Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame
Necessary for who? The Chinese? Or the Americans? Read your history. It was captured by Americans to launch bombing raids on mainland Japan, not China.
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It's necessary if you want to control the East China Sea. Its location would be ideal for a Chinese base, were they somehow to acquire it, as it would open up the Pacific entirely (and allow them to send balloons with bombs on them against America from a much closer vantage than, say, Shanghai). Not that they are likely to invade at all, but depending only on bases in Japan to defend Japan is not sound strategy. The Pacific's largest American airbase isn't on Okinawa because it's strategically unimportant.