Independence on Someone’s Minds

While the Scottish stepped back from the independence out of Great Britain in the referendum on Friday, the attempt ignited hopes for autonomy around the world. There also exists a sense of independence in Japan. It has been encouraged by discriminative application of policies to some regions. However, the central government does not show any attitude of appeasement.

Although the result of the referendum showed margin of ten percent, yes and no played a close race, which was enough to threaten some governments with the same kind of headache. As reported, Spain is one of those. Catalonia is expecting to have the same voting in November 9^th, in which the Catalans expect yes for independence, encouraged by the Scottish. Despite the central government in Madrid labeled the possible voting as illegal, the Parliament of Barcelona overwhelmingly vested its leader the power of having a referendum asking the residents independence.

In Japan, an area with current discussion over independence is Okinawa. Main reason for secession is too heavy burden of United States forces there, which a growing number of the people think as discrimination of central government in Tokyo a thousand miles away. While there is no obvious movement after the Scottish referendum, it is likely that people in Okinawa were encouraged to realize their autonomous power against the central government.

The northernmost island of Japan, Hokkaido, is known as close to Scotland in terms of size of land, population and economy. Both Hokkaido and Scotland has the land around seventy-eight square kilometers and five million people, and each of their gross domestic products is about two hundred billion dollars. As the Scottish does, people in Hokkaido have been frustrated with reduction of share of tax money for its economy or development. Hokkaido has long been the place where most businessmen were reluctant to work, because the move meant less chance to be promoted in the corporation they were affiliated. This is how the region has been treated.

There is no provision in Constitution of Japan on independence. It is highly unlikely that any kind of actual movement of secession will emerge in Japan soon. However, local people are actually frustrated with the governance of bureaucracy in Tokyo. Main reason why the economy policy of Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has not been welcomed is that the fruits of the policy were occupied by major companies in Tokyo. Although Abe is trying to distribute them to every region, local communities are not so happy with it, if it does not mean distribution of power for deciding policy.