Reclaiming Okinawa: The Forgotten Front in Japan's National Identity Crisis

Japan Forward

02-05-2025

In a recent lecture hosted by the Historical Awareness Research Committee, Satoru Nakamura of the Japan Okinawa Policy Research Forum laid out a compelling case. Okinawa, he claimed, is not merely a local political issue. Rather, it is a lens through which we can understand Japan's national crisis in identity, sovereignty, and historical continuity.
At the heart of Nakamura's argument is the claim that Okinawa has been deliberately severed from Japanese national history through educational policy and political activism. Japanese history textbooks isolate Okinawa's past under the rubric of "Ryukyuan history," often without explaining how and when Okinawa became part of Japan. "Ask the average Japanese person when Okinawa became Japanese," Nakamura said. "Most can't answer. That's not just ignorance — it's vulnerability."
Nakamura contests this narrative by situating Okinawa's incorporation into Japan within the broader context of national unification following the Meiji Restoration. The so-called "Ryukyu Disposition" was not an act of colonial aggression, he argues. Rather, it was part of the abolition of feudal domains and the establishment of a centralized state. Just as the Tokugawa-era han system was dismantled throughout Japan, Okinawa too was integrated as a prefecture.
A major portion of the lecture was devoted to exposing the weaknesses in the claim that Ryukyu was ever a sovereign state. Nakamura pointed to the 1854 Treaty of Amity between the Ryukyu Kingdom and the United States. Many often cite this as evidence of Ryukyu's international recognition.
However, recent scholarship shows that the treaty was never ratified by the US Senate and was labeled a "compact," not a formal treaty between sovereign states. France and the Netherlands also signed agreements with Ryukyu, but likewise declined to ratify them. Western powers, Nakamura concluded, never treated Ryukyu as an independent nation. "They were never equals. That's the whole point. It was diplomacy for form's sake, not for sovereignty," he said.
Nakamura further dismantled the narrative of Okinawan victimhood by highlighting the geopolitical threats posed by foreign intervention. In 1844, nearly a decade before Commodore Matthew Perry's arrival in Japan, a French warship arrived in Okinawa and demanded concessions, including permission to station missionaries. Ryukyuan officials, operating under Satsuma's suzerainty, refused.
This event prompted the Tokugawa Shogunate to order Satsuma to send troops to reinforce Okinawa, illustrating that the central government regarded Okinawa as part of its national defense perimeter. "The notion that Ryukyu was a free actor is fantasy," Nakamura remarked. "Satsuma and Edo responded as any sovereign power would — by protecting its periphery." Bingata-dyed cotton garment with peony motif from the 1800s. Bingata was part of the Ryukyuan culture born under Satsuma rule. Tokyo National Museum (Wikimedia Commons).
He also detailed Satsuma's use of Ryukyu as a backchannel for acquiring Western military technology during Japan's period of official isolation. Shimazu Nariakira's secret negotiations with France led to the construction of a modern warship — the Shouheimaru — built using Ryukyuan cover. The ship flew the Hinomaru, which later became Japan's national flag. This episode shows that Ryukyu's ambiguous status was a tool of realpolitik, not evidence of sovereignty.
Nakamura criticized the postwar Japanese government for failing to commemorate Okinawa's 1972 reversion to Japan as a national holiday. Unlike Germany's Reunification Day, Japan has made no effort to mark the end of its postwar division. This negligence, he warned, has created space for separatist ideologies and allowed China to support independence movements under the guise of international law. "If Germany can celebrate its reunification, why can't Japan?"
He cited the 2008 UN Human Rights Committee's classification of Okinawans as an indigenous people, which the Japanese government failed to contest. In 2014, then-Governor Takeshi Onaga launched a campaign declaring the 1879 annexation of Ryukyu a violation of international law. When asked to respond, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed it could not issue a definitive statement.
According to Nakamura, this diplomatic ambiguity only emboldens foreign propaganda. "What kind of country can't even say when its own territory became its own? That's not diplomacy — it's dereliction."
Additionally, Nakamura called attention to linguistic and genetic studies used to support claims of Okinawan distinctiveness.
While some activists argue that the Okinawan language is not Japanese, Nakamura referenced the work of 19th-century British scholar Basil Hall Chamberlain, who concluded that Okinawan dialects were ancient forms of Japanese.
Chamberlain, who taught at Tokyo Imperial University and published extensively on Japanese and Ryukyuan philology, observed that although Ryukyuan speech differed phonetically and lexically from standard Japanese, it retained deep grammatical and structural similarities. He classified Okinawan as a divergent but fundamentally Japanese dialect, not an independent language.
Nakamura also referred to a recent university presentation he attended at the Okinawa Prefectural Museum, where a professor explained the latest findings in DNA research. These showed that during the time of the Ryukyu Country (1429-1879), the Okinawan population was composed of roughly 60% indigenous Ryukyuan and 40% mainland Yamato genetic material.
Today, the Yamato component has increased to about 80%, reflecting centuries of integration. Interestingly, the study also indicated that a significant portion of Okinawan genetic material, particularly from Miyako Island, has flowed back to the Japanese mainland over time, further reinforcing the genetic continuity between Okinawans and other Japanese. "Even our DNA tells the story of unity, not separation," Nakamura said. A Japan Coast Guard patrol boat searches the waters around Miyako Island, Okinawa Prefecture, after a GSDF helicopter went missing. April 7, 2023 (© Kyodo)
Nakamura also noted that the term "Ryukyu Kingdom" is itself an anachronism. Historical documents refer only to "Ryukyu Country" ( Ryukyu-koku ), and the term "kingdom" appears to have originated in modern English-language translations. He argued that this semantic shift is part of a broader ideological campaign to frame Okinawa as a postcolonial victim rather than a participant in the national project. "It's a psychological operation, not a historical debate," he warned.
In closing, Nakamura warned that historical distortion is not merely academic — it has strategic consequences. Misrepresenting Okinawa's past weakens Japan's internal cohesion and invites external manipulation. To counter this, he urged a national effort to reclaim and teach the true history of Okinawa's integration into Japan, not as an act of conquest, but as part of the country's modernization and unification.
"Okinawa's crisis is Japan's crisis," Nakamura concluded. "We cannot defend our nation if we don't even understand how it came to be."
Author: Daniel Manning