Antibase protest drove Tokyo to expand compensation payments sustaining tacit support

Evidence

The “militancy and opposition to the bases,” explains Cooley, “have driven Tokyo to develop and institutionalize a comprehensive system of fiscal transfers, public works funds, and targeted payments to key island actors.” With the help of a “permanent and well-funded state bureaucracy” in Tokyo, “these sizable transfers have established a political economy of base-related compensation that ultimately assures that a slight political majority in Okinawa continues to support the U.S. presence, albeit tacitly.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 873