Order-building from the margins: Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea reconsidered through liminality and competing systems

Abstract

This article reinterprets Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea (1592–1598) as a project of revisionist order-building undertaken by a liminal polity situated between two competing systems: the declining Ming-centered Chinese international system and the advancing Spanish–Portuguese imperial order. Rather than viewing the invasions as products of domestic consolidation, megalomania, or simple expansionism, the study situates them within Japan’s systemic dilemma of in-betweenness. From this perspective, Hideyoshi’s campaigns represented an attempt to construct a Japan-centered international system designed to assert autonomy, deter Iberian colonization, and reconfigure regional hierarchy. Drawing on the concept of liminality in international relations (IR), the paper shows how actors at the margins of overlapping systems can exercise strategic agency – not only adapting to dominant orders but seeking to create alternative ones. Hideyoshi’s vision combined elements of the Chinese international system and deterrent signaling aimed at European powers, producing a hybrid order neither Confucian nor colonial. Although the project collapsed after his death, it temporarily deterred European expansion and reshaped East Asian political dynamics. Theoretically, this case extends debates on revisionism and liminality, demonstrating that order-building from the margins can be both creative and destructive, illuminating broader dynamics of plural international orders.

Introduction

Why did Toyotomi Hideyoshi launch the invasions of Korea, and what do they reveal about the dynamics of international order in early modern East Asia? Traditional interpretations have explained the campaigns as an extension of Hideyoshi’s domestic consolidation, as a product of personal megalomania, or as an expansionist attempt to challenge Ming China’s hegemony. Yet these interpretations overlook the broader systemic context: Japan’s position at the intersection of two competing international systems – the declining Chinese international system and the advancing Spanish–Portuguese imperial system.

While these established explanations – domestic consolidation, megalomania, and expansionism – capture essential dimensions of Hideyoshi’s motives, this article argues that they should be seen as means rather than ends. Domestic consolidation provided the internal foundation for external projection, and expansion served as a performative instrument for a larger systemic goal: the construction of a Japan-centered order in response to liminality. Thus, traditional and systemic interpretations are not mutually exclusive.

This article argues that Hideyoshi’s invasions should be understood as a revisionist order-building project undertaken by a liminal polity. By the late sixteenth century, Japan was no longer fully integrated into the Ming-centered international system, yet it was increasingly exposed to the expanding Spanish and Portuguese imperial system. This liminal position created both constraints and opportunities. Rather than reintegrate into the Chinese system or accommodate European imperial penetration, Hideyoshi sought to construct a Japan-centered international system – one designed to assert autonomy, deter subordination, and reshape regional politics.

Existing historiography rarely interprets Hideyoshi’s campaigns as a systemic intervention in international order. In international relations (IR), revisionist order-building is typically theorized with reference to great powers possessing material parity – whether through replacement of a hegemon¹ or the construction of a plural order.² By contrast, this case shows a liminal actor engaging in order-making from a position of structural disadvantage. This makes the project analytically unexpected, extending the concept of revisionism to polities that are neither dominant nor fully subordinate but suspended between systems.

By making this argument, the paper contributes to two key debates. First, it refines scholarship on liminality³ by showing how actors situated between systems may pursue strategies of creating an alternative system, rather than merely conforming to either existing one. Second, it clarifies the distinctive ordering principles of Hideyoshi’s envisioned system – submission demands, deterrence signaling, and expansion beyond East Asia – that set it apart from both the Ming-centered international system and European imperial logics.

The broader stakes of the argument extend beyond early modern East Asia. Contemporary international relations are increasingly marked by similar dynamics, as powers such as China and Russia advance alternative principles of order that deepen divisions with the US-led liberal international order.⁴ As the coexistence of multiple international orders once again comes to the fore, the dilemmas faced by liminal actors – states caught between overlapping normative and institutional frameworks – are becoming ever more salient. Understanding the behaviour of such actors is therefore of growing importance. Hideyoshi’s ultimately failed project underscores both the possibilities and the challenges of order-building from the margins, offering historical insight into the repertoire of strategies available to actors navigating fragmented global orders.

Liminality in international systems

The study of international order has increasingly emphasized its contested and plural character. Rather than viewing history solely through the lens of a singular, Europe-centered system, scholars of historical IR have highlighted the coexistence of multiple regional systems well into the early modern era.⁵ In many parts of the world, regional orders persisted even as European empires began to extend their reach.

While these studies have enriched our understanding of non-European international orders, comparatively little attention has been paid to how actors operated under conditions of overlapping and coexisting orders. Actors situated between multiple orders often encountered distinctive structural constraints as well as opportunities. Their strategic choices were shaped by the need to navigate the normative, institutional, and material dynamics of intersecting systems. This analysis treats material and ideational factors as mutually constitutive. Liminal agency arises not merely from structural pressures but from the actor’s own interpretive framing of in-betweenness. Hideyoshi’s project drew simultaneously on material constraints – such as geopolitical exposure to two systems and deterrence – to produce meaning for both domestic and foreign audiences.

