Koshida Kiyokazu
Local Citizens Bewildered by Top-down Decision
The Group of Eight (G8) Summit Conference 2008 is to be held at Toyako lakeside in Hokkaido. I live in Hokkaido, which is located at the northernmost tip of the Japanese archipelago and has a population of some 5.6 million. Among the administrative divisions of Japan, this is the second largest island and occupies 22 percent of the total area of Japan.
Hokkaido was chosen as the site of G8 mainly for security reasons. The area is easy to guard. The meeting venue, a resort hotel, is located on a hill with but a single approach road. Also, there are only three highways between Shin Chitose Airport and Toya Lake. The G8 leaders will be transferred by helicopter and the main roads will be blockaded by police. This means that almost no one will be able to approach the hotel, except government officials and staff.
Based on the experience of the 2007 Heiligendamm Summit in Germany, the Hokkaido prefectural government has emphasized that “building a security system to respond to any critical situations including violent demonstrations is crucial.” Toyako is a tourist resort are in Hokkaido, especially well known for its spas, with big hotels surrounding the lakeside. July, when the summit takes place, is the peak tourist season. The Japanese and local governments have requested lakeside hotels not accept tourists from July 6 to 10. It is also expected that many local commuters will be inconvenienced by strict traffic controls or road closures during the summit.
How should we Hokkaido citizens respond to the coming summit, which will subject our island to severe security measures without consideration for our rights? In May, 2007, citizens・groups in Sapporo City, Hokkaido’s capital, started to discuss our position and response to the summit. At around the same time, we learned that the Japan G8 Summit NGO Forum in Tokyo was looking to work with Hokkaido groups. These two initiatives merged into preparatory committee -- the Hokkaido Peoples・Forum on G8 Summit (hereafter Peoples’ Forum).
On July 1, 2007, we invited Jurgen Maier, who organized the Alternative Summit with NGOs in Germany, to tell us about citizens・responses to the Heiligendamm Summit. Two months later, our Peoples’ Forum was officially launched.
The Peoples’ Forum does not uphold slogans such as “Stop the G8 Summit” or “Crush the G8 Summit.” However, most groups who joined the Forum agree that “the G8 Summit will not be welcomed.”
For people living in Hokkaido, the announcement of the summit was an unforeseen event. We had never asked to have the conference here. We had never discussed whether we should invite the summit or not. But some Diet members from Hokkaido in the former Abe Government lobbied to have the summit in Toyako. Therefore, we, citizens in Hokkaido, have no reason to “welcome” the meeting. Only the Tokyo and Hokkaido governments insist on it being “received warmly.” (The Hokkaido government emphasizes hospitality.)
After its launch, the Peoples’ Forum submitted demands to the Japanese and the Hokkaido local governments. These read:
We demand that the G8 Summit at Toyako in 2008 be open to citizens and respect the environment and human rights.
Hokkaido, called “Ainu mosir” (the land where humans live in serene silence), is a motherland to the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido. We believe that this island of “Ainu mosir“ is the best place to discuss issues such as the environment, peace and human rights. Because, as the land’s history shows, developmentalism brought by Japan’s power authorities has harmed its environment, exploited its resources and denied the rights of the Ainu. It is our wish that the summit will be conducted in consideration of this history.
More concretely, the demands of the Peoples’ Forum include:
(1) The summit should be open. People, including those coming from overseas, should be assured their right to carry out events, such as performances and peaceful demonstrations sponsored in the spirit of sovereignty of people. Also, citizens’ groups and people’s organizations who wish to come to Hokkaido for the summit should receive a visa promptly and should not be disturbed by troubles such as attempts at exclusion by the government.
(2) The summit should give priority to environmental and human rights matters [...] Concrete measures should be taken to decrease CO2 emissions in transportation of summit participants, and in providing security to them [...] Neither the environment nor the scenery around the Toyako Lake should be affected by construction of new buildings or roads. [...] We oppose the government expending huge amounts of tax money for the three-day summit.
