abstract

This paper tries to trace back to 16th-18th century in which tributary trade system in East Asia and Southeast Asia was functioning as a wider regional system with an institutional structure with combination between official tributary trade and private trade in it. Ryukyu networks with overseas Chinese merchants in them were important factors which connected formal and informal trade networks, which were called floating and shipwrecked trade. They utilize the rule of sending back to their original home country they left in the tributary system on the one hand and they intentionally changed their status from private merchants to floating castaways near the coast they wanted to trade. These trade networks closely related to migration.