A top Chinese general on Sunday sought to distance the country from claims by some of its scholars that the Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa, do not belong to Japan.
Lieutenant General Qi Jianguo, deputy chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army, told a security conference in Singapore that the scholars' views did not represent the official position.
The People's Daily, China's most circulated newspaper, had published an article last month written by two scholars from a top state-run think-tank that argued Beijing may have rights to the Ryukyus.
The lengthy article argued that the island chain was a "vassal state" of China before Japan annexed it in the late 1800s.
"This is only an article of particular scholars and their views on these issues... It does not represent the views of the Chinese government," Qi said at the annual forum known as the Shangri-La Dialogue.
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