Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics

by Gregory Smits

Between 1609 and 1879, the geographical, political, and ideological status of the Kingdom of Ryukyu (modern Okinawa) was characterized by its ambiguity. It was subordinate to its larger neighbors, China and Japan, yet an integral part of neither. A Japanese invasion force from Satsuma had conquered the kingdom in 1609, resulting in its partial incorporation into Tokugawa Japan’s bakuhan state. Given Ryukyu’s long-standing ties with China and East Asian foreign relations following the rise of the Qing dynasty, however, the bakufu maintained only an indirect link with Ryukyu from the mid-seventeenth century onward. Thus Ryukyu was able to exist as a quasi-independent kingdom for more than two centuries―albeit amidst a complex web of trade and diplomatic agreements involving the bakufu, Satsuma, Fujian, and Beijing. During this time, Ryukyu’s ambiguous position relative to China and Japan prompted its elites to fashion their own visions of Ryukyuan identity. Created in a dialogic relationship to both a Chinese and Japanese Other, these visions informed political programs intended to remake Ryukyu.

In this innovative and provocative study, Gregory Smits explores early modern perceptions of Ryukyu and their effect on its political culture and institutions. He describes the major historical circumstances that informed early modern discourses of Ryukyuan identity and examines the strategies used by leading intellectual and political figures to fashion, promote, and implement their visions of Ryukyu.

Early modern visions of Ryukyu were based on Confucianism, Buddhism, and other ideologies of the time. Eventually one vision prevailed, becoming the theoretical basis of the early modern state by the middle of the eighteenth century. Employing elements of Confucianism, the scholar and government official Sai On (1682–1761) argued that the kingdom’s destiny lay primarily with Ryukyuans themselves and that moral parity with Japan and China was within its grasp. Despite Satsuma’s control over its diplomatic and economic affairs, Sai envisioned Ryukyu as an ideal Confucian state with government and state rituals based on the Chinese model. In examining Sai’s thought and political program, this volume sheds new light on Confucian praxis and, conversely, uncovers one variety of an East Asian “prenational” imagined political/cultural community.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Japan, Japanese History

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1999

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the detailed look at Ryukyu intellectuals and their teachings/writings/views, as well as the examination of the influence of various schools of thought from the regions we call China and Japan today. I do wish there was more information about the lower class in Ryukyu, and more about Shuri castle and the Monarchy.

[René Sadae · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a well-decade'd adult, revisiting foreign as well as our own country's cultures and histories, has been eye-opening, startling at times (actually, most times), and has me rushing to my bedside on bended knee to pray to the library (and caffeine) gods to add another 24 hrs to each day that one could completely dedicate to reading (without any guilt of course).

Whether through historical novels, biographies or historical accountings, profound revelations have me saying to myself "I never knew!" I find myself disquieted and then dismayed over what I didn't get exposed to in both lower and higher education. And how I lived through adulthood less the knowledge of what my fellow Peoples of the world had lived through before the internet keyboard began to put some nuanced tidbits at my fingertips. Now, I find myself saying "I wish I knew."

Moving forward, I've been diving down into some deep rabbit holes of historical pieces thanks to ebooks, scholar.google.com, campus and local libraries, Amazon, and not to mention Goodreads, and a few good historically related novels to discover as much as I can. I am in search, 'to learn - to know' about my own Eastern Asia Pacific Islands Peoples' history. Not Japanese, not Okinawan, not western recountings after immigration and assimilation (both forced and wantingly adopted), but from the branches of my ancestral tree - their culture and land - Ryukyan. My grandfather would have grown up on a tiny island deeply rooted in a generational household, an uyanuyaa, absorbing and directly learning of passed-down culture spoken in shimakutuba, a language of his aja village.

A full 4-stars for this book's understanding of it's limits, and so then pointing the reader towards more. This is a book in a rabbit hole directly under my grandfather's and great-grandfather's branches. At the end of it, I am looking straight at some deeper roots this Reader Rabbit is anxious to explore.

[Graeme McGuire · Rating 4 out of 5]

sort of what's on the box, fairly in-depth and readable as far as 17th century elite ideologies in political backwaters goes. thoughtfully organized and convincingly argued. occasionally gets lost in the weeds when explaining the finer points of Confucian cosmology. also doesn't seem to really tie back to any arguments regarding "east asian pre-modern statecraft" at large; it's not a comparative study so that's okay, but i feel it suffers a bit by concluding without much oomph and putting the central material in a framework of regional understanding.