Recent Trends in Scholarship on the History of Ryukyu’s Relations with China and Japan

The concrete details of Ryukyu’s foreign relations—its interactions with Ming and Qing China on the one hand and Satsuma and the bakufu on the other—are the key to understanding royal authority between 1609 and 1879. The changing nature of royal authority is also the key to comprehending the logic behind the major changes that took place in Ryukyuan society and domestic politics during this time. Ryukyu’s foreign relations serve as a lens through which we can view the limits of Satsuma’s power and the extent of Ryukyuan autonomy. Zooming out and looking at the broader context of East Asia, the lens of Ryukyuan foreign relations can provide insights into the nature of the kingdom’s larger neighbors. Tomiyama Kazuyuki, for example, concludes Ryūkyū ōkoku no kaikō to ōken in part by characterizing Japan’s bakuhan state as a “small empire,” one that included foreign countries and peoples from Hokkaidō through the Ryukyu Islands. Tomiyama’s main task, however, is not to use Ryukyu to shed light on Japan or China, but to examine Ryukyuan autonomy and royal authority through the details of foreign relations, broadly defined. Early-modern (kinsei) Ryukyu existed as a quasi-autonomous country because of its active engagement with a far-flung network of foreign relations. The major trend in recent studies of Ryukyuan history has been to reevaluate the nature of the Ryukyuan state through its interactions with China, Satsuma, and the bakufu. With an emphasis on Tomiyama’s recent masterful synthesis of research in this area, this paper discusses some of the recent trends in scholarship on