뉴스레터

Shuri Castle in Naha City, Okinawa

Pleading to the international community for the “self-reliance of the Ryukyu Kingdom” in January 1879

Matsuda Michiyuki, who had been dealing with Ryukyu affairs in Japan’s Ministry of Interior, arrived in the Ryukyu Domain again on January 26, 1879. Matsuda returned to Ryukyu when he was a foreign ministry official to receive a definite reply, after visiting the Ryukyu Domain in May 1875, to his demand that Ryukyu discontinue paying tribute to Qing and reform the domain’s politics.

Two days later, Shen Bao, a Chinese language newspaper published in Shanghai, carried a letter sent by a judicial officer of Ryukyu to Javert, the Dutch diplomatic minister. As nothing publicized Ryukyu’s national crisis to the international community and clarified why it called for help more clearly than the letter, it will be better to keep its full text, although it is a bit long.    

Mo Hourai and Ba Kensai, judicial officers of Ryukyu, request the powers with which Ryukyu has treaties to extend help quickly to the small state Ryukyu in crisis.

Having offered tribute to China in 1372 A.D., the fifth year of Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty, the preceding King Bunei was enthroned as the King of Chuzan by Ming in 1399, the second year of Yongle, and it remains intact to the present. Our country belongs to an outer domain and uses China’s era names and letters, but is granted self-rule in internal affairs.

After the launch of the Greater Qing, Ryukyu made it a rule to pay tribute once every two years, and sent envoys to the Qing emperors’ coronations without fail. When our king ascends the throne, the Qing’s envoys visit Ryukyu to confer the new king as the King of Chuzan. The children of our vassals are studying in Guozijian of Beijing; in the event that our vessels are wrecked and adrift, governors of provinces provide food and repair the ships before helping them to return home. Nearly 500 years have passed since our country became part of China’s outer domain.

The Dutch minister plenipotentiary Javert visited our country because of the commercial treaty in 1859, the ninth year of Xian Feng and sixth year of Japan’s Ansei, when the treaty that contained nine clauses was written in Chinese characters and used the Qing’s era name. The documents are sure to be kept in your legation as evidence. The United States and France concluded treaties with our country, but we were then on visiting terms only with the Satsuma Domain.

In 1872, the 11th year of Tongzhi and the fifth year of Japan’s Meiji, Japan, which had already abolished the Satsuma Domain, put our country under the jurisdiction of the Tokyo government by force, named our king as a domain king, and included him in the court nobility. Yet our negotiating affairs remained under the control of the foreign ministry. In 1873, the 12th year of Tongzhi and sixth year of Japan’s Meiji, we were notified to transfer the original texts of the treaties that our country had concluded with the Netherlands, the United States, and France to Japan’s foreign ministry. In September 1874, the 13th year of Tongzhi and the seventh year of Meiji, all public affairs related to Ryukyu were delivered forcedly to Japan’s interior ministry.

In 1875, the first year of Guangxu and the eighth year of Meiji, we were ordered to immediately stop paying tribute to Qing and receiving throne appointment from Qing, to use Meiji as our era name, and to reform our system of public institutions based on Japanese laws. Our country sent envoys several times to lodge complaints, but Japan has never accepted our pleas.

Our country is small, but has been granted self-rule while using Qing’s era names thanks to Qing’s favors. At present, Japan asks us to conduct coerced reforms. It is certain that our country signed treaties using Qing’s era names and written in Qing’s letters; if we cannot maintain the relationships of throne appointment and tribute with Qing as before, the treaties will be nothing more than scraps of paper. Then small states like us will not survive, which would be discourteous to every powerful state and result in our losing face to Qing.

The Netherlands did not ignore such small states as ours from the beginning, and concluded a treaty formally. We greatly appreciate your nation’s kindness. At this time when small states like ours are in crisis, all of our people will express their heartfelt gratitude to such favors if the larger states influence Japan so as not to change anything in relation to all things concerning the Ryukyu Kingdom.

Separately, we will also send documents to the envoy of Qing, the minister plenipotentiary of France, and the minister of the United States to ask them to take measures. (January 28, 1879, underlines are marked by the person quoting, the same as above)

What Ryukyu pleaded to the international community is as follows. “Our state belongs to an outer domain and uses China’s era names and letters, but has been granted self-rule in international affairs,” and “as for relations with Japan, we were on visiting terms only with the Satsuma Domain,” but Japan requires us to “stop the relationships of throne appointment and tribute with Qing” and denies Ryukyu’s self-rule by “enforcing reforms under Japan’s laws”; as a result, Ryukyu hopes that “the Netherlands and other powers will ask Japan to not change anything with respect to the Ryukyu Kingdom.” In other words, Ryukyu pleads to the international community for cooperation so that it can keep its relationships of throne appointment and tribute with Qing intact, namely “self-rule in internal affairs”. Given that “self-rule in internal affairs” presupposes the use of Qing’s era names and throne appointment, it is more akin to “self-reliance” than “independence”.

However, Japan dispatched 300 soldiers and 160 policemen to Ryukyu on March 27 the same year to occupy the Shuri Castle, and deported Ryukyu’s last king Shotai to Tokyo two days later. On April 4, Japan abolished the Ryukyu Domain and declared the setup of Okinawa Prefecture unilaterally. The declaration was based on the logic that as the Ryukyu Kingdom is a vassal state of the Satsuma Domain, it belonged to Japan naturally since the Satsuma Domain currently belonged to Japan. Ryukyu’s ruling class tried for years to resuscitate the kingdom and revive the relationships of throne appointment and tribute by organizing non-obedience and noncooperation movements against the Japanese government and asking for rescue forces from Qing, but to no avail, owing to the Japanese government’s suppression. “Independence” along with “self-reliance” were lost in the end.

