Research implying most Okinawans have Shandong ancestry risks further straining relations between Tokyo and Beijing.
A Chinese-led genetic study has offered a new piece to the ancestral puzzle of where modern East Asians came from, but it has also threatened to deepen political faultlines in Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan, and long home to an American military presence.
The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications on February 3, suggests that the origins of the ancestors of Okinawans can be traced primarily to China’s eastern province of Shandong, the birthplace of Confucius.
