2025 Peace Camp Joint Statement

Since 2014, the Peace Camp has brought together people from Okinawa, Jeju, Taiwan, and many other islands. This year, we gather once again in Keelung under the shared theme of “Militarization of Living Spaces.” We come together — across languages, generations, genders, identities, and backgrounds — united by a common aspiration: to seek peace, justice, and new visions of security at a time when the shadow of militarization is deepening.

Our Shared Understanding

Our ultimate common vision is to live in a world where no countries have to become militarized.

Unfortunately, we see that the land, sky, space, and sea are being devoured by militarization. 

Okinawa was sacrificed to protect the Japanese mainland during the Battle of Okinawa, and afterwards was further forced by both Japan and the U.S. to serve as an “island of military bases.” For the past 80 years, the daily lives of the people living in Okinawa have been continuously eroded by militarization. While the Abe administration instilled a sense of crisis in the public with the phrase “Taiwan contingency,” it has shown no commitment to peaceful diplomacy, instead pushing ahead with the reinforcement of Self-Defense Force bases across the Ryukyu archipelago in disregard of residents’ will.

In Korea, the construction of military bases and the expansion of the military-industrial complex are causing violence and environmental destruction. Air base expansion and the construction of new airports around Korea are destroying essential living spaces for numerous birds that migrate across the world and prolonging colonial occupation. In Jeju, Hanwha Systems is building a space center on an underground water reserve. The defeat of President Yoon Suk Yeol's martial law demonstrated the power of ordinary people to refuse the militarization of everyday spaces and to affirm the possibility of demilitarized life.

Faced with the PRC's persistent threats and intimidation, Taiwan is forced to confront emerging threats of war, to which Taiwanese society has developed a mindset of prioritizing war preparedness. Societal space is being compressed by fear and mobilization, revealing a binary opposition between friend and foe. The shadow of war breeds mutual suspicion and division, with even social movements being labeled as enemies. Like Okinawa and Jeju, Kinmen and Matsu are embedded in a chain of sacrifice. The living spaces of immigrants, Indigenous peoples, migrant workers, and other groups are being eroded. 

In Hong Kong, “one country, two systems” has failed to deliver equality, freedom, democracy, liberation, or peace. The Chinese government exercises tight control over Hong Kong's politics, legal system, media, and civil society, drastically eroding the space for self-governance (shared governance by the people). The highly militarized Hong Kong police force violently suppresses and arrests protesters, transforming Hong Kong into an authoritarian police state. 

In China, the pent-up discontent stemming from social development bottlenecks remains unaddressed. Authoritarian rule and the Han-centric ideology of a unified Chinese nation continuously stoke and reinforce nationalism, fueling hate crimes. China’s military actions, such as naval patrols in the South China Sea, are causing threats which are used to justify further militarization across Asia that inflicts suffering and oppression upon local people. However, this often remains unrecognized in Chinese society, even among the activist circles, let alone becoming a mainstream cause for action. Meanwhile, dissent and activism within civil society are facing increasingly intense surveillance and suppression.

The U.S. is arresting and suppressing domestic political dissidents and organizations dedicated to peace and collective humanitarianism. Simultaneously, under the guise of development, the U.S. is drawing South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan into the military-industrial complex's business. America's “Distributed Operations” policy militarizes civilian ports, airports, and transportation infrastructure worldwide, turning our interconnected systems into potential threats and targets. The U.S. continues building highly destructive military bases that devastate marine ecosystems. All this normalizes the violent political-economic system of capitalist militarism.

The U.S. is the primary enabler of the crimes of genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza, as well as the illegal occupation of the West Bank. Companies and even governments across East Asia have been incorporated into Israel’s supply chain of death. Taiwanese companies such as Gloria Material Technologies and Transcom are supplying super alloy materials and radar communications parts to Israel. The Taiwanese government has also directly donated to local Israeli governments and is currently considering whether to make a donation to an Israeli settler community medical center in the occupied West Bank. At the same time, Korean company HD Hyundai is selling machinery used to demolish the homes of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza. Hanwha Systems and other Korean weapons manufacturers are also supplying arms to Israel and directly profiting from genocide. The Japanese government has completed performance tests of Israeli-made drones and is considering their import. Japanese companies such as Sumitomo Corporation and Kawasaki Heavy Industries are also complicit in this process, having signed agency contracts to serve as drone importers. The Chinese government is sharing surveillance systems with Israel in their surveillance of East Turkestan; drones and surveillance technologies from Chinese companies Hikvision and Autel Robotics are also being used for genocide.

