Chinese state media have increasingly invoked "Ryukyu" rather than Okinawa and revived the claim that the islands' status remains unsettled, using the wartime and base burden on residents to press criticism of Japan's security policy, the Asahi Shimbun reported.
The Global Times, a paper tied to the Communist Party's People's Daily, ran a series this January on the Battle of Okinawa and the US military base issue. One line read: "With the deaths of the people of Ryukyu, the lives of mainland Japanese were bought."
The series stressed how heavily Okinawa's residents have carried that burden, and used the islands' problems as a foothold to attack the Japanese government's security policy. The paper gave its reporter the title "Ryukyu special correspondent."
In an article on a symposium held in Beijing in June, the Global Times wrote that experts had gathered "from China and Ryukyu (Japanese name 'Okinawa')," again foregrounding the name Ryukyu.
Since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks on a Taiwan contingency last November, Okinawa-related articles have increased in Chinese media, and the tendency to push "Ryukyu" has grown stronger. Underneath sits the idea that Okinawa's status is still undetermined.
The 'undetermined status' argument, repeated
The piece that drew attention was an opinion article in the People's Daily dated May 8, 2013. The Japanese government had nationalized the Senkaku Islands — which China calls the Diaoyu Islands — the previous September, and criticism of Japan was running high in China.
The researchers who wrote the article stressed that the Senkaku Islands "belong to China," then warned that "the Ryukyu question, historically unresolved, can also be discussed again."
The Asahi Shimbun's series, "Decoding China's Narrative: From the Front Lines of a Hard Line on Japan," runs in five parts. This is the third.