Facing hegemony: the fate of Nago city and the failure of Japanese leadership

Finally, Hatoyama gave in. The 2006 agreement is going to be honored and nothing has been changed since the election of a new Japanese party into power. In weighing democracy, popular demand versus strategic alliance, or more appropriately hegemonic dominance, Japan ultimately reaffirmed its fate as a quasi-sovereign state under the indirect control of its master: the U.S. military occupation.

Ever since the end of World War II, Okinawa people are destined to fight their fate against the overwhelming power of the U.S. Though defeated and repressed by the government in Tokyo, the effort continues. Democracy is working well on the island, but is sacrificed in the name of national security and alliance. The imaginary enemy, North Korea or China, was propagated as some permanent threat that has to be dealt with American presence. Such security arrangement or hegemonic structure has been maintained well over half a century and is the real source of tension in East Asia. Contrary to the right-wing claim that the alliance among Japan, South Korea and the US is the stabilizing foundation of the region, such alliance prevented real dialog and open diplomacy among East Asians, provoked more mutual distrust, and caused more military competitions there.

While all things bad are squarely blamed on North Korea, no one seems to care about the security concerns of the North, or for that matter, the concerns of the Nago city residents. Somehow, foreign occupation, intervention and oppression, are justified and democracy and legitimate safety demands are vilified. The failure of the Hatoyama government to make a different in this new era of the Japanese politics, clearly indicates that no matter what domestic change in Japan, US hegemonic control over Japan, security illusion included, cannot and will not be easily removed or negotiated away.

Japan's declining world influence and rising domestic problems not only will not help its government to fight for greater independence, but also increases its dependency on its metropole, the US. Though Hatoyama had a good faith in forming a regional cooperative future, without breaking free from Japan's shackles, he could never truly walk toward the direction of East Asia reinvention.