Interview: Scholar urges renewed int'l attention to Ryukyu, warns of Japanese militarism resurgence

BEIJING, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese scholar has called on the international community to reexamine the status of the Ryukyu Islands, warning against a revival of Japanese militarism.

The world should respect the will of the people on the islands and prevent the tragedies of World War II (WWII) from recurring, said Liu Dan, an associate fellow at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Liu, a scholar of international law, has been studying the Ryukyu issue since 2012. She published a monograph on the subject, "Territorial Status of Ryukyu Islands: History and International Law," in 2019.

Liu made the remarks in a recent interview with Xinhua against the backdrop of provocations by right-wing Japanese politicians seeking to stir confrontations in the region.

The Ryukyu Islands are scattered across the waters from the northeast of China's Taiwan to the southwest of Japan's Kyushu Island. Historically, Ryukyu was a tributary state of China during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911), and served as a transit hub for trade in Asia.

In the latter half of the 19th century, Japan sought to annex the Ryukyu Islands and seized them in 1879 -- a move that sparked resistance among residents.

Unlike the adjustments to the status of other Chinese tributary states at the time, which were formalized through treaties, no agreement was signed with Japan concerning the status of the Ryukyu Islands, said Liu.

She said Japan's occupation of the islands was the result of armed conquest and cannot obscure the fact that the islands' legal status remains unsettled.

"China has never recognized Japan's occupation of the Ryukyu Islands as lawful," she stressed.

Liu said the Ryukyu Islands should have been placed under a United Nations trusteeship after WWII. Instead, the United States imposed a military occupation and later transferred control to Japan in 1972.

Liu said the United States did not comply with international law in handling similar matters.

Washington's rationale rested solely on the flawed "Treaty of San Francisco," which excluded China and the Soviet Union -- both victors in the World Anti-Fascist War -- from negotiations, Liu said.

She said the treaty violated the Allied countries' initial arrangements for the postwar order, including the Cairo Declaration, and seriously breached their agreements as a coalition against fascism to act in unison and not to conclude a separate peace with enemies.

The handover of the Ryukyu Islands to Japan went against the will of the Ryukyu people and violated the trusteeship principles, said the scholar, calling it essentially "a backdoor transaction."

The latest provocations by Japanese politicians to stir regional confrontations will drag the Ryukyu people to the frontlines of a potential conflict, the scholar warned, drawing a parallel with militarist Japan's efforts to involve the people of Ryukyu in its war machine during WWII.

"We must stay vigilant," she said. "The recurrence of historical tragedies must be prevented."