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East-West Center
By Leila Fujimori
program is Clinton’s
omiyage for Okinawa
Star-BulletinThe East-West Center's new Okinawa business and education initiative is President Clinton's gift to Okinawans, said Charles E. Morrison, East-West Center president.
While in Okinawa attending the G-8 summit, Clinton announced that the United States and Japan are supporting the program to bring young Okinawans to Hawaii to study at the center.
Morrison said Clinton "had to prepare an omiyage -- a thank you" to show he was not ignoring the Okinawans while attending the summit, as well as for hosting U.S. military bases.
The initiative will have graduate studies in business and Asia-Pacific studies, practical internships in business, faculty exchange and support for an Okinawa-based research institute modeled on the East-West Center.
The program will focus on "international relations and international business -- that's where Okinawa wants to go," said Robert Nakasone, director of the special Okinawa project to push the initiative.
Since Japan and the United States will fund the initiative in a private-public partnership, Morrison said he hopes to build the budget to $1 million and $2 million annually. Initially, the program will receive $300,000.
Morrison said a few scholarships will not erase anti-American sentiment in Okinawa over the presence of the bases, which has flared in the past week.
That, however, is not its primary purpose. But the program will "reinforce a positive image of Hawaii," which might have a positive effect on tourism as well as other Okinawa-Hawaii projects, Morrison said.
The initiative was proposed by Morrison in early 1999 to renew the center's tradition of hosting Okinawan students.
He and Nakasone just happened to be in Okinawa at the time the announcement was made that the G-8 summit would be held there. That gave them a target date.
Before the 1972 reversion of Okinawa from American control back to Japanese control, Okinawans made up the largest percentage of students from any of the 34 countries at the East-West Center.
After the reversion, Okinawa's status was merely one of Japan's 47 prefectures and few Okinawans could participate. Last year, there was one Okinawan participant.
To regain and justify a special status was challenging, Nakasone said. But Okinawa is special, due to its strategic location and is one of the poorest prefectures, he said.
The initiative was the only joint U.S.-Japan proposal, which is one reason why it was selected from among several proposals, Nakasone said.
Morrison, Nakasone, along with former Gov. George Ariyoshi, chairman of the East-West Center's board, sought support in Okinawa, Washington, D.C., Tokyo and Hawaii.
Clinton said he is dedicating the graduate program to the memory of his friend, the late Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.
It was the first time a U.S. president has announced a specific East-West Center program, which "gives it added thrust," Morrison said.
"We think Okinawan students are a positive part of the East-West Center. They've been out of the picture for a while; we welcome them back," he said.
