Posts misrepresent unrelated videos as call for Okinawa's separation from Japan

"I come from Ryukyu Province. I am not Japanese. Its name is not Okinawa and it does not belong to Japan. Ryukyu, Diaoyu Islands and Taiwan belong to China," reads simplified Chinese text superimposed on a Douyin video shared on November 7, 2025. 

The 10-second clip shows a woman speaking in Japanese and was posted with a Japanese-language caption that largely repeats the overlaid text. 

A similar Douyin clip shared on October 31 shows two Japanese-speaking women in front of a red wall with superimposed simplified Chinese text that reads: "I am Ryukyuan, not Japanese. Its name isn't Okinawa. It doesn't belong to Japan."

The region now called Okinawa was at the centre of the Ryukyuan kingdom that paid tribute to Chinese emperors until it was absorbed by Japan in 1879.

Some Chinese see historical ties as a basis for sovereignty and dismiss Japan's possession of the islands as a legacy of its aggressive expansionism that ended in defeat at the end of World War II.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first public comments on the region in June 2023, referencing China's "deep connection" to the islands, the state-run People's Daily reported (archived link).

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Screenshots of the false Douyin videos captured on November 25, 2025, with red Xs added by AFP

The videos were also posted elsewhere in similar Facebook, Baidu and Weibo posts.

"Ryukyu has long belonged to China. Go learn Chinese. We'll take it back someday," read a comment on one of the posts.

Another said: "After Taiwan merges back with us, we will free Ryukyu."

They circulated after China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, Sun Lei, called on Japan to "stop prejudice and discrimination against Okinawans and other indigenous people" (archived link).

During his address, Sun rejected accusations from countries including Japan about human rights abuses in China, and raised concerns about indigenous people in Okinawa, according to a statement published by China's mission to the United Nations on October 9.

But the women in the circulating videos make no mention of Okinawa.

Tokyo's sovereignty over Okinawa is a frequent target of disinformation, with Japan's Nikkei newspaper reporting in October 2024 that a wave of misleading videos declaring the region as Chinese territory had flooded social media since 2023 (archived link).

Unrelated videos

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the first falsely shared clip led to a longer TikTok video shared by Japanese influencer Rie Ayase (archived here and here).

The false clip corresponds to the 1:20 mark of the TikTok video, where Ayase shares her views on romantic relationships, but does not mention Okinawa or China.

"I used to be super emotionally unstable -- like, I would constantly check my boyfriend's phone and stuff. That was the kind of person I was. But then there was a period when that behaviour just stopped, and after that I became much more stable," she says in the video.

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Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the original TikTok video (right)

A separate reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the second falsely shared clip led to an X video shared on the account of a podcast hosted by Japanese actresses Mei Hata and Nagisa Saito (archived here, here, here and here).

In the 42-second video, the pair speak about marking the first anniversary of their podcast.

"On Wednesday, February 4th, at Line Cube Shibuya, we're holding our first anniversary event, and we're collecting ideas for what you'd like us to do," they say.

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Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the original X video (right)

AFP has also debunked similar false claims related to Japan's sovereignty over Okinawa.