Okinawa a small island caught between big powers

OKINAWA, Japan – Ms Keiko Itokazu can still remember the day in 1965 when the parachute didn’t open. It was attached to a jeep trailer that was dropped from an airplane, along with US paratroopers training near her home in Okinawa. The plummeting object missed her but hit a nearby house, killing a fifth-grade schoolgirl.

Until then, Ms Itokazu, who was then a high school junior, had never thought much about the huge military presence on the semi-tropical island, which at that time was under US control. The Americans had been there her whole life, after the United States seized Okinawa from Japan following the end of World War II.

But she knew the dead girl, who was a customer at her family’s small general store. Ever since, she has fiercely opposed the US bases, which remained even after the US returned Okinawa to Japanese governance in 1972.

Now 77, Ms Itokazu recently joined protests at the front gate of a new US Marine airfield being built on Okinawa’s northern end.

Okinawans have long felt caught between the US and Japan, which sent troops to claim the Okinawan island chain in the 1870s. Before that, Okinawa was known as the Kingdom of the Ryukyus, an independent country that paid tribute to both Imperial China and Satsuma, a domain in medieval Japan.

Ever since the Japanese takeover, islanders have complained of being second-class citizens. This includes during the war, when Japan used Okinawa as a battlefield to stop Americans from reaching its main islands.

But the relationship has changed more recently, driven in part by the re-emergence of a third power exerting an influence on Okinawa’s destiny: China.

Younger islanders now get their news from the same social media sources as other young Japanese, where there is widespread criticism of China’s