Japan Has 14,125 Islands. Chinese Buyers Own Parts of Them Near U.S. Bases.

For the first time in its modern history, the Japanese government is going to find out who actually owns the country.

According to Nikkei Shimbun, Tokyo will launch a sweeping review of land registration records across all 14,125 of Japan’s islands, with investigative priority placed on the Ogasawara archipelago, Okinawa, and the Seto Inland Sea — three theaters that share a single awkward characteristic. Each sits adjacent to a U.S. military installation, a Japan Self-Defense Force base, or both. The decision follows years of accumulating, and increasingly difficult to ignore, reports of Chinese nationals quietly acquiring parcels on remote islands within line of sight of facilities central to the U.S.–Japan alliance.

It is the kind of administrative task a country normally completes once and forgets. Japan is doing it now because the answers are no longer obvious — and because, in several documented cases, the answers point directly at Beijing.