Volume 15 | Issue 1 | Number 2 | Article ID 4996 | Jan 01, 2017 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Rasa Island: What Industrialization To Remember and Forget Hiromi Mizuno Abstract: Rasa Island, a small, remote coral deserted island with no tree, no inhabitant, and atoll of Okinawa, was once a robust company virtually no topsoil left. town of Rasa Phosphate Industry Inc. Now abandoned and forgotten, the barren island nonetheless tells a rich story of Japan’s industrialization, a counter-narrative to the problematically simplified and celebratory history provided at the Meiji Industrial Revolution Sites recently inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. By using Rasa Island and critical heritage studies scholarship, this article examines the place of “industrial heritage” in post-industrial societies and what kind of heritage is performed at Japan’s World Heritage sites. Keywords: Rasa Island, fertilizer, industrialization, World Heritage Unlike the sites discussed in the other articles in this special issue, my site, Rasa Island, is a Okidaitōjima forgotten one. In fact, it is a site of abandonment. Because of that, it raises the issue of what is and should be “heritage,” and The island’s history is intimately tied to colonial what kind of narrative of industrialexpansion over centuries. Its first recorded development gets mobilized for “industrial sighting was by the Spanish navigator heritage” for Japan. I present the story of Rasa Bernando de la Torre, on September 25, 1543 Island here as a historical counter-inquiry into during his mission to find a return route for the the fixated meanings the official industrial Spanish military and trade ships from the heritage sites attempt to attach to industrial Philippines to New Spain. After that, ruins, such as Japan’s Meiji Revolution Sites Portuguese, Dutch, French, and other Spanish recently inscribed on the list of World Heritage traders and navigators sighted and charted the Sites. island and gave it various names on their maps. In 1815, the last Manila Galleon, the Spanish Rasa Island frigate San Fernando de Magallames, charted Rasa Island — also known as Oki Daitōjima— is the island as ‘Isla Rasa’ [the flat island], and 1 a coral atoll, located 220 miles southeast of the name stayed. While recognizing the Okinawa. Only 0.44 square miles, it is the existence of the island on their maps, however, smallest of the Daitō Islands group (with Kita the Europeans did not take any measures to Daitōjima and Minami Daitōjima). It is a claim the island. 1 15 | 1 | 2 APJ | JF It was Okinawa prefecture that put the first nitrogen (N), potassium (K), and phosphorus flag on Daitō Islands. In 1885, the Meiji (P) —Guano had been a well-recognized government ordered the newly createdfertilizer throughout human history but came to Okinawa prefectural government to survey the be especially valued in the 19th century. As three Daito islands. Six researchers were such, seabird droppings were a powerful dispatched, along with the prefecturalhistorical agent. It moved the US Congress to governor, who erected a flag. Privateestablish a law, the Guano Islands Act of 1856, businessmen flocked to the Okinawa governor, resulting in what Jimmy Skaggs called “The pleading for the right to explore the islands. Great Guano Rush”: a large number of After fierce competition, a businessman and Americans raced across the Pacific and claimed explorer named Tamaoki Han’emon won the more than 100 islands as US territories under privilege.2 Rasa Island was officiallythe 1856 Act, creating a new type of territory incorporated into Japanese territory in 1900. termed the “insular area.”4 Guano also caused a war between Spain and the Peruvian-Chilean Why were these islands of such great interest? alliance (the Chincha Islands War, 1864-1866) It was because of seabirds, the short-tailed and the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) between albatross called “fool birds” [ahōdori] in Peru and Chile. After this war, Chile, the Japanese as they are extremely easy to capture. winner, became the world’s largest exporter of Some entrepreneurial Japanese discovered, as nitrate.5 soon as Japanese ports were opened up for trade with the West, that short-tailed albatross Meiji Japan too relied on Chile for nitrate (Chile feathers could be sold for a high price to saltpeter/salitre), and its import was costing Westerners who fetishized feather bedding and the nation as much as 5 million yen a year. In adored decorative feather ornaments and order to find a domestic alternative, the Meiji stuffed birds. Tamaoki was one of them. He government established the Fertilizer Mineral made a fortune out of the Hachijōshima islands, Research Institute in 1901 and searched for Torishima, and other small islands in the phosphate ore all over the country. Its first 1890s, where the birds were hunted in the director, Tsunetō Norikata (1857-1939), scale of millions, to the point of near extinction discovered