Introduction

This special issue contains six essays that pose interesting questions to the current practices in overseas Chinese studies. At the heart is the thorny issue: how do we take into consideration the outlying island territories that surround continental China—insular states such as Taiwan, Quemoy, and the Ryukyus, among others? What happens when migration takes place to and from these island territories? While these island territories are geographically located along the east coast of continental China, they have been the receiving destinations, as well as sending origins, of translocal Chinese migrants. The dynamics and complexities among the migration loops, national boundaries, cultural identities, colonial/postcolonial disruptions, economic networks, geopolitical blocks and regional formations, etc. have made these island territories the foci of the contested terrains in East Asia. The interactions between continental China and these island territories, and those among these various insular sites have formed translocal contact zones that deserve a critical investigation. The six essays in this issue address topics that arise from the intimate and recurrent entanglements among these continent-island intertwined migrations in East Asia—especially those to and from Taiwan, Quemoy, and the Ryukyus.