Quoting Nobuyuki Kaji’s essay in WiLL, this piece argues that beyond the political noise over the Henoko relocation, the core task is to make Okinawa economically “thick-boned” and self-reliant.
It claims that vast subsidies—intended as compensation for base-related burdens—often become oversized “box projects” because budgets must be spent.
As alternatives, it proposes state-funded factories leased cheaply to attract major employers, and a north–south rail line across Okinawa Island (standard-gauge high-speed plus a narrow-gauge heritage steam line for tourism).
The conclusion is that the problem is not aid itself but the way it is deployed—and it should be corrected immediately.

2019-01-28.
Because the way this enormous assistance has been provided (Okinawa has been given the largest local allocation tax grants among Japan’s 47 prefectures) was mistaken, it should be corrected immediately.
Anyone who subscribes to the newly released issues of the monthly magazines Hanada and WiLL must have reaffirmed that, if one seeks to know the truth of things in Japan today, there is no path other than subscribing to such monthly magazines.
A friend—an outstanding reader who, like me, regularly subscribes to the four titles Hanada, WiLL, Sound Argument, and Voice—said to me:
“You and Mr. Kaji are resonating right now…”
Mr. Kaji runs leading front-page columns in both Hanada and WiLL.
What follows is from an essay by the senior figure Nobuyuki Kaji published in WiLL.
Just like that superb essay I introduced earlier—“There are in fact plenty of workers in Japan”—this essay too is the real thing.
Emphasis in the text is mine.
Lately, drawn along by various global issues, discussion of Okinawa’s Henoko issue has been scant.
As you all know, the plan to close Futenma and relocate to Henoko had already been decided under the former Democratic Party government.
Yet the leading figure who refuses to acknowledge this is Yukio Edano, who served as a minister in that former Democratic Party cabinet.
Of course, Edano is now the leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party, so he will say he knows nothing of the Democratic Party era, and that the Constitutional Democratic Party opposes it.
Which means, does he claim he has nothing to do with the party he once belonged to?
What this attitude shows—so easily reversing what one once stated publicly—amounts to one thing: he cannot be trusted as a human being.
If such an untrustworthy liar is the party leader, then the Constitutional Democratic Party, too, is of that level.
We have no need to make these liars our problem.
The government should steadily proceed with the construction.
And do so swiftly.
However, at the same time, there is something that all of Japan must do for Okinawa.
That is to make Okinawa “thick-boned” and robust.
That is what I wish to state.
When this old man visited Okinawa, someone kindly drove me around to various places.
At that time I came to feel, firsthand, one of Okinawa’s truths.
While driving, I suddenly saw a massive building.
And this happened from time to time.
It was disproportionately large compared with the surrounding homes.
At first I thought it was the Okinawa Prefectural Government Office in Naha, but seeing several similar buildings, I asked—and they were city halls and the like in the municipalities around Naha.
For Okinawa, the government provides considerable sums as a kind of compensation or subsidy for the burden of the bases, but it seems they cannot spend it all.
In the end, part of it apparently gets executed through “box projects.”
That may be why such box projects, out of proportion with the surrounding residences, were built.
It is a classic case of spending budgets for the sake of spending them.
This is not good, even for Okinawa.
More effective budgets should be designed.
For example, though it is national funding, use it to attract factories of Japan’s major corporations.
Have the factories built with national funds and owned by the state, then lease them cheaply to companies, making it income for Okinawa.
Would that not create opportunities for people in Okinawa to work for major corporations?
Of course, small and medium-sized enterprises would also be acceptable.
In that way, companies themselves would no longer need to take risks building factories in distant foreign countries.
After all, they would not need to bear factory construction costs.
Okinawans’ incomes are low because there are few large companies where they can work.
If so, should the government not provide special assistance and attract businesses?
And if a company need not pay factory construction costs, the number of applicants would likely be quite large.
Speaking of national assistance, there is another proposal as well.
It is for JR, with national backing, to build a rail line running north to south across Okinawa Island.
Of course, it would be the same as the Shinkansen.
Naturally, the rail gauge would be what is called standard gauge, but if one more rail were laid on the inside (that is, making it a three-rail track), it would also function as a narrow-gauge line, and using that, one could run nostalgic steam locomotives (old engines).
In other words, those who are in a hurry take the standard-gauge Shinkansen, and those who wish to enjoy the journey take the narrow-gauge steam locomotive.
Would it not become a major attraction for Okinawa tourism?
From Okinawa’s perspective, it seeks, so to speak, sincerity from Japan’s main islands.
That is only natural.
The foundation of Japan’s national defense lies in Okinawa’s bases.
Therefore, to protect those bases, Japan must treat Okinawa with sincerity.
That must not end with words alone.
It means offering concrete and realistic support for Okinawa, such as the proposals above.
Of course, this is for the promotion of Okinawa.
As the ancients said: If a person has no distant foresight, they will surely have near troubles.
*As I have mentioned many times, the claim that Japan “colonized” the Korean Peninsula is a lie fabricated by countries that, after the war, sought to make Japan a political prisoner and extort money from it.
In reality it was a state of annexation, and precisely for that reason Japan poured more than 20% of the national budget into it and, in just 35 years, achieved infrastructure development—railways, dams, ports, reforestation, etc.—modernizing the peninsula, which had been one of the world’s poorest regions with the world’s worst status-discrimination system and a collapsed national economy.
Yet the attitude they now take toward Japan—the country to which they owe the greatest debt in their history—is, as the whole world now knows, what it is.
Okinawa, needless to say, is Japan and Okinawans are Japanese, so in principle they should not be ingrates like the Korean Peninsula or China.
Because the way this enormous assistance has been provided (again, Okinawa has been given the largest local allocation tax grants among Japan’s 47 prefectures) was mistaken, it should be corrected immediately.
If it were the case that I have been even slightly stimulating Mr. Kaji, whose recent essays are shining ever more with genuine brilliance, that would be my greatest satisfaction.