"Bone digger" Takamatsu Gushiken shows the remains of civilians who died during the Battle of Okinawa inside a mountain cave, on December 25, 2025. Photo: Xing Xiaojing/GT

　　Editor"s Note:

　　Lying between China"s northeastern Taiwan island and Japan"s southwestern Kyushu are the Ryukyu Islands, an arc-shaped archipelago in the western Pacific. Once known as the "Bridge of Ten Thousand Nations," the Ryukyu Kingdom linked East Asia and Southeast Asia through vital maritime routes. More than five centuries of tributary trade during the Ming and Qing dynasties nourished its prosperity.

　　Yet a century of sudden upheaval followed. Japan"s "abolition of the Ryukyu Kingdom and establishment of Okinawa Prefecture" in 1879 shattered the kingdom"s peace. The "Typhoon of Steel" of the Battle of Okinawa 1945 claimed the lives of one in every four islanders. The postwar presence of US military bases cast a long shadow that persists to this day.

　　The Global Times has launched the "Ryukyu Chronicles" series. Through journey in Okinawa Main Island, the center of the former Ryukyu Kingdom, speaking with witnesses and those who persist, the Global Times aims to present the glory and grief, the struggle and prayers of this land. This is the third installment.

　　Recently, Kyoto University released a list of human remains from the Ryukyu Islands that had been illicitly excavated in the 1920s and 1930s by its predecessor institution. At the time, Japan extensively stole Ryukyuan remains to fabricate the so-called "Japan-Ryukyu common ancestry theory," seeking to legitimize the annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom under the guise of academic research.