Departments
NARITA KŪKŌ
成田空港
Narita Airport
Narita Airport is one of the two major airports serving the Tokyo area, and one of the world’s busiest travel and cargo hubs. However, the construction of the airport was almost derailed by a popular citizens’ protest in the 1960s.
Plans for Narita Airport were first drawn up in 1966. The Japanese economy was rapidly expanding, and the existing airport, Haneda, could no longer handle all the traffic flowing in and out of the Tokyo area. The particular location—near the town of Narita in Chiba prefecture—was chosen because existing government land holdings in the area were half of what was needed for the airport. (The land had been a hunting preserve of the imperial family.)
Protests by Farmers and Students
The government then proceeded to enforce imminent domain on the private landowners near Narita whose plots were needed for the airport. They were mostly proprietary farmers. Many had acquired their lands via the postwar land reform program of two decades earlier, and they were less than enthusiastic about the idea of surrendering their farmland for the sake of the nation. The farmers began staging demonstrations to protest the perceived injustice.
The farmers-turned-demonstrators were soon joined by student protesters. Japan, like the United States and Europe, was home to a vociferous, occasionally violent leftwing student movement during the 1960s. Local university students saw the farmers’ revolt as a chance to strike one against the establishment in the sake of the people.
Before long, the demonstrations in Narita swelled to a level that local authorities could no longer control. International news crews filmed pitched battles between armored battalions of police and scrappy students and farmers. The protestors proved to be quite persistent. They dug tunnels under the land the government wanted, disrupting construction activities. Construction finally began in 1969, but the protests pushed back the completion of the runway from the planned 1971 to 1975.
The Aftermath of the Protests
The airport was finally built according to the government’s wishes, opening in 1978. The Narita protests, however, were a wake-up call for the Japanese government. In the desperation of the immediate postwar years, the citizenry had been generally inclined to subordinate personal interests for the public good. But now Japan was prosperous; and its people would expect a greater degree of respect and consideration from their government.