Arata Goto: Chofu Ota and Chokyo Takamine—Ryukyu Shimpo and Its Era

2022/05/13

The theme assigned to me by the editorial department is, as noted on the right, about Chofu Ota (1865–1938) and Chokyo Takamine (1868–1939). Since the Ryukyu Shimpo is one of the leading newspapers in Okinawa Prefecture that continues to be published today, I believe readers of this magazine are familiar with it, but I am quite uncertain as to whether they have even heard the names of Ota and Takamine.

Ota was from a Shuri samurai family and was a leading intellectual of modern Okinawa. He is particularly well known for advocating an extreme theory of assimilation, arguing that even the way people sneeze should be made the same as in other prefectures. Additionally, for the sake of Okinawa's industrial development, he served as the president of the Okinawa Sugar Company and, in his later years, as the mayor of Shuri.

Takamine was also from a Shuri samurai family and was involved in management for a long time as the first president of the Bank of Okinawa (different from the current Bank of Okinawa), Okinawa's first private bank. He was a figure who was widely active in political and business circles, serving as the first chairman of the prefectural assembly, Okinawa's first member of the House of Representatives, and the first mayor of Shuri.

In 1882, the two were selected as the first group of students to study in Tokyo at prefectural expense. After living in a dormitory at Gakushuin, they both studied at Keio University. In Ota's later journalistic activities, the influence of Fukuzawa Yukichi's "An Outline of a Theory of Civilization" is often pointed out, particularly regarding his theories on civilization. It seems that their studies at Keio University had a strong influence on Ota and the others.

At that time, within Okinawa Prefecture, pro-Qing factions held strong power, centered on the former ruling class who were dissatisfied with the so-called Ryukyu Disposition, in which the Meiji government forcibly integrated Okinawa into Japan. To ensure peaceful governance, the prefectural office was promoting a policy of preserving old customs. Through their life as students in Tokyo, Ota and his colleagues learned that the world was changing significantly and felt a strong sense of crisis that Okinawa's modernization was progressing slowly. Thus, Ota and Takamine returned to Okinawa and, in 1893, launched the Ryukyu Shimpo with Sho Jun (the fourth son of the last Ryukyu King, Sho Tai) as president, along with Choei Goeku and Morikazu Tomigusuku. Furthermore, Goeku and Tomigusuku also studied at Keio University, and it is said that Gasho Kishimoto, who studied at Keio University as a prefectural scholarship student like Ota, and Kotaro Imanishi, a Keio University graduate who later wrote "International Law," also helped with the launch in Tokyo (Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, September 17, 1893).

The purpose of launching the Ryukyu Shimpo was to inform the people of Okinawa about global trends, to cultivate and develop Okinawa's social forces, and to eliminate the sense of discrimination from other prefectures. Starting with Sho Jun, who had just turned 20, everyone was still a young person in their 20s, and they were burning with ideals. Although the circulation at the time of the first issue was only about 500 copies, the significance of the birth of a press institution in Okinawa as a symbol of civilization and enlightenment was great. Partly due to Japan's victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, which began the following year, the tide within the prefecture changed significantly. The pro-Qing faction weakened, and the new thought faction, including Ota, strengthened its influence.

However, Ota and Takamine began to walk separate paths following the failure of the Kodo-kai movement that occurred after the First Sino-Japanese War. The Kodo-kai movement was a petition to the government to make the Sho family hereditary prefectural governors, and both were deeply involved in the movement. However, such a petition could not possibly be granted, and it ended in failure, being strongly criticized from both inside and outside the prefecture as an anachronistic argument for restoring the feudal domain.

Afterward, Ota used the Ryukyu Shimpo as his stronghold to persistently preach the necessity of civilization. And if they became an obstacle, the brunt of his criticism was even directed at Sho Jun and others. For a period, Ota left the Ryukyu Shimpo, but he served as its president for a long time and remained active as a journalist until just before his death. During that time, although changes can be seen in Ota's thinking, his stance of aiming for Okinawa's independence remained consistent. For that purpose, civilization was indispensable, and the extreme theory of assimilation mentioned earlier was also for the sake of transforming Okinawa, which had lagged significantly behind other prefectures due to the policy of preserving old customs, as quickly as possible.

On the other hand, after the Kodo-kai movement, Takamine was widely active in political and business circles as mentioned earlier. In particular, in the first-ever election for the House of Representatives held in Okinawa Prefecture in May 1912, he received official endorsement from the Rikken Seiyukai and was elected with the highest number of votes. The other winner was Kishimoto, who also received official endorsement from the Rikken Seiyukai.

However, in July 1914, during his term, Takamine suddenly resigned as a member of the Diet. One theory says that pressure from Prefectural Governor Kyugoro Omi of the Kenseikai faction had an influence, but it is not well understood. According to Takamine's own words, he made the decision to "devote myself to business because the recent political turmoil and frequent summons mean spending almost more than half the year in Tokyo, which causes various obstacles to the Bank of Okinawa, Okinawa Koun Co., Ltd., and the coal industry in which I am engaged" (Ryukyu Shimpo, July 7, 1916). If we believe Takamine's words and his decision to resign based on the belief that it was more important to act as a businessman than a politician for the sake of Okinawa, we might see the influence of Fukuzawa here as well.