How US Occupation Forces and Pre-War Borders Created an Environment for Smuggling in the Post-War Ryukyus
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Volume 19 | Issue 2 | Number 2 | Article ID 5530 | Jan 15, 2021 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus How US Occupation Forces and Pre-war Borders Created an Environment for Smuggling in the Post-war Ryukyus Ibrahim Jalal Abstract: This article examines how the often- Keywords: Post-war Japan, Smuggling, overlooked era of Okinawan smuggling in the Okinawa, Ryukyu, Military Occupation, years 1945-1950 was fostered by two factors. Borderlands, Taiwan, China The first was the contradiction between US Occupation rules that forbid free trade and movement coupled with a lack of supplies essential for survival. Okinawans continued to make use of the borderland status that had existed under the Japanese Empire at the intersection with Japan, Taiwan and mainland China, While the military government branded smuggling as criminal and opportunistic, for the people of Okinawa smuggling was a necessity to survive in an economy that had been devastated by war. Local police and guards often turned a blind eye to the black market, and in some cases were even involved in the theft of goods for smuggling. Those throughout the Ryukyu Archipelago were in a unique position to trade surplus military goods and scrap metal for necessary resources such 1950 aerial photograph of Okinawa as food and building materials due to their location between Japan, Taiwan and China as the unguarded coastline made it possible to avoid detection. Even children helped gather resources for smuggling, and many women Introduction took part in the trade. During this era, the archipelago’s westernmost island of Yonaguni In Okinawa Kuhaku no Ichinen 1945-1946, grew into a prosperous borderland outpost for Kabira Nario details the environment illegal trade and the population boomed. By the Okinawans found themselves in immediately mid-1950s the era of large-scale smuggling had after the Battle of Okinawa. Kabira describes come to an end, as harsher US clampdowns, 1945-46 as a ‘blank year’ devoid of records and stronger borders in Taiwan, coupled with the often only briefly covered in post-war histories relaxation of measures that allowed Okinawans of Okinawa.1 This article examines one aspect to freely trade gradually brought the golden of life that began during this blank year: age of smuggling to an end. smuggling and two factors that facilitated it in 1 19 | 2 | 2 APJ | JF the years 1945-50. The first was theshortages resulting from the population Occupational authorities’ insistence that bar increase.4 Some studies of contemporary trade outside Okinawa, coupled with a lack of Okinawa focus on the base problem such as supplies for civilians. This was coupled with a those of Maeda Tetsuo, Gabe Masaaki and consciousness that Taiwan and China to the Hayashi Hirofumi, noting that the land of many South and Japan to the north had been part of a Okinawans was taken over by military bases. single economic region under the Japanese These researchers have focused on the Empire. In the immediate aftermath of the war immediate situation in Okinawa itself. But Okinawa’s borderland status became more smuggling links all of these factors. This article pronounced. links these better-known elements of post-war Okinawa history to the lesser known history of There is currently limited research on post-war post-war smuggling. smuggling throughout the Ryukyu Archipelago, and this is likely linked to two factors. The first The social scientist Iwashita Akihiro has is that individuals partaking in the illegal introduced the concept of borderland studies to activity seek to remain anonymous, so primary Japan and its former territories under the sources are scarce. Even documents that are empire, particularly Sakhalin and the Kuril available, such as US military government Islands. Iwashita has contrasted state borders documents, frequently contain large amounts of defining political entities in contrast with the censored texts. The scope of smuggling also actual living space of people when writing transcends Okinawa itself with routesabout Japan’s northern territories. This article connecting mainland Japan, Taiwan and China. looks at smuggling through the perspective of Given this multinational complexity and the Okinawa as a borderland region.5 nature of the Battle of Okinaw, it is not surprising that studies have focused on the This perspective of a more localized view war’s aftermath in the devastated regions. rather than the top down state approach examines how Okinawa fared, and to some The most comprehensive work on post-war extent continues to fare, within the American smuggling is the political scientist Koike empire. Smuggling is an area where there is a Yasuhito’s ‘Ryukyu retto no mitsuboeki