As sometimes happens when a news story that has nothing to do with Japan becomes topical worldwide, the Japanese media tried to find a local angle for the Sept. 18 Scottish referendum. The coverage fell into two categories: greater autonomy for Okinawa, and the use of referendums.
What impressed the world about the Scottish vote was that it happened at all; that Great Britain would actually allow one of its constituent nations to decide if it should break free. Self-rule referendums are usually carried out by colonies, and one of the founding precepts of the United Nations is that all colonies have a right to seek independence. Like Scotland vis-a-vis Britain, Okinawa was never technically a colony of Japan, but in 1872 the new Meiji government did annex the archipelago, which at the time was its own loosely defined kingdom with a tributary relationship to China.
According to an article in the Tokyo Shimbun, Okinawans have been discussing independence ever since the United States returned the islands to Japan in 1972. Kinsei Ishigaki, a founding member of a group studying independence for "the Ryukyu people," told the paper that Okinawans thought at the time they could finally enjoy "peace and economic stability" when they returned to Japanese rule, but it didn't happen. Having been "sacrificed" to the Imperial cause at the end of World War II and then treated as second-class people by the U.S. military, they found that things didn't change substantially after 1972. American bases continued to affect their lives and the Japanese government treated the prefecture as a kind of bargaining chip.