The Ming Dynasty, which many Chinese regard as the last "Han" empire in Chinese imperial history, saw further development and eventual maturation of the ancient "tribute trade system"; Ming emperors and their courts institutionalized the tributary system and included an unprecedented number of kingdoms and polities into the system. One of the polities that were incorporated into this network of formalized relations was the Ryukyu Kingdom, which Meiji Japan annexed to form the Okinawa Prefecture. Okinawa Prefecture has since been a site of contestation and negotiation between the power brokers of China, Japan, and the United States at the expense of its own historical and political agency and autonomy. This paper argues that Ryukyuan historiography has been mired by both dichotomous thinking and national subjectivities in China, Japan, and Okinawa, and that the "truth of history" should outweigh the dictates of national ambition, foreign policy, and "political scholarship".

George H. Kerr (1911–1992) is an American historian who authored Ryukyu: Kingdom and Province before 1945 (Kerr 1953a), the sole general history of theislands in English; he was also a Taiwan specialist in the military and government whose book won him the reputation as the ‘father of Taiwanese independence’ (Lu 2006). He rearranged fragmented memory and recorded it in such a way as to justify a separate people, the Ryukyuans or the Taiwanese, from the nation-state to which they may belong—Japan or China—so that the United States could strategically exploit their home islands. While mainly focusing on Kerr in the Ryukyus and unveiling the process of his writing, this paper offers a bridge to Kerr in Taiwan and addresses the question of a common interpretive framework underneath his historical narratives. Keywords: Cold War, historiography, politics of collective memory, Ryukyu (Okinawa), Taiwan (Formosa)

A brief summary of the chief English-language works of scholarship on the Ryukyu Kingdom.

The record of the trading enterprises of the Ryukyuans in the late 14 th to the early 17 th century constitutes not only an important chapter in the Ryukyuan history, but also a notable part of the history of the Malay Archipelago as a whole. This study will be exploratory in nature as it looks into several key questions. These include the nature of the relationship between Ryukyu and the Northern Malay Archipelago and how their relationship was developed during this particular period. To do this, the paper will first examine and reconstruct the history and historiography of the Ryukyu-Northern Malay Archipelago relations. Secondly, it will explore their maritime network during the rapid cultural development of the Ryukyu Kingdom. This study also hopes to shed new light upon the historical connection of the two regions while at the same time offer some new perspectives on their politics as well as their maritime network and bond. AbSTRAK Rekod hubungan perdagangan orang Ryukyu pada akhir abad ke-14 hingga awal abad ke-17 bukan hanya merupakan catatan penting dalam sejarah Ryukyu, tetapi juga sebahagian besar daripada sejarah Kepulauan Melayu secara keseluruhannya. Kajian ini akan cuba meneliti beberapa persoalan penting mengenainya. Antaranya, bentuk hubungan antara Ryukyu dan Utara Kepulauan Melayu dan bagaimana kedua-dua kuasa ini menjalin hubungan antara satu sama lain dalam tempoh masa tersebut. Justeru, artikel ini pertamanya akan mengkaji dan mengkonstruk sejarah dan historiografi hubungan Ryukyu-Utara Kepulauan Melayu. Keduanya, artikel ini juga akan meneroka rangkaian maritim mereka semasa kepesatan perkembangan kebudayaan Ryukyu. Kajian ini diharap dapat memberi pencerahan kepada sejarah hubungan kedua-dua wilayah ini dan pada masa yang sama menawarkan beberapa perspektif baru mengenai rangkaian dan jalinan aspek-aspek politik dan maritim antara mereka.