most important nuclear base
on the Ryukyu islands, a vital link in the American defence-chain. The
Americans would be quite ready to return the Ryukyus to Japan if they were allowed to retain the nuclear bases; but the Japanese constitution forbids
nuclear bases on Japanese territory. The dilemma is simple: if Okinawa is to become Japanese territory it must cease to be a nuclear base; if it is to
remain a nuclear base it cannot become Japanese territory.
    The Americans are keenly aware of
this dilemma. Japanese friendship and goodwill are overwhelmingly important to
them and, indeed, Okinawa is the only serious cloud on the horizon. But it is
becoming more and more menacing. America also has her own nationalists, her
Pentagon and indeed, her true national interests. The conquest of Okinawa cost nearly 40,000 American lives. But even if they do not argue in the terms of
war-time sacrifices: today the United States has ninety-one military
installations and 45,000 troops on the island. Okinawa is only five hundred
miles away from Shanghai — its military importance is obvious — and neither Taiwan nor the Philippines could compensate for its loss. The United States might be ready to remove
nuclear bases from Okinawa and agree to consult the government of Japan before operations are carried out against other Asian nations — i.e. to accept the same
conditions that operate for the other hundred and forty-eight American military
bases in Japan, about which, I repeat, one hardly ever hears one critical word
uttered.
    The conservative and pro-American
government of Japan is in a quandary. Okinawa is for Japan what reunification
is for West Germany: not everyone regards it as a burning issue but no one
dares say so; everyone must pay lip-service to its overwhelming importance. The
government would like to play the Okinawa issue down but it cannot: it is much
too explosive — and elections are not far ahead. The government, one feels,
would be quite prepared to accept the American suggestion that they take Okinawa
back and change the constitution — at least so far as this single exception is
concerned — in advance, to allow American nuclear bases to stay on. But
anti-nuclear and anti-colonial feelings are fierce, and the Japanese public
would not agree to receive Okinawa back conditionally or to bargain away the
most sacred clause of the constitution. The discovery in July 1969, after an
accident, that the Americans were stock-piling nerve-gas, a powerful chemical
and biological weapon, at Okinawa, has hardly contributed to the calming of
passions.
    The Okinawans, too, press hard: they
want to return to the motherland. Somewhat unwisely, some people maintain.
Okinawa, for a while, after the war, was better off than