U.S. diplomat said to have likened Japanese idea of harmony to extortion
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A U.S. official in charge of Japanese affairs at the State Department is said to have likened the Japanese culture of maintaining social harmony to a means of "extortion" and described the people on the southern island of Okinawa as "lazy" in a speech given in Washington late last year.
According to a written account compiled by some students who attended the lecture at the department, Kevin Maher, who heads its Japanese affairs office and served as consul general in Okinawa Prefecture, also described people in Okinawa as "masters of manipulation and extortion" in their relations with the central government.
Maher told Kyodo News, "I am not in a position to comment on the record at this time," saying his briefing was an off-the-record event. He said the account made available to (Kyodo) -- News is "neither accurate nor complete."
Maher has been involved in bilateral negotiations with Japan over the controversial issue of relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station and is known to advocate a plan to relocate the base to another location within the prefecture, an idea widely opposed by local residents.
The remarks attributed to Maher are being seen as provocative in Japan. They are "racially discriminating against Okinawa," said Teruo Hiyane, a scholar on postwar Okinawan history. Ukeru Magosaki, a former Japanese diplomat, said Maher's reported views on Japan were "biased and completely distorted."
Maher spoke on Dec. 3 at the request of American University to a group of 14 students just before their roughly two-week study tour to Tokyo and Okinawa.
In the speech, Maher was quoted as saying, "Consensus building is important in Japanese culture. While the Japanese would call this 'consensus,' they mean 'extortion' and use this culture of consensus as a means of extortion."
"By pretending to seek consensus, people try to get as much money as possible," he said.
Maher also criticized people in Okinawa as "too lazy to grow 'goya' (bitter gourd)," a traditional summer vegetable in the southern prefecture, saying other prefectures in Japan grow more than Okinawa, according to the account.
On the Futenma base, located in a crowded residential area of Ginowan, Maher allegedly said while Okinawans claim the base is the most dangerous in the world, they know that is it not true.
Civilian airports in Fukuoka and Osaka are "just as dangerous," he reportedly said.
Maher was quoted as saying that the Japanese government "needs to tell the Okinawan governor, 'if you want money, sign it," in reference to the Futenma relocation plan.
Students who produced notes of Maher's speech said he definitely made the remarks, with at least one saying it was surprising to hear statements full of bias from a person with a position in the U.S. government.
Maher, 56, served as consul general in Okinawa from 2006 and 2009 after joining the State Department in 1981 and being posted to Tokyo and Fukuoka.
Maher said of the account provided to Kyodo that he "cannot control how individual students themselves might interpret remarks" and "it would therefore not be appropriate" to attribute any specific remarks to him "based upon secondhand information coming from students or others."
In the summer of 2008, while he was posted in Okinawa, Maher sparked controversy after questioning why the local authorities were allowing the construction of homes in the residential area around the Futenma base. Plaintiffs seeking damages over noise from the U.S. base presented him with a written demand calling on him to immediately leave Okinawa.
Hiroshi Ashitomi, who leads a local group in Nago opposed to the relocation of the base to a coastal area of the city, said of Maher's alleged statements, "They indicate that he views Japan and Okinawa as a (U.S.) colony. If the U.S. government is crafting its policies on Japan and Okinawa based on such views, we will have to ask the U.S. military to get out entirely."
Magosaki, former head of the international intelligence office at the Foreign Ministry, said he had the impression that "U.S. officials in charge of recent U.S.-Japan negotiations shared ideas like those of Mr. Maher," adding "in that sense, his remarks were not especially distorted."
Hiyane, professor emeritus of the University of the Ryukyus, said he "cannot overlook" remarks describing Okinawans as "lazy" and "masters of manipulation and extortion," adding Maher's remarks represent "a blatant mentality of occupation."
"The U.S. military has for over 60 years after the war occupied land best fit for agriculture in Okinawa," he said. "Were it not for (U.S.) bases, the (local) economy including agriculture would have been different."
You got your wish ... he's sacked!
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