Photo/Illutration Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki visits the former site of a graveyard for people from the Ryukyu Kingdom in Beijing on July 4. (Sotaro Hata)

BEIJING--Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki is visiting China as part of a business delegation amid growing interest in Okinawa’s historical ties with China, sparked by remarks by Xi Jinping, the country’s supreme leader.

Tamaki on July 4 paid his respects at the former site of a graveyard here for people from the Ryukyu Kingdom (1429-1879) who died in China during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

“I offered prayers with hopes to strengthen the bonds between China and Okinawa and help create an era of peace and affluence,” Tamaki, who is accompanying a delegation of a Japanese economic organization, told Japanese and Chinese reporters.

The independent Ryukyu Kingdom, which was turned into Okinawa Prefecture in 1879, was in a tributary relationship with the two Chinese dynasties.

Tamaki will travel to Fuzhou, the capital of the southeastern province of Fujian, on July 6 to meet with local leaders and visit the Fujian-Okinawa friendship hall, which opened in 1998 to promote exchanges in business and other areas.

The Okinawan governor's trip to China is garnering particular attention because Xi, the Chinese president, referred to “deep interactions” between the Ryukyu Kingdom and Fuzhou in June.

“Since I was in Fuzhou (as a senior city official), I have known that the city had deep interactions with the Ryukyus because the facility that housed the Ryukyus’ diplomatic and trade mission as well as a graveyard for people from the Ryukyus are there,” Xi said. 

A Chinese media outlet subsequently ran a special feature emphasizing that the Ryukyu Kingdom was once part of China’s sphere of influence.

A diplomatic source in Beijing said such a Chinese reaction is a political message to Japan that China could raise the issue of Japan's sovereignty over Okinawa if the country becomes overly committed to Taiwan.

At a news conference in June, Tamaki said about his trip to China: “Cherishing the long and deep history of exchanges between Okinawa and China will lay the foundation for further development of those exchanges.”

He said he took Xi’s remarks as his willingness for development of such exchanges.

In 2013, the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, ran a paper by two Chinese scholars that said, “Okinawa’s sovereignty issue is unresolved.”

In the previous year, Japan purchased the Senkaku Islands, a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, which belongs to Okinawa Prefecture but is claimed by China, from private ownership, fueling tensions between the two countries.

Xi’s remarks in June appear to have rekindled interest in such a point of view about Okinawa’s status, which has been supported by some academics.

“There is no room for argument about Okinawa Prefecture being part of Japan,” a senior Okinawa prefectural official said. “We do not think that the Chinese government is officially saying (that Okinawa’s sovereignty issue is unresolved).”

(This article was written by Taro Ono and Nozomu Hayashi, a correspondent in Beijing.)

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