that Rasa Island was a “gold” mine within a few decades.3 Tamaoki developed for phosphate. Tsunetō was one of the first sugarcane plantations on Minami Daitōjima and recipients of a doctorate in agricultural Kita Daitōjima for Tōyō Seito東洋製糖 /Dai sciences in Japan. A graduate of Komaba Nippon Seitō 大日本製糖. Dai Nippon Seito Agriculture College, Tsunetō had collaborated later also extracted alumina for aluminum with Max Fesca, a German agronomist, in 6 production, using its byproduct, ammonia surveying soil and geology in Japan. When the sulphate, for chemical fertilizer for its sugar Fertilizer Mineral Research Institute was plantations in Okinawa and Taiwan. Rasa Island closed only two years later, Tsunetō decided did not become a settler colony. As a result of not to seek another position and instead to fierce competition among explorer profiteers, a “devote my own meager savings to find different kind of entrepreneur eventually won phosphate ore in southern islands 南方諸島( ) 7 the privilege of monopolizing Rasa Island. This for the future of Japanese agriculture.” was not for seabirds; it was for something else “Imagine if and when phosphorous imports are that the island had — high-quality phosphate terminated for whatever reason. Our farmers deposits called Guano, made of seabirds’ would forever suffer from the lack of fertilizer,” 8 fossilized excrement. Tsunetō reasoned. One of the first things Tsunetō did was to send a team of researchers Rich in all three essential soil nutrients — to Rasa Island. The 1907 expedition came back 2 15 | 1 | 2 APJ | JF with a good report: Rasa Island hadcompanies, things began to take a turn for exceptionally good quality phosphorus rocks better soon. By 1913, Rasa Phosphate Company that contained more than 30% phosphate. After was selling phosphate to major fertilizer fierce competition and negotiation over the producers such as Japan Artificial Fertilizer right to explore the island, Tsunetō and one of Company and operated its own small fertilizer his competitors, Kuki Monshichi, agreed to factory in Tokyo. With the prospect of jointly invest in the development of the island. sustainable business in sight, the company Kuki, an affluent merchant who ran a fertilizer expanded infrastructure on the island. The and vegetable oil business in Yokkaichi, had 1919 publication by Rasa Phosphate Company, earlier attempted but failed to claim the island. The Authentic View of Rasa Island,lists an In 1911, Rasa Island Phosphate Company was impressive array of facilities: pit railways and launched, with Tsunetō as the president and roads that extended in multiple directions, four Kuki as the largest investor (it changed the piers, a water tank, a hospital, a Shinto shrine, name to Rasa Industry Inc., in 1934). This was a police station, a bath and bathrooms, several a big deal, as Rasa Island was virtually the only housing complexes for workers, miners, and place in Japan proper that had phosphorus farmers, an agricultural field large enough to rocks whose quality was good enough to be self-sufficient, and more.12 A radio mast and compete against imported phosphate.9 a weather observation tower were added (built by the government), after two company ships Development of the island was slow and were sunk by typhoons. Many buildings and difficult. Frequent typhoons and steep, rocky facilities on the island were repeatedly shorelines made the voyage dangerous and destroyed by typhoons as well, but the sometimes impossible to berth. When they first company managed to rebuild them each time reached the island, it was covered with thick and made them stronger. With this expanded trees, its surface buried under layers of fallen infrastructure, phosphate production and sales leaves. Clearing for roads was a laborious task dramatically increased. In 1911, Rasa Island requiring setting fire and burning trees. had shipped out 10,000 tons of phosphate Transporting equipment, food, and other rocks.13 By 1918, the annual sale of phosphate necessary items by ship and on the island took reached 182,624 tons.14 It was soon shipping time. The island produced no drinkable water, out 200,000 tons of phosphorus rocks annually which also made settlement extremelyat this time, providing one third of Japan’s challenging. Rails, a simple pier, housing domestic needs.15 Rasa Phosphate Company facilities, and storage spaces were eventually also diversified its business by absorbing Osaka built, and phosphate rocks began to beSulfuric Acid Company and selling chlorine, dynamited, extracted, and transported to the sulfuric acid, and soda. Its growth was so storage facility in Osaka, but the company remarkable that a 1920 stock advice book encountered an obstacle. Mitsui, which was the listed Rasa Phosphate as one of “the twenty major distributer of imported phosphate, seven company stocks one should buy.”16 attempted to obstruct the business of the newcomer in the industry, by orchestrating a Much of this growth had to do with WWI.