Wait, I'm confused. So the history of the Ryukyu Islands is that they were claimed by China until the First Sino-Japanese War, at which point they fell to the Japanese. Then, after WW2, the US takes over jurisdiction of the islands as war reparations under the Treaty of San Francisco (which China, naturally, wasn't invited to and received basically nothing from).

So, today, the Americans have a bunch of military bases there, China claims a few small islands there, Japan claims the entire chain, and the people of the island themselves want independence.

Fuck, eh?

[–] spauldo@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

It's a bit more complicated, really. The islands weren't usually politically united. China lost actual control of the Ryukyu kingdom well before the first Sino-Japanese war, but maintained a claim on it for quite some time.

The US took over administration during WWII and converted many of the Japanese bases to American ones. The US doesn't claim any of the islands anymore and has closed some installations, but a lot of bases are still active. The US is responsible for Japan's defense. Japan would rather have the bases in Okinawa rather than in mainland Japan (although there are a few bases there as well), which a lot of Okinawans feel is unfair. Okinawa is very well placed strategically though and Japanese people don't like foreigners (sort of... It's weird), so don't expect the situation to change any time soon.

BTW, if you ever want to visit Japan, Okinawa's a great option. It's beautiful there and it's not hard to get by on just English.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 4 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

TOKUNOSHIMA, Japan, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Japanese marines in amphibious assault vehicles stormed an island beach at the edge of the East China Sea on Sunday in a simulated attack to dislodge invaders from territory that Tokyo worries is vulnerable to attack from China.

As tensions run high with neighbours China, Russia and North Korea, the drill on the southwest island of Tokunoshima capped an 11-day series of exercises nationwide dubbed 05JX, meant to show the readiness of ground, sea and air forces to defend Japan's territory and infrastructure, including nuclear power plants.

Other troops arrived in semi-inflatable rubber boats, with heavy equipment carried to shore on military hovercraft.

Unlike many of the beaches along Japan's southwest island chain stretching toward Taiwan, the one on Tokunoshima does not have a coral reef that would make military operations more difficult.

Kishida has warned that East Asia could be the next Ukraine, if China, emboldened by Russia's assault on its neighbour, attacks Taiwan.

The 43.5 trillion yen ($290 billion) in planned spending will go to new weapons such as longer-range missiles as well as to increase stocks of spare parts and munitions to fight a sustained conflict.

The original article contains 358 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 46%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Tokyo worries is vulnerable to attack from China

Hey Japan, who has a history of such attacks from the East China Sea?

📽

[–] zerfuffle@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago

yes but see Japan is good now ever since they got nuked into submission

except for that period where their economy was going to overtake the US and so we had to fuck the Yen sideways