ABSTRACT
A stable geopolitical structure that could be characterized as common periphery of multiple centers has slowly emerged in the island peripheries of Northeast Asia since the early modern era: the borderlands between multiple empires have long experienced domination simultaneously or successively by different empires. The historical formation of this geopolitical structure has created five peripheral political subjects: Okinawa, Taiwan, North and South Koreas and Hong Kong. Okinawa underwent dual tributary relations to Japan and Qing, incorporation into Japan, and dual subjection to the United States and Japan since the end of WWII. Taiwan had experienced since the 17th century the rule of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), Koxinga regime, Qing Empire, Japanese Empire, the Kuomintang (KMT) from Nanjing, émigré KMT under the US protection during the Cold War, and now it is under the hegemonies of both the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). 2 The Korean Peninsula endured the imperial competitions among Qing, Russia and Japan at the turn of the 20th century, the Japanese rule, partition under the hegemonies of the US and USSR during the Cold War and the current partition deeply shaped by the structural conflict between the US and PRC. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain by Qing in 1842 and was handed over to the PRC in 1997. Repeatedly incorporated into and torn away from various empires, these five peripheries may well be called ‘fragments of/f empires’.
