Decryption

lediplomate.media – Printed on 01/05/2026

By Giuseppe Gagliano, President of the Centro Studi Strategici Carlo De Cristoforis (Como, Italy)

There is an archipelago that, on maps, appears peripheral and yet, in the real map of world power, occupies a central position. This is Okinawa, the historical heart of the Ryukyu Islands, a bridge between Japan, Taiwan, China, and the western Pacific. Here, the battle is not fought with missiles and ships, but with historical archives, academic seminars, newspaper articles, digital campaigns, and identity reconstructions. A low-intensity war, made of memory and ambiguity, where China does not officially claim Okinawa but works to sow doubt: what if these islands were not truly, fully, naturally Japanese?

This is the essence of the new Chinese order for “Ryukyu Studies”, presented as an academic field but also used as a political instrument. This is not a new concept. Beijing has long known that the history of the Ryukyu Kingdom, tributary to the Chinese empire before its annexation by Japan in 1879, can be transformed into a narrative weapon. But between the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, this phenomenon has taken on a different intensity, coinciding with the deterioration of relations between China and Japan, especially regarding Taiwan.

The history as a strategic weapon

China does not need to declare today that Okinawa belongs to Beijing. It would be too explicit, too risky, perhaps even counterproductive. A more subtle operation is needed: reintroducing the idea that the archipelago’s status has historically been controversial, that the Japanese annexation was a constraint, and that the San Francisco Treaty of 1951 did not definitively resolve all questions.

This is the logic of the gray zone. Neither open war, nor formal claim, nor frontal diplomatic crisis. Rather, a continuous effort to create uncertainty, fuel discussions, provide academic legitimacy to politically useful theses, and amplify every local discomfort. This turns the past into a battleground. The imperial edicts, tributary relations, memories of the Ryukyu Kingdom, wounds left by war and American occupation are reconfigured to serve a contemporary strategy.

[Fact Check: The content discusses the geopolitical significance of Okinawa and the strategic maneuvers of China and Japan in the region.]