2022 Sinica Open House Activity

When we move around the various places in East Asia, we could see imperial palaces remaining in Beijing and Tokyo, and in Seoul and Naha, the kingdom palaces have been reconstructed from the historical relics. Naha is the largest island in the Ryukyu archipelago, and the palace on it was hosted by Ryukyu Kingdom which played a crucial role in maritime East Asia from the 14th to the 17th Centuries. Today, it takes barely an hour to fly from Taipei to Naha. The Ryukyu archipelago is composed primarily of coral reefs. It directly raises a question why there emerged a large-scale political system on these islands while Taiwan, which is comparatively larger and richer in natural resources, did not appear at the same time political systems of parallel sophistication. Moreover, is there a connection between this kingdom's decline and the rise of Taiwan? What was the key reasons for Ryukyu' transformation from being a nation to not being a nation and Taiwan's transformation from not being a nation to being a nation? This lecture will base upon this author and other scholars' research, to depict a longue duree in East Asian maritime history between the 3rd and 20st Centuries.