Two scholars from an official Chinese research center suggested re-examining the ownership of the Japanese island chain that includes Okinawa, adding to tensions over the Senkaku territorial dispute.
Agreements reached between the Allies during World War II mean the ownership of the Ryukyu Islands may be in question, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researchers said in a commentary published Wednesday in the People's Daily, the Communist Party's main newspaper. They said Japan's loss in the war nullified an 1895 treaty in which China ceded territory to Japan.
"It may be time to revisit the unresolved historical issue of the Ryukyu Islands," Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang wrote in the commentary.