Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫?) is on Tuesday next week to set off from Yilan County’s Suao Township (蘇澳) on a direct flight to Japan’s Yonaguni Island to promote tourism between the two destinations.
However, You’s visit would not be covered live by news media to avoid geopolitical disputes. This raises a question: Yonaguni is about 160km from Taipei, so why would the trip cause controversy? The answer lies in the particularity of the Okinawa issue within the greater Taiwan Strait dispute.
Japan’s Kyodo news agency on June 9 reported that Okinawa Governor Yasuhiro Tamaki visited the Japanese Ministry of Defense with a petition, expressing his opposition to the deployment of long-range missiles in Okinawa Prefecture to prevent it from being involved in a possible war across the Taiwan Strait.
There are two shortcuts for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy to enter the western Pacific: One is through the Bashi Channel at the south of Taiwan and the other is the Miyako Strait to the east of Taiwan.
What Tamaki opposes is a missile force that the Japan Self-Defense Force established on Ishigaki Island in March. The governor’s concern is understandable, as You’s planned visit to the hot spot would unavoidably highlight geographical conflicts.
News coverage of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) visit to the China National Archives of Publications and Culture early this month featured the Ming Dynasty manuscript Records of Envoys to Ryukyu (使琉球錄). While focusing on the role of the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in the manuscript, Xi pointed to the tributary history between the Chinese dynasty and the Ryukyu Kingdom. What was the purpose of this? Was it a threat or a hint?
Given that the PLA can come up with all sorts of excuses to legitimize its behavior, military competition with it has no end in sight.
Shih Ya-hsuan is an associate professor in National Kaohsiung Normal University’s Department of Geography.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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