Japan protests to China over Okinawa claim

[beijingwalker]

Japan protests to China over Okinawa claim
Thursday, 09 May, 2013

Japan has lodged a diplomatic protest with China over an article in a state-run publication that challenged Japan’s ownership of Okinawa, home to major US bases, officials said on Thursday.

The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, on Wednesday published a call for a review of Japan’s sovereignty over Okinawa, suggesting that Beijing may be the rightful owner.

The call came as the two countries are already at loggerheads over islands in the East China Sea.

“We have protested both in Tokyo and Beijing over the commentary issued by the People’s Daily, followed by a Chinese foreign ministry comment,” said a Japanese foreign ministry official in charge of Chinese affairs.

“We told them that if the Chinese government shares the position of casting doubt about Japan’s ownership of Okinawa, we would never accept it and firmly protest at it,” he said.

“The Chinese side replied to us that the view in the commentary was solely held by researchers,” he added.

The lengthy article in the People’s Daily argued that the country may have rights to the Ryukyu chain, which includes Okinawa.

Okinawa is home to major US air force and marine bases as well as 1.3 million people, nearly all of whom are Japanese nationals and speak Japanese.

The authors of the article, two scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, considered China’s top state-run think-tank, said the Ryukyus were a “vassal state” of China before Japan annexed the islands in the late 1800s.

“Unresolved problems relating to the Ryukyu Islands have reached the time for reconsideration,” wrote Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang, citing post-second world war declarations that required Japan to return Chinese territory.

The article also repeated Chinese government arguments for China’s historical claims over a set of tiny uninhabited islets known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese, over which the two sides are squabbling.

Following the article, the Chinese foreign ministry reportedly said “the history of Ryukyu and Okinawa has long called for attention in academia”.

The two nations have stepped up a war of words on the Senkakus in recent months, with Beijing’s vessels regularly entering the waters around the Tokyo-controlled islands, stoking fears of armed conflict.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Wednesday dismissed the article as “injudicious” and said Japan’s ownership of Okinawa “is a fact accepted historically and by the international community”.

Analysts said questions over Japan’s right to Okinawa were probably aimed at raising the stakes in the East China Sea dispute.

The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party,never says one word which was not instructed by the central government.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

We are feeling good of getting protested by foreign countries.

 

[beijingwalker]

In 1943, during World War II, the US President asked its ally, the The Republic of China, if it would lay claim to the Ryukyus after the war.[26]“The President then referred to the question of the Ryukyu Islands and enquired more than once whether China would want the Ryukyus. The Generalissimo replied that China would be agreeable to joint occupation of the Ryukyus by China and the United State and, eventually, joint administration by the two countries under the trusteeship of an international organization.”

In March 23, 1945, the United States began its attack on the island of Okinawa, the final outlying islands, prior to the expected invasion of mainland Japan.

maybe Okinawa belongs to Taiwan.

 

[beijingwalker]

History of Ryukyu Kingdom(Okinawa) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ryukyu Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Tractor]

What is it Okanawa,a little island or islands?Who care about little things,only little thing like little japan.

 

[Okemos]

I have to admit that Japan was very clever and successful to move Japanese people into Ryukyu and now the natives are less than 10%?? Tibet was first incorporated by Yuan Dynasty, more than 5 hundred years earlier than Japan invaded Ryukyu Kingdom and Tibetan natives are still like 95%.

Anyway, why do people take an article so seriously? Ryukyu Kingdom is gone and now it's called Okinawa. Most importantly, its native population have been bred out by Japanese. This sounds like nothing but academic interest.

 

[SXNJ]

Ryukyu Kingdom(Okinawa) was a independent country before Japanese invaded them, China should publicly support the ryukyu independence

 

[Huan]

lol Japan, the land thief of the Diaoyu Islands have no right to complain. They are hypocrites.

 

[Khitan21]

I have to admit that Japan was very clever and successful to move Japanese people into Ryukyu and now the natives are less than 10%?? Tibet was first incorporated by Yuan Dynasty, more than 5 hundred years earlier than Japan invaded Ryukyu Kingdom and Tibetan natives are still like 95%.

Anyway, why do people take an article so seriously? Ryukyu Kingdom is gone and now it's called Okinawa. Most importantly, its native population have been bred out by Japanese. This sounds like nothing but academic interest.

well to be fair, Tibet is a pretty difficult place to travel to and live in.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

Let them protest as much as they possibly can. Their refusal to set on the table is the main problem in this regard.

 

[Viet]

The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party,never says one word which was not instructed by the central government.

I guess the ruling Communist Party has decided collectively over the design of the new office building in Beijing, the national mouthpiece of CPC

The People's Daily office building in Beijing. Photograph: Imaginechina/Rex Features