Okinawa’s ‘reversion’ to Japan was actually a purchase by Japan

Evidence

Although the 1972 deal that returned Okinawa to Japan was widely dubbed “reversion,” Japan secretly agreed as part of the negotiations to abide by quotas on textile exports to the United States and to pay as much as 685 million for Okinawa’s return. The payments included the cost of buildings and utilities returned to Japan and the expense of removing nuclear weapons from the island. (Another secret agreement allowed the reintroduction of nuclear weapons in emergencies.) The Japanese government also agreed to help prop up the weakening value of the dollar by depositing 112 million in New York’s Federal Reserve Bank for twenty-five years, interest free. And the government paid another $250 million over five years for base maintenance and Okinawan defense costs. As Gavan McCormack, an expert on U.S.-Japan relations, puts it, “the ‘return’ of 1972 was actually a purchase, and Japan has continued ever since to pay huge amounts.” These are “in effect a reverse rental fee, by which the Japanese landlord pays its American tenant.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 877

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘reverse rental fee’ inverts the guest-host dynamic of the base relationship, echoing the reader’s theft-in-plain-sight theme of the U.S. exacting tribute.
• DEEPTHINKING: The image of the ‘Japanese landlord paying its American tenant’ reframes the entire global basing network as disguised tribute/extraction paid by host nations, a paradigm-fitting reframe.