An End to the 39-Year War

The longest and deadliest conflict in the country’s post World War II history finally came to an end in late July. Northern Ireland? No, I’m talking about the conflict that surrounded Narita International Airport, Japan’s main gateway to the world.

This really was Japan’s longest and deadliest post-war conflict. It lasted 39 years and claimed the lives of 13 people. Thousands were arrested. It may not have been as deadly as the Irish “troubles,” but it was more costly than Tokyo’s recent forays into international peacekeeping in Cambodia and Iraq.

At its heart the struggle was a kind of modern-day peasants’ revolt, pitting farmers and their allies against the government of Japan. The fundamental issue was universal: in a conflict of individual property rights versus the greater public good, which should prevail? In Japan private property won hands down.

Tokyo essentially capitulated years ago. In 1991 the then Minister of Transport declared that the government would no longer use force to acquire additional land for runway expansion. It also formally apologized to farmers displaced to build the first runway.

This act of “sincerity” allowed the government to persuade landowners to sell enough land to build part of the second runway in time for the 2002 World Cup, which was jointly hosted by Japan and South Korea. However it is still too short to accommodate jumbo jet takeoffs.

The final act in the 39-Year War was played out in late July when the airport authority announced that it has given up trying to persuade seven farmers holding small plots blocking the southern expansion to sell their lands. Some refused even to talk. “We did our best,” said authority president Masahiko Kurono.

He said that the runway expansion will proceed to its full 2,500 meter length from the northern end, where the government has succeeded in acquiring the necessary land. But the southern extension had been considered more desirable project for a number of reasons.

The 39-Year War began in 1966 when the Japanese government decided it needed another airport to supplement Haneda airport, the traditional gateway to Tokyo. It set its sights on a broad swath of farmland in nearby Chiba prefecture about an hour by train from downtown Tokyo. The government first tried to persuade land owners to sell then evicted enough of them through eminent domain proceedings to build the first runway. The farmers fought back aided by student radicals, who were then a potent force. Just before the airport’s opening the students trashed the control tower setting back the opening several months.

In the 1980s Narita looked like an armed camp, with barbed wire fences and passport controls. It was common to see gray riot police vans parked along the arrival and departure lanes, the riot policemen lolling around with their helmets and plastic shields close at hand.

To say that eminent domain laws are weak in Japan is an understatement. This is in stark contrast to the U.S., where the Supreme Court recently confirmed the right of states and cities to expropriate private property with compensation for practically any reason they see fit to raise.

It is the reason, for example, why Tokyo’s expressways snake their way over rivers and ancient canals rather than condemn private homes. It is the reason why Japan’s two newest airports, the Kansai Airport near Osaka and the brand new Chubu Airport near Nagoya, have been built on off-shore artificial islands at great cost.

One stands in awe at the power of these landowners and the tenacity with which they cling to their ancestral lands against the full might of Japan. A few of these the holdouts live just off the southern end of the runway and have had to contend with the constant noise of low-flying jetliners either approaching or taking off. Perversely, this seemed only to harden their resolve not to sell.

Yet it is also simply absurd that a country like Japan should have as its principal international portal, the gateway for 60 percent of its international visitors, one of the most important aviation hubs of Asia, an airport with essentially only one and a half runways.

Of course, much has changed since the start of The 39-Year War. As mentioned, two new international airports have opened near Osaka and Nagoya (the latter in time for the World’s Fair), which should ease congestion at Narita. A third runway was built at Haneda on Tokyo Bay.

Last year the Narita Airport Authority was created to run the airport in the latest privatization move. The government still holds 100 percent of the shares, but they may go public in 2007. Narita must operate at a profit at a time when it is facing competition not only from the two new airports in Japan but also from sleek new airports at Putong in Shanghai and Inchon, South Korea.

That means doing something about its exorbitant landing fees (said to be about 10 times those charged at Heathrow in England.) For example, the new Chubu airport, which opened in February, charges 665,000 yen for a Boeing 747 to land, while the fee at Narita for the same aircraft comes to 948,000 yen. The airport authority has proposed cutting landing fees by 20 per cent, which would make it more competitive with the other airports.

Some have advocated the re-internationalization of Haneda, now used almost exclusively for domestic traffic. After all, it served that function well into the era of advanced jets and is a convenient 20-minute monorail ride from downtown Tokyo. It even has three runways!

The last time there was a real contest for governor of Tokyo, one of the candidates, former foreign minister Koji Kakizawa, tried to make an issue out of promoting Haneda as an international airport once again. The issue didn’t catch fire with voters, most of whom, presumably, do not worry much about international travel.

The victor, Shintaro Ishihara, had his own idea for easing airport congestion and inconvenience. He wanted to kick the Americans out of Yokota AFB in the far western suburbs and turn it to civilian uses. This was a non-starter if there ever was one, not the least because Yokota’s remoteness and lack of adequate transportation links might make travelers nostalgic for Narita -- if that is possible.


Todd Crowell is the author of Tokyo: City on the Edge