Eighty years after World War II, many places in Japan, the Korean Peninsula, China, and Taiwan continue to suffer under the legacy of colonialism and the burden of war-time memories, yet these societies have not thoroughly reflected on their responsibilities during wars waged. Governments lack national defense policies grounded in both reflection and public will, instead reinforcing hostility and obstructing diverse understanding and dialogue—thus weaponizing public sentiment. Spreading xenophobia within these societies not only targets so-called “external enemies” but also fosters divisions and fears within communities, drawing boundaries along lines of nationality. 

The oceans are being seized by the forces of militarization, with frequent naval exercises, weapon deployments, and conflict demarcations dividing maritime zones. Fishermen's livelihoods face threats, and ecosystems suffer destruction. Meanwhile, the arms race has hijacked our vision of the islands’ political and economic future. The sea should not be a battlefield, but rather a medium for connecting our collective lives. 

We oppose nationalism as the sole unifying force, which strips us of our ability to envision peace beyond its confines. We must engage across borders as civil societies across East Asia and never cease striving for a region free from war, authoritarianism, and exploitation. 

We seek to replace war with civil cooperation. Civil societies should collaborate to help each other meet basic needs, rather than relying on state-led militarization.

Our Shared Tasks

1. We must proactively seek to understand one another. Fear and misunderstanding of others are often the primary roots of mutual hostility. Therefore, we must persistently engage with those whose values differ greatly from ours—becoming conduits for dialogue or steadfastly supporting efforts toward peaceful communication. 

2. Our needs must be reflected upon and concretely defined. What we seek are human rights, freedom, democracy, equality, health, and the sustainability of both daily life and ecology. When reaffirming our needs, we should not resort to exclusion, nationalism, or war. 

3. We require knowledge and wisdom. We must understand which forces profit from war and discern which powers within militarization and conflict exploit the name of “the people” to legitimize themselves. We need reflection, reintroducing a class perspective into discussions of war to identify the forces of capital at work. We must discern which public resources are being diverted toward weapons, bases, and industries rather than people's livelihoods and peace. We need to understand how militarism and patriarchy perpetuate both gender-based violence and war through the common logic of domination. We need to understand how the needs of people living with disabilities are often overlooked, especially during times of war. We need to understand and construct history from the perspectives of oceans, islands, and ecosystems, not through the lens of nation-states and ethnicity. 

Our Shared Promises

1. We refuse to sacrifice others to gain self-determination. We refuse to build our peace upon the suffering of others enduring military bases and weapons deployments. We demand the skies be returned to the birds; the oceans to the fish, sea turtles, and dolphins; and the land to the people and ecosystems. 

2. We challenge narratives of militarism in our own contexts. We must cultivate diverse languages of peace and build transnational public spheres.

3. We continue to critique imperialist, colonial, military, and capitalist oppression. We stand with all peoples, especially those in Ukraine, Palestine, and everywhere else threatened by war. Together, we oppose Israel's genocide in Gaza and the military-industrial complex that enables this slaughter. 

4. We stand in solidarity with those who were traumatized by wars, past or present, and will continue to reflect on our responsibility to stop wars. 

5. We condemn aggression and support victims of violence. We demand that our governments amend and/or draft legislation to support those fleeing war. We also recognize and condemn the ways that governments can use narratives of victimhood to justify aggression. 

6. We commit to building solidarity beyond borders, replacing military logic with human connection to meet our needs.

7. We commit to continue organizing peace camps in the future, enabling people from different regions to dialogue, unite, build trust, and maintain mutual respect, contributing to the prevention of war. 

The 60 participants of the 2025 Peace for the Sea Inter-island Peace Camp