As the demands suggest, the Peoples’ Forum at present does not oppose the Summit itself. The top-down decision has not given us enough time to think about, first of all, what the G8 summit is, and to accumulate our knowledge or understanding to confidentially say “No to the G8.” Therefore, people in the Forum have agreed to start with examining what the summit means for us. And, the participants commonly wish to come up with our own future vision - the future vision of citizens - of the island that envisions a future 50 years ahead. We take the summit imposed from outside as an opportunity for this attempt.
Colonial History of Ainu mosir
Until about 150 years ago, the island currently called Hokkaido was inhabited by the indigenous people, the Ainu. When Japan became a modern nation, the central government colonized the island. In 1868, the new Meiji Government set up the Hokkaido Reclamation Commission (Kaitakushi, administrative office for the colony) and changed the islands’ name from Ainu mosir to Hokkaido. The Commission’s head was also given the position of Chief Commander of the Japanese Army in Hokkaido. Japan dominated the island with both political and military rule.
Japan converted the island into its territory and imposed a private land ownership system over all areas of the island except “deep mountains and dark valleys.” People from mainland Japan grabbed the land and natural resources that had belonged to the Ainu. The drastic developmentalist policy of the Japanese government usurped underground mineral resources such as coal; wildlife including deer and salmon; and forests from the Ainu. Large corporations based in big mainland cities like Tokyo reaped major benefits from this exploitation. We have to critically review this development policy so that we can obtain an alternative perspective on Hokkaido for the time span of 50 or 100 years. We wish to share this perspective with people everywhere in the world who have suffered from ruthless colonial rule.
The Island of Militarization
Militarization of the island is another subject. As much as 42 percent of military bases and maneuver sites of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) are concentrated in Hokkaido, including three divisions, one brigade, an Air Force Base, and two large-scale and three smaller maneuvers sites. Among Hokkaido’s 180 municipalities, 70 have facilities related to the SDF. As the population decreases, SDF bases with hundreds or thousands of SDF members have become economically crucial to these communities・survival. Without SDF bases, many cities, towns and villages would probably be unable to run elementary schools, and local businesses would be dying, as would the communities themselves.
Aside from the SDF, the U.S. Marine Corps in Japan has transferred its live ammunition firing exercises from Okinawa to Yausubetu, the largest military training field under the control of the SDF. In addition, for the past few years, U.S. Navy warships have been calling at Hokkaido civilian ports.
The militarization of Hokkaido is rooted in the colonial rule of Japan. This island, claimed as a territory of Japan, is geographically almost as close to Russia. Thus, the Meiji government set up a farming soldier (tondenhei) system under which each farming solder household was to offer a male for military exercises to defend the northern frontier against Russia. The farming solider system was the precursor to the stationing of the central government’s regular army in Hokkaido. In 1896, a large-scale military base was established in Asahikawa City, in the central part of Hokkaido.
After its defeat in World War II, Japan followed the U.S.’s hostile strategy toward the Soviet Union, and aggressively reinforced the SDF in Hokkaido. Consequently, as mentioned above, a large number of municipalities hosting an SDF presence developed a dependency on the SDF for their survival. Changing this dependency structure, especially the military-based local economy, and demilitarization of Hokkaido are the challenges lying before us. As to the forthcoming summit, we should demand of all the G8 countries a curtailing of military spending, a reduction of the arms industry and a ban on the international arms trade, as well as the closure of foreign military bases.
Local Autonomy Derogated by Centralism
The debt issue is also critical for the island. In 2007, the budget of Hokkaido amounted to 2,665 billion yen, out of which 27.2 percent is for debt repayment. This is the biggest expenditure in the budget. As to the revenue, a local bond will be issued to cover 20.6 percent of the budget. In other words, Hokkaido is borrowing money.
Many municipalities in Hokkaido also depend on their own bonds, and are deeply in debt from a deficit of public facilities such as hospitals. Between 2004 and 2006, four municipalities had to spend more than 30 percent of their budgets to repay debts. In 1990s when Japan enjoyed its bubble economy, these municipalities invested huge amounts of money in public enterprises such as resort development, financed by haphazard banks.
