Independent Ryukyus could offer peace chance

Chiang recommended joint Sino-American trusteeship, which, however, was changed to US trusteeship after the war. The Cairo Declaration was made public in December 1943, long before the US invasion and occupation of Okinawa in May 1945. It’s understandable that the Americans didn’t want to share the trusteeship with the Chinese, but the mistake Chiang made is that he didn’t recommend independence for Okinawa, which was the Kingdom of the Ryukyus before its annexation by Meiji Japan.

Had he suggested independence, Roosevelt would have more than gladly agreed, just as they did on the independence of Korea, a kingdom before it was annexed by Japan, like the Ryukyus, in 1915.

The US ended the trusteeship and restored Okinawa to Japan in 1972 and has continued to station its armed forces there.

In 1995, the US reversed its decision to remove troops from Okinawa, and there was a renewed surge in the Ryukyu independence movement. In 2005, British-Chinese Lim John Chuan-tiong, an associate professor at the University of the Ryukyus, conducted a telephone poll of Okinawans aged over 18. He obtained useful replies from 1,029 people. Asked whether they considered themselves Okinawan, Japanese, or both, the answers were 40.6 per cent, 21.3 per cent and 36.5 per cent, respectively. When asked whether Okinawa should become independent if the Japanese government allowed (or did not allow) Okinawa to freely decide its future, 24.9 per cent responded that Okinawa should become independent with permission, and 20.5 per cent agreed in the case of no permission from the Japanese government. 

Those who believed Okinawa should not declare independence were 58.7 per cent and 57.4 per cent, respectively.

On March 16, a Chinese scholar published a paper in a state-run newspaper challenging Japanese ownership of Okinawa. The Ryukyu National Independence Research Society was launched in Okinawa last month and its representatives presented a petition to the prefectural government of Okinawa, demanding removal of all American troops and self-determination of the Ryukyu people to establish a free state.

They have every reason to demand a free state. The UN Charter, in Article 76 of Chapter XII, specifies that the basic objectives of the trusteeship system shall be, among other things, “to promote the political, economic, social and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive development towards self-government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, and as may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship agreement”. However, the US hasn’t made any such promotion.

The Kingdom of the Ryukyus, a vassal state to both Japan and China for close to three centuries, was incorporated on October 16, 1872. Qing China protested and negotiations were started at once. A treaty on the parturition of the Ryukyus was concluded.

Under the treaty, which was not ratified, all the islands north of Okinawa would belong to Japan, and those to the south of that largest island in the Ryukyus would remain under the control of Qing China.

The Republic of China, which succeeded the Great Qing Empire, has never acknowledged Japanese sovereignty over the Ryukyus. That’s why Roosevelt asked for Chiang’s recommendation at Cairo.

The Republic of China on Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China on the Chinese mainland claim the Diaoyutai or Diaoyu Islands as their inherent territory, though the Japanese also claim sovereignty over them as the Senkaku Islands and have administrative control after the US returned them, along with the rest of the Ryukyu Islands, to Japan 41 years ago.

The ongoing sovereignty row between Japan and China is fraught with chances of an accidental war. Isn’t it possible that a plebiscite be held to resurrect the old Kingdom of the Ryukyus as a new Ryukyu republic to end all the trouble in the East China Sea?