to chance to look at what contemporaries kyokaisen: 1941-1951i’ (‘Smuggling in the considered their actual living space, and their Ryukyu Archipelago and its Borders’). Koike ability to transcend borders, rather than interviewed traders and used ocupationexamining Okinawa through state-imposed documents to examine the role of smuggling in formal boundaries.6 the post-war years.2 This article, beginning with the initial However, most studies on post-war Okinawa background of post-war Okinawa and the focus on other elements. This includes the imperative to smuggle in the immediate post- sociologist Oguma Eiji, who in a comparative war environment given the contradiction study of Okinawans as subjects of the Japanese between a lack of supplies and the necessity to Empire examined such elements of post-war rely for survival on US military government Okinawa as the difficulties resulting from a lack policies and provisions. The second section of school infrastructure and ideas of anlooks at some of the routes chosen for independent Ryukyu.3 Others including Arakaki smuggling, particularly the activity in Yasuko highlighted the influx of Okinawan Yonaguni, the most western island in the migrants overseas who were forced to return to archipelago and a borderland region that Okinawa after Japan’s defeat, including food played a large role in the trade. The latter half 2 19 | 2 | 2 APJ | JF of this article examines the attractiveness of Ryukyuan economy, natives seized (the) smuggling for individual actors before opportunity for personal profit by concluding with the crackdown on this trade in smuggling consumer goods from Japan, the 1950s coinciding with imposition of more China and Formosa, using as a medium of formal boundaries on the Ryukyu Archipelago exchange items sold and donated to coupled with Occupational reforms that indigenous economy through the (civil reduced the necessity for smuggling for administration) and strategic and non- survival. strategic items of American military origin or under occupation control. As smuggling US military rule of parts of the main island of and black market profits are lucrative, Okinawa began as early as April 1, 1945, the hundreds of natives and foreign (nationals) day US troops landed on Okinawa during the are engaging in the unlawful activity. Of final battle of the Pacific War. Fleet Admiral even greater import is that the smuggling Chester Nimitz declared that the Ryukyu boats are transporting illegal and 7 Archipelago was now under US rule. US subversive elements into and/or through military rule had already begun by the end of the Ryukyus.8’ March on the neighboring islands of the Kerama Archipelago, and by the end of August 1945 it covered the entirety of the island of Okinawa. The journalist Okuno Shūji has given a more romantic portrayal of the post-war smuggling After the war, Okinawans were gradually period as one that harked back to the golden allowed to return through the war-tornage of trade by the Ryukyu Kingdom in the landscape to their homes to begin to rebuild 15th to 16th centuries. During this period, their lives under the new regime. However, before the Ryukyu Archipelago became a semi- large military bases, built throughout the colony of Japan in 1609, the kingdom sent ships ongoing battle in order to launch an attack on throughout Asia, trading with China, Japan and mainland Japan, now stood on what had been Korea, and in South East Asia as far as present the homes and fields of tens of thousands of 9 day Indonesia. However, by 1945 Okinawa had Okinawans. Resources were scarce with cattle been incorporated as a prefecture of Japan and crops obliterated by bombardment from since 1879, with a transition to a mainly the navy, air and army forces on both sides. In agricultural economy.10 the wake of Japan’s surrender, given the inadequate provisions provided to theOkuno acknowledges that Okinawans took part Okinawan people by the occupying forces, a in the smuggling to survive throughout the black market developed. Ryukyu Archipelago in the wake of the Battle of Okinawa with its devastating casualties. The Smuggling was facilitated by the surplus of contemporary Okinawan historian Arasaki goods that the US bought to the islands in Moriteru has estimated that 65,000 mainland preparation for an attack on the Japanese troops were killed in addition to 30,000 mainland. A 1951 United States Civil Okinawan military personnel, at least 94,000 Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (USCAR) civilians and 10,000 Koreans who had been memo described the trade: conscripted as military porters, nurses, or 11 comfort women. As the battle progressed southwards, first to the base of the Japanese ‘Upon cessation of (the) Pacific War and army beneath Shuri Castle in Naha, and then to (the) collapse of Japanese controlled the most southern point of the