When the debt service ratio exceeds more than 25 percent of budget, a local government is banned, by the central government, from borrowing money for implementation of independent programs or enterprises and is considered to be in a financial crisis. If the condition persists, the central government then designates the local municipality as “under rehabilitation” and supervises a prioritization of the debt repayment from the municipality’s budget. This can be called the Japanese equivalent of the “Structural Arrangement Program” (SAP) imposed by the IMF and World Bank during 1980s and 90s on people in the “Majority World.”
In 2007, news that Yubari City in central Hokkaido had became a “municipality under rehabilitation” received huge media coverage in Japan. The city grew as a “coal town,” after a coal portative railway was constructed through an uninhabited mountain area. The population rapidly increased from 307 in 1891 to 18,000 in 1906. For the Japanese government, coal was the major industry until the early 1960s, and the population of Yubari reached more than 100,000 in 1960. However, the government’s energy shift to oil led to the closures of coal mines one after another, and the population quickly decreased. Yubari is a typical town affected by the colonization of the central government and development decisions that neglected local people.
For the bankrupted Yubari, debt repayment will be the first priority for the next 18 years. The city government showed a balanced budget financing of 1,460 million yen in 2007, to repay the debt. The budget was made by increasing taxes, garbage disposal fees, water bills, fees for usage of public facilities and so on. City hospitals have been privatized resulting in cuts to the number of beds.
The central government’s “rehabilitation policy” and cutting of public services proceeds in total disregard for the citizens of Yubari; this runs counter to the local autonomy by and for local citizens.
Preparing to Visualize the People of the World Majority
The above-mentioned “negative” histories of Hokkaido paradoxically illustrate the possibilities for the island. Compared with the mainland, Hokkaido is blessed with natural forests, precious wild animals such as nakiusagi, the native rabbit. “local production for local consumption” is real here as we see the food self-sufficiency rate remains relatively high. A chance for a live-and-let-live society with the Ainu and foreign nationals is provided in our daily practice.
The ecological and social issues in Hokkaido are local, but at the same time, reflect those facing the world. Taking the G8 summit, foisted upon us without our permission, as an opportunity, we can design the future of Hokkaido with the global perspective. For our attempts to explore the vision of Hokkaido for next 50 or 100 years, we are preparing broad discussion spaces for citizens’ groups, farmers’ groups, trade unions, consumers’ associations, NGOs and NPOs -- both before and during the G8 summit. Our activities will surely visualize the existence of people who are represented neither by the G8 countries nor by the global corporations that are the engine of neo-liberalism.
From the end of June to early July, 2008, “Alternative Week” (as it has been tentatively called) is planed for Sapporo City, the capital of Hokkaido. Various forums on economic globalization, peace, human rights and poverty, as well as actions, will be carried out during the week. On July 4, an international gatherings titled “Indigenous Peoples’ Summit” and an international farmers・forum organized by Via Campensina are being prepared. Also planned is an “International Symposia on Reconciliation and Peace by the People Beyond Borders,” in which the issue of colonization will be discussed; and other forums on local governments・finance issues as well as debt issues of developing countries. On July 5, a major street demonstration will take place. From July 6 to 8, the Alternative Summit (tentatively so called) will be held in conjunction with various groups from Tokyo.
In preparing these actions, we are beginning to answer our queries: what does the summit mean? Is it really necessary for the people? In the three months since we set up the Citizens’ Forum, it has become increasingly clear that the summit will never be an event open to the public. If so, why not present our own future visions which are totally different from theirs? Why not demonstrate that we, not the G8 leaders, are with the global majority of the people? This is how many of us are beginning to feel as the mammoth event draws near.
We shall meet you all in Hokkaido in July, 2008.
(December 2007)
(Translated by Kaji Etsuko)
Koshida Kiyokazu: Freelance activist-researcher. Currently working as secretary general of the Hokkaido Peoples’ Forum on the G8 Summit.
This article is reprinted from Japonesia Review No4 issued in March 2008. Japonesia Review is a bi-annual English language magazine published by the People’s Plan Study Group [PPSG] based in Tokyo. Japonesia Review both provides up-to-date information on the contemporary Japanese political situation and protest movements and theoretically-informed analyses concerning social problems arising from the recent resurgence of nationalism and militarism in Japan. To start subscribing to the magazine, please visit www.ppjaponesia.org