Description
At the end of the Pacific War in 1945, U.S. forces landed on the Kerama Islands of Okinawa Prefecture on March 26. As the U.S. forces landed on the main island of Okinawa2 on April 1, the U.S. Navy issued the Nimitz Declaration, declaring the suspension of Japanese administrative and judicial authority in Okinawa. It marked the beginning of the U.S. occupation of the Ryukyu Islands and the severing of administrative authority from Japan. The Empire of Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration in August 1945, and the Ryukyu Islands were placed under direct military occupation, as opposed to the mainland of Japan. Since then, Ryukyu Islands went through different set of governance under the U.S. military occupation. In the native government level, the Okinawa Advisory Council was the first native administrative body established by the U.S. Military Government, and then re-organized as Okinawa Civilian Administration in 1946, then as Government of the Ryukyu Islands in 1952 that lasted until the return of Okinawa in 1972. On the other hand, the U.S. Military Government became renamed as United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands in 1950. During the 27 years mentioned above, the Ryukyu Islands saw totally different form of governance in comparison with the mainland of Japan; Japan was not a foreign country to the Ryukyus, but travel between the two required border controls, not to mention passports. This means that when considering the boundaries of the so-called Japanese border, which was reorganized after the Pacific War, the status of people in and travel between the Ryukyu Islands require separate consideration.
