Wading into Okinawan independence debate is not in China's interests
Trefor Moss says by tacitly encouraging talk of independence, it risks inflaming tensions with Japan
Self-determination, the right to decide one's own political fate, has suddenly become a popular cause in the Chinese media. Academics and newspaper columnists have been lining up to argue that a great wrong - the annexation of one country by another - must finally be righted.
They make a strong and refreshing case. Imagine what it must be like to be swallowed up by a foreign power, to witness the erosion of your culture, and to suffer the slow death of your native language. This should not be allowed to go on, they argue: independence should be restored to people from whom, history tells us, it was unjustly stolen.
But don't start banging the drum quite yet. They are not making the case for a free Tibet , for a genuinely autonomous Xinjiang , or even for universal suffrage in Hong Kong. They are talking about the Okinawa island chain in southern Japan - stirring the pot, in other words, of vexed Sino-Japanese relations.
The Okinawan people may indeed have strong grounds for seeking independence. Only formally annexed by Japan in the 19th century, Okinawa has been treated as the poor relation of the Japanese family. The island was obliterated in the war, occupied by the US until 1972, and then belatedly handed back to the Japanese government like an unloved toy.
Even now, Tokyo ensures that most of the US military forces based in Japan remain on the island, out of sight - unless you're Okinawan, that is, in which case the American bases are an insufferable fact of everyday life.
But here's the thing: Japan is a democracy, and Okinawa has an independence movement, which operates freely. According to recent polls, relatively few Okinawans support breaking away from Japan. But an open and vigorous debate is under way. Independence-minded Okinawans hold up Scotland - which may soon break away from the United Kingdom - as an example of how change can occur in a modern democratic context.
The Okinawans are contemplating their future, but there's no version of that future in which China really figures. Chinese support is not something the Okinawans seek or require.
