US analyst claims China is backing Okinawa independence movement in bid to drive wedge between Tokyo, Washington
- In an opinion piece, Robert D. Eldridge says Beijing has deployed thousands of ‘agents provocateurs’ to rise up and limit US and Japanese military responses
- While the former political adviser for the US Marine Corps in Japan warns that an eye should be kept on the disputed Diaoyu Islands, analysts are sceptical about his take
In an opinion article for the Sankei newspaper’s Japan Forward site, Robert D. Eldridge, founder and president of The Eldridge Thinktank and a director of the Hawaii-based Global Risk Mitigation Foundation, said local media was being used to promote the independence narrative and foment opposition to the US military presence in the prefecture.
He added that blocking airports and port facilities would be a relatively straightforward operation for Chinese fifth-columnists supported by local separatists in the event of a conflict breaking out, severely limiting the potential military responses of Tokyo and Washington.
“You should expect just about everything will go wrong on your side, and everything will go right on the enemy’s side,” Eldridge wrote. “The reality will be somewhere in the middle, but you cannot go into the fight with rose-coloured glasses, which tends to be what Japan’s national leaders prefer to wear.”
When contacted by This Week in Asia, Eldridge declined to respond to specific questions – including evidence for his claims about the deployment of Chinese agents in Okinawa, the tactics Beijing might use to conquer the Diaoyus, or the military response from the US or Japan – on the grounds the answers would include classified information.
That opinion is shared by Satoru Nakamura, head of the Okinawa Policy Research forum, who has expressed concern in speeches and on the forum’s website that the local independence movement will use a contingency surrounding the Diaoyus to “break from Japan” or sow dissent between Tokyo and Washington.