In February, Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba assured the mayor of Iwakuni City and the governor of Yamaguchi Prefecture that Japan would not ask the people they serve to take on "any additional burden" from U.S. forces. Iwakuni already has a Marine Corps air station, and it is thought that the United States might transfer some troops from Okinawa to Iwakuni.

The major media covered the two local leaders' relief without checking the other interested party, namely the people of Okinawa, who may have felt slighted by the remark. Perhaps the press thought it unnecessary since Okinawans are used to being condescended to by the central government. The implication, regardless of whether or not the assurance qualified as politics, was clear: We in the government are with you, "you" meaning the folks on the mainland.

There was no mention of the remark during the recent coverage of the 40th anniversary of Okinawa's reversion to Japanese control. The commemoration offered an opportunity for reflection, and editorials in the vernacular national dailies rose to the occasion, though it was easy to get the feeling that the intended audience was, again, not the people they were mainly about. However understanding the editors were of Okinawa's "pain" (itami) — a word almost all of them used — the inclination was to make the southernmost prefecture seem like a dependency rather than an integral part of the nation.