Japan plans more bomb shelters for outlying islands amid ‘growing concern’ over Taiwan tensions

The Japanese government recently announced plans for the construction of bomb shelters on the outlying islands of Okinawa prefecture, spurred by the growing potential for conflict between mainland China and Taiwan.

Masafumi Iida, a leading China analyst at the National Institute for Defence Studies in Tokyo, told This Week in Asia there was “growing concern” in Tokyo that, should such a conflict break out, there is “only a small percentage of chance” that it would not involve Japan in some way.

National broadcaster NHK reported on Wednesday that design guidelines would be completed by the end of March before the proposals were presented to local governments. Basement levels of existing public facilities, such as schools, town halls and libraries, are likely to be the most appropriate venues.

Plans for shelters are in addition to proposals being drawn up for the evacuation of civilian residents of remote islands that have Japanese military facilities and might therefore become targets. Those plans, outlined in recent defence white papers, call for residents to be evacuated by sea or by air to the main Okinawa island and then to southern Kyushu.

Tokyo is concerned, however, that a sudden outbreak of hostilities involving Taiwan and close to Japanese islands such as Yonaguni – which is only 111km from Taiwan – would not give the Japanese authorities time to conduct an evacuation, meaning that residents would be required to shelter in place.

NHK reported that government officials had been examining existing structures on the islands and had identified robust concrete buildings that could be modified to provide shelter. Such buildings would be retrofitted with concrete walls at least 30cm thick to withstand missile and bomb