Japan's claim to Okinawa disputed by influential Chinese commentators

fzaq

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By Kathrin Hille and Mure Dickie, Published: July 24

BEIJING — For many observers, rising friction between China and Japan over a group of remote and uninhabited islands in the East China Sea is worrying enough.

But if some influential Chinese nationalist commentators have their way, the spat over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands — which Beijing calls the Diaoyu — could widen into a dispute over a much more important archipelago.

In a fiery editorial this month, the Global Times newspaper urged Beijing to consider challenging Japan's control over its southern prefecture of Okinawa, an island chain with a population of 1.4 million people that bristles with U.S. military bases.

"China should not be afraid of engaging with Japan in a mutual undermining of territorial integrity," the Communist Party-run paper declared.

Maj. Gen. Jin Yinan, head of the strategy research institute at China's National Defense University, went even further. He told state-run radio that limiting discussion to the Diaoyu was "too narrow," saying Beijing should question ownership of the whole Ryukyu archipelago, which by some definitions extends beyond Okinawa.


read more here:

Japan’s claim to Okinawa disputed by influential Chinese commentators - The Washington Post

(mods, please delete if it's a repost thanks)
 

Illusive

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Chinese questioning of Japanese sovereignty over Okinawa is based on the prefecture's roots in an independent state known as the Ryukyu Kingdom that won control of the archipelago in the 15th century. Ryukyu kings paid formal tribute to Chinese emperors, a practice allowing lucrative trade that continued even after the kingdom was conquered by a Japanese feudal domain in 1609. Okinawa only officially became part of Japan in 1879.

For some in China, this history is enough to render illegitimate Japanese rule over a strategically important archipelago seen as the biggest impediment to the expansion of Chinese naval power in the Pacific.
lol, Japan conquered those island so their occupation is illegal, but Chinese claim is legitimate because they traded with some king of those islands.:rofl:
 

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