Fifty years ago this week, a seemingly minor matter was agreed to by the central government with a local authority that would have significant domestic and international repercussions.

That matter was the “Yara Memorandum (of Understanding),” an agreement between Chobyo Yara, then-chief executive of the government of the Ryukyu Islands, the predecessor to today’s Okinawa Prefectural Government (OPG), and the central government represented by Transportation Minister Kyoshiro Niwa and Sadanori Yamanaka, the director general of the Cabinet office and state minister, on the use of an airport with a 3,000-meter runway that was built in Okinawa and opened in May 1979.

Yara welcomed the construction of the airport because it would likely bring investment to the Miyako Island group, comprising Miyako, Shimoji (where the airport was built), neighboring Irabu and a few other smaller populated islands. However, he was under intense pressure from his leftist allies to oppose it, particularly those who thought the central government was intending for it to become a military base rather than for its stated purpose as a training airport for civilian airline pilots.