Starting from the First Opium War , China officially fell into the quagmire of foreign invasion. From Britain, France, Japan, and then to Eight-Nation Alliance jointly invaded China, China suffered unprecedented heavy damage and losses, although under the tenacious resistance of the Chinese people, it protected its own country and land!
Opium War
But you should know that at the peak of China, our country's territory was more than 9.6 million square kilometers. Among the lost lands, Hong Kong and Macau have long returned to the embrace of their motherland, but there are still some territories that should belong to China, which are still occupied by other countries!
This has to be said to the protagonist we are discussing today - Ryukyu Islands .
I am Brother Snail, follow me, letβs continue reading!
Ryukyu Islands are about 650 kilometers away from Zhejiang and Fujian, China. The archipelago is more than 1,000 kilometers long, facing northeast and southwest, extending to only 108 kilometers away from Taiwan, China.
Ryukyu Islands are located in the eastern periphery of China's East China Sea, adjacent to Kyushu Island, the foreign archipelago in the north, and Taiwan in China in the south, and across the sea from Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. There are more than 60 named and inhabited islands and more than 400 nameless islands, with an area of ββabout 4,600 square kilometers.
Ryukyu Islands are now part of the United States' first island chain. In a strategic position, they have restrained our country to a certain extent. Although under the influence of the ballistic missile , the first island chain does not have much effect, but it is not the Ryukyu Islands in their hands. How dare Japan peek at Diaoyu Islands ?
But in theory, as a defeated country in World War II , all the land it forcibly obtained through force must be returned, but why can Japan still control the Ryukyu Islands now?
Ryukyu Island was originally named Liuqiu. In 603 AD, Sui Dynasty Zhu Kuan was ordered to go out to sea and found an island on the sea "like a dragon floating on the water". He named this island "Liuqiu". However, before he could study the archipelago carefully, he encountered the destruction of the dynasty. Soon, Tang Dynasty replaced it. When the Tang people compiled the Sui Book, they thought that "Qiu" meant the little dragon. In order to avoid taboos, they changed the name to "Liuqiu "!
However, although it was named, no one paid attention to the lives of the people on the island. It was not until the Ming Dynasty that Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang sent someone to issue an edict to Liuqiu. Later, he thought Liuqiu was not nice and changed the name to "Ryukyu". In addition, the North Mountain, Zhongshan and Nanshan Kingdom of Ryukyu all paid tribute to Ming Dynasty , using Ming Dynasty reign name , officially becoming a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty!
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But after modern times, the Qing Dynasty lagged behind the world and was forcibly opened by the great powers, becoming a semi-feudal semi-colonial society. Japan, Ryukyu and other countries in the Greater Chinese cultural circle also face threats from the great powers. In 1853, the fleet of US Navy Brigadier General Perry arrived in Ryukyu and Japan. The United States used powerful gunboats to force Japan to sign the underworld alliance. This is the famous " Black Ship Incident ".
Black Ship Incident
It was precisely because of this humiliation that Japan decided to learn advanced Western technologies. However, after Japan completed industrialization, it immediately revealed its wolf ambitions. The surrounding Ryukyu was the first test piece for Japan's operation. Although Ryukyu asked Qing for help many times, it was difficult to protect itself early in the morning, let alone support. In the end, Ryukyu King Shangtai was forced to go to Tokyo, and Ryukyu Kingdom was destroyed!
Shangtai King
And the Ryukyu Kingdom has also become a county in Japan.But he never stopped his return to China. After that, Ryukyu also found Li Hongzhang, , , Zuo Zongtang, and others to seek restoration. However, after the defeat of the Qing Dynasty in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, not only did Ryukyu not have the right to speak, but even Baodao and Penghu ceded Japan. Japan gradually occupied Ryukyu and forced it to be renamed Okinawa.
In order to completely make Ryukyu surrender, Japan even launched a massacre operation. According to incomplete statistics, 260,000 civilians on Ryukyu Island were brutally killed, the scale of this crime was second only to the Nanjing Massacre. In this way, Ryukyu, which suffered heavy casualties, was completely captured by Japan!
However, the story of Ryukyu did not end, and later it experienced many divisions of belonging issues. The closest success of Ryukyu's incorporation into China was when signing the " Cairo Declaration " in 1943. Roosevelt once said that after the end of World War II, the Ryukyu Islands should be returned to China and let Chiang Kai-shek send troops to take over!
Cairo Declaration
But Chiang only said he was willing to jointly manage the US side. Roosevelt thought Chiang did not want the Ryukyu Islands, so he did not mention this matter again. In this way, China passed by and lost the best opportunity to recover.
Nowadays, under the rule of Japan, Ryukyu has become the most backward region in Japan, with economic development ranked last in Japan. The backward economy has led to the least per capita GDP in Japan, less than half of Japan's national level. So when we go to Ryukyu, we can see that the people of Ryukyu are really poor!
not only economically unsatisfied, but Ryukyu has also been transformed into a US military base by Japan. As we mentioned earlier, the total length of the Ryukyu Islands is only 1,000 kilometers, and the area is only more than 2,000 square kilometers. The land area is very small. However, the Japanese government allows 23,000 US troops to be stationed within such a small land area!
So far, the United States has established dozens of military bases in Ryukyu , among which the army, navy and air force all cover a wide range, so that there are now US military bases everywhere on the entire Ryukyu Island. This also aroused strong dissatisfaction among the residents of Ryukyu Island!
But even if the people complain, Japan still does its own way and completely ignores the dissatisfaction of the people. In the past 50 years, the US military has committed nearly 600 vicious cases such as rape and murder in the local area, and the total number of criminal cases is as high as 6,000. However, since the US military has priority jurisdiction, the local police and even the Japanese government have no choice but to use these US military.
Ryukyu people protested against the US military
Not only that, Okinawa residents are regarded as "second-class citizens" by the Japanese government, and have long ignored local economic development, resulting in the income level of Okinawa residents becoming increasingly worse. With the increasing awareness of independence among Okinawa locals, the calls for "Ryukyu independence" are getting higher and higher in the local area. I wonder how Japan will face this embarrassing situation at this time? I am Brother Snail, see you next time!