The Ryukyu Kingdom is not only Qing’s “vassal state”, but also a “sovereign state”

Qing accused Japan of prohibiting Ryukyu’s throne appointment and tribute, and demanded the revival of the old institutions as follows. The following is an argument by Shen Bao.

A state having sovereignty under international law is permitted to enter into friendly relations with third countries, although it is a vassal state of a country. For example, Vietnam has begun trade with France as of late, and Saigon and its surroundings are under French control and treaties were already concluded. Nevertheless, Vietnam still wishes to not stop paying tribute to China, and France has not reportedly taken issue with that. (interruption) Japan should not deter Ryukyu from offering tribute to China’s royal court, much less the return of Ryukyu. (March 26, 1875)

Japan threatened Ryukyu with force to abolish its monarch system, and demoted the king to the head of a prefecture while trying to annex Ryukyu’s territory with Japan. Japan’s attitude is extremely outrageous, but other countries are in no position to deter Japan’s ambition. (Interruption) Japan is aware that this behavior lacks reason, and is said to be taking pains to ensure that its ambition cannot be revealed to western countries. Why does Japan act in such a way? Ryukyu was China’s vassal state since ancient times, and all the countries of the world know this. (June 7, 1879)

Qing was basically aware that Ryukyu was not only a “vassal state” but also a “sovereign state”. Qing therefore insisted that Japan recognize Qing’s relationships of throne appointment and tribute with Ryukyu. What is intriguing here is that while Japan approaches its relationship with Ryukyu from the perspective of “territory”, Qing handles its relationship with Ryukyu from the perspective of only “throne appointment and tribute”, not “territory”. In other words, Japan claims that Ryukyu belongs to Japan because it is a “vassal state”, whereas Qing claims that Ryukyu should not be ruined because it is a “vassal state”. To sum up, what Japan claims with a “vassal state” is asking whether it is an “independent state”, but what Qing claims with a “vassal state” is asking whether it is a “sovereign state”. The revival of old institutions advocated by Qing therefore meant maintaining the status of a “suzerain state” based on the traditional Sinocentrism.

How the international community viewed Ryukyu

How, then, did the international community view Ryukyu? First of all, they thought of the Ryukyu Kingdom, which had been pledging allegiance to both China and Japan, as very “unique”. This can be guessed from the description given by Briton H. Shearman in comparison with the situation in Poland in the “North China Herald”, a weekly journal published in Shanghai.

Situations in Ryukyu and Poland are hardly similar. Certainly, the Poles are ruled by three countries, but this is because Poland is divided into three, not because three countries share sovereignty. The Japanese delegates surely won the debate by insisting that nowhere in international law is there an example where one state belongs to two countries simultaneously. (Interruption) The Ryukyuan people are not specially against breaking away from China, but are raising objections to being forced to break away. (August 5, 1876)

What is important here is “sovereignty”. Of course, sovereignty is the central concept of the Western-style modern international order. Yet it is also true that the concept of sovereignty takes the position of the solid, highest norm in international relations by a dint of nationalism that has not been losing its fervor since the mid-19th century. In this sense, the Ryukyu Kingdom swearing allegiance to Japan and China would have been a very “unique” phenomenon to the international community of the time. But Ryukyu was merely regarded as a “unique” entity in that it was not an “independent state” having “sovereignty”.

 Matsuda Michiyuki, an officer who dealt with the Ryukyu Shobun            

Shotai, the last king of the Ryukyu Kingdom

Ryukyuan people resist with death the split of the Ryukyu Kingdom between Qing and Japan

The “Ryukyu Shobun”, which placed Ryukyu in Okinawa Prefecture, came as a shock to Qing. The times required it to remedy the situation and prevent a new crisis, but there was no outstanding idea to resolve the imminent situation. Meanwhile, former US president Ulysses Simpson Grant appeared. Grant, who had been touring the world, visited China and Japan from May through July in 1879 to mediate the so-called negotiations to divide islands for a treaty revision to shepherd their confrontation over Ryukyu into reconciliation.

The negotiations to divide islands for a treaty revision refer to Japan’s offer to cede Miyako and Yaeyama among all of Ryukyu’s islands to Qing in return for revising the Sino-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty in favor of Japan and its related negotiations. What Qing did not concede to the last was the revival of Ryukyu, the “vassal state”, and Japan could not accept this. As Qing was also passive about the revision of the treaty, their negotiations did not proceed, and there was no agreement until the end of the Sino-Japanese War.

But the negotiations to divide islands for a treaty revision were not what the Ryukyuan people wanted, naturally because the idea was to split Ryukyu. They only wanted to go back to the status quo, unharmed and intact. Upon hearing rumors that the split of Ryukyu was imminent, Rin Seiko, a Ryukyuan person who went to Qing to ask for help, resisted the split of Ryukyu with death, leaving behind the following poem.

From ancient times, how many people would have fulfilled loyalty and filial piety?

Five years have passed since worrying about the country

Hoping to rescue the country with death

Parents will depend on siblings