| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020626)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
| eftaNumber: "HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020626" |
| ocrPages: 1 |
| ocrChars: 2846 |
| ocrElapsed: 0.0 |
| parseTier: "external-legacy" |
| engine: "engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)" |
| externalSource: "greg-ep-nov-12" |
| externalLicense: "not granted" |
| externalCredit: "ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| externalUrl: "https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| --- |
| |
| 167 |
| Okinawa and Senkaku/Diaoyu Debates |
| The clearest case of covert meddling occurs far south of Tokyo in Okinawa, the |
| ancient island-kingdom which is geographically closer to Taiwan than it is to the |
| Japanese mainland. As late as 2015, prominent Chinese were asserting that the Ryukyu |
| Islands, which include Okinawa, belonged as much to Beijing as they did to Japan. In |
| large part, they based their argument on the fact that the chain was once a Chinese |
| tributary state. The two countries still hotly contest this island chain, known as |
| Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. "I am not saying all former tributary states |
| belong to China, but we can say with certainty that the Ryukyus do not belong to |
| Japan," wrote Luo Yuan, a retired and hawkish People's Liberation Army general.' |
| Chinese scholars have argued that Japan's annexation of the islands in 1879 was an |
| invasion and that the sovereignty of the island chain is thus open to question. For the |
| time being, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has not pressed this issue. |
| Hong Kong has long been a base for flag-waving Chinese activists agitating on the issue |
| of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Their appeals to a notion of Chinese brotherhood, |
| combined with the fact the group writes in traditional Chinese characters, suggests |
| that the main consumers of the Organizing Committee for the Ryukyus propaganda |
| may not be on mainland China. Instead, the Organizing Committee may well be |
| targeting supporters of the Kuomintang in Taiwan, where hard core supporters of |
| unification have become marginalized in mainstream politics, or overseas Chinese |
| communities.2 |
| It is of some significance that the same individuals who make up the Organizing |
| Committee are also listed online as serving in CCP United Front Work Department |
| positions in Hong Kong.3 The Organizing Committee for the Ryukyus also has a robust |
| online presence, with both a website and a Weibo (similar to Twitter) account. * It is |
| worth noting, also, that the Hong Kong-based campaign to regain the Ryukyus has not |
| won any overt or consistent support from Beijing. |
| But the Hong Kong patriots' campaign has the benefit of being aligned with anti- |
| Japanese sentiment in Okinawa itself, where both political leaders and the local media |
| are antagonistic toward Tokyo. The local discontent is directly related to the long- |
| standing presence of tens of thousands of US military personnel stationed on the |
| island and the ways in which they have interacted with the indigenous population. |
| Operating at arm's length from the government, however, a cabal of self-styled |
| Chinese patriots in Hong Kong has openly agitated for the Ryukus (Senkaku/Diaoyu) |
| to be taken from Japan and to become part of China. The main group calls itself the |
| "Organizing Committee for the Ryukyu Islands Special Administrative Region of the |
| Appendix 2 |
| HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020626 |
|
|
