Surviving the Periphery: Invasion Management, Commemorative Practice, and the Differential Survival of Political Communities on the East Asian Periphery

Abstract ―​

From the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, East Asian political communities experienced recurring struggles for regional influence, ranging from interstate wars and territorial expansion to diplomatic negotiations. Some retained or recovered political autonomy. Others did not. This paper examines South Korea and Taiwan as two cases of political survival and compares the historical and strategic conditions that shaped their trajectories. It also considers Ryukyu, whose kingdom was abolished but whose distinct cultural identity persisted, to distinguish the survival of sovereign institutions from the continuity of a community. The analysis draws on field interviews conducted in Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese with museum curators at four institutions, supplemented by comparative historical scholarship. The argument has two parts. Drawing on political scientist Matthias Maass, the first examines how great-power interests support or undermine a weaker polity’s autonomy. The second examines “invasion management,” the adaptation of conflict environments through inherited knowledge and learning from failure, and “commemorative practice,” the ceremonies and embodied habits through which generations transmit and reinterpret conflict, following social theorist Paul Connerton. Korea adapted resistance after its initial defenses failed in 1592, while later generations made memories of resistance into political resources. Taiwan illustrates remembrance under suppression and conditions that may discourage invasion. Ryukyu’s diplomatic shelter-seeking failed to preserve its sovereignty, yet ancestral practices sustained a distinct community. The argument is anti-essentialist, following historian Prasenjit Duara’s critique of nationalist historiography. Invasion management was not an innate Korean capacity, as Chosŏn’s initial defenses failed and Seoul fell within nineteen days. Taiwanese identity likewise changed, shaped partly by policies intended to suppress it. Historical scholarship supplements claims extending beyond the curators’ accounts. The result is a study of how political communities sustain and reshape themselves through institutions and practices, and why that continuity does not always secure sovereign statehood.