"How much would I have to pay to buy this whole island?" a Chinese tourist asked a souvenir shop proprietor on his visit last summer to Kakeroma Island. Kakeroma is just south of Amami Oshima Island, the main island of the Amami archipelago in Kagoshima Prefecture.
Within a stone's throw from Kakeroma's northeastern coast is the uninhabited island of Eniya, where the Ground, Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces in the past conducted joint exercises to practice recapturing a remote island taken by an enemy force.
The Chinese tourist at first did not appear to be joking when he asked about the price of the entire 7,700-hectare Kakeroma Island. In the end, however, he expressed his intension to acquire four plants on the island producing vinegar from sugarcane.