To theorize how actors manage these situations, scholars have drawn on the concept of liminality. Liminality refers to an in-between state or condition – neither fully one thing nor the other, but suspended between categories, roles, or systems.⁶ Originally introduced in anthropology, the concept has been adapted across a wide range of disciplines, including IR. Scholarship on liminal actors in IR has often emphasized the ambiguity, instability, and insecurity associated with such in-betweenness.⁷ Yet the anthropological notion of liminality also highlights how actors positioned in liminal spaces may actively leverage their in-betweenness to challenge or subvert existing structures.⁸

Building on these insights, this article conceptualizes the strategic agency of liminal actors operating amid competing international systems. I argue that Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi exemplified a distinctive form of order-building agency that sought neither reintegration into the declining Chinese international system nor submission to the expanding Spanish–Portuguese imperial system. Instead, Hideyoshi pursued the construction of an alternative international system aimed at asserting autonomy and deterring subordination.

This perspective differs from earlier studies that argue Japan, in response to ‘Western’⁹ expansion into Asia, actively embraced Western norms and strove to become ‘civilized’ in order to gain recognition as a member of the Western international system.¹⁰ Such behaviour can also be understood as characteristic of a liminal actor.¹¹ Japan, however, adopted such a strategy only in the nineteenth century, when the overwhelming military power of the Western great powers, strengthened by the Industrial Revolution, compelled its participation in the Western international system.

The period examined in this article, by contrast, was one in which the Chinese international system and the Spanish–Portuguese international system intersected in Asia. Neither system at the time possessed sufficient power to forcibly incorporate Japan. This was therefore a period in which a liminal actor could exercise greater agency. By focusing on this moment, the article explores how liminal actors pursued alternative order-building – an aspect that has received little attention in the IR literature on liminality to date.

Scholarly research on Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea has grown substantially, encompassing studies on the war’s impact on Korea, Japan, and China,¹² as well as analyses of Hideyoshi’s motives in launching the campaign.¹³ Interpretations of his motivations remain broadly divided into two paradigms. One view holds that the campaign was primarily an instrument for strengthening domestic political control,¹⁴ while the other sees it as driven by expansionist ambitions, particularly Hideyoshi’s desire for overseas territories.¹⁵

However, as will be examined in more detail later, Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea – and the order-building vision he articulated around them – cannot be fully explained by references to domestic consolidation or territorial ambition. Rather, they must be situated within the broader structural dilemma of liminality.

Among previous studies, some have examined Hideyoshi’s invasions in light of the international context of the time. These works argue that, as the Chinese international system weakened and Spain and Portugal advanced into Asia, destabilizing the East Asian order, Japan sought either to ‘rebel’¹⁶ against the existing order or to ‘reconstruct a new one’.¹⁷ Yet such earlier research has generally stopped at identifying the turmoil in the East Asian international order as a motive for Hideyoshi’s invasions. They have paid little attention to what kind of order Hideyoshi actually attempted to construct, or why he endeavored to construct it. This article seeks to clarify precisely what kind of order Japan, as a liminal actor, attempted to construct and why.

The following sections examine how Japan’s international environment in the late sixteenth century embodied these dynamics. First, the paper considers the weakening of the Ming-centered international system, which undermined the stability of East Asia’s traditional order. Second, it analyzes the simultaneous advance of the Spanish–Portuguese imperial system into East and Southeast Asia, which brought new pressures of colonization and conversion. Together, these developments placed Japan in a precarious in-between position – one that both compelled and enabled Hideyoshi’s pursuit of a Japan-centered order.

The Chinese international system and Japan

To examine the background of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea, this section first provides an overview of the Chinese international system that governed East Asian international relations at the time. Although there are various definitions of international systems,¹⁸ they generally share the common view that an international system involves multiple units, interactions, and ordering principles. Taking these into account, this paper defines an international system as ‘a network of political entities that interact according to ordering principles, such as rules and regulations governing who is included and how such entities interact with each other’.¹⁹

The Chinese international system gradually emerged between the Chinese dynasty and its neighbouring countries through continuous interactions during the Han dynasty period in the second century BCE. Instead of direct rule, the Han emperors sought to stabilize and pacify relations by granting Chinese official titles to the rulers of neighbouring countries – a practice known as investiture. By bestowing these titles, the Han emperor symbolically subordinated foreign rulers, reinforcing a hierarchical but stable diplomatic framework.²⁰

The Han dynasty thus recognized them as distinct political units within the international system. Conversely, these neighbouring entities acknowledged Han authority and accepted a vassal status, contributing to the formation of a hierarchical order centered around the Han emperor. To symbolically affirm their recognition of Han authority, these states adopted the Chinese calendar and regularly paid tribute, explicitly declaring their vassal status to the Han court. In response, the Chinese court reciprocated by not just granting investiture but offering generous return tributes, further incentivizing participation in the system. Through repeated interactions based on these hierarchical relationships, the Chinese dynasty and its neighbouring states established a relatively stable and peaceful order.²¹

Despite the Chinese dynasty’s considerable military, economic, and cultural power, neighbouring states were not reduced to vassals by coercion alone. Rather, many actors were drawn to the Chinese dynasty’s economic power, advanced technology, and culture, and actively sought participation in the system by offering tribute. The system was further reinforced by the legitimating influence of Confucian ideology. Though it waxed and waned with the fortunes of successive dynasties, this Chinese international system remained a defining framework of East Asian relations until the nineteenth century.²² Key features of this system are summarized in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Chinese international system.

Source: Author

Several Japanese polities began actively engaging with the Chinese international system as early as the first century because the benefits of participation in the system, such as enhanced legitimacy, economic advantages from return tribute, and access to advanced technology and culture, were substantial.²³ However, Japan started to reject participation despite its clear advantages or pressure from the Chinese dynasties from the late fifth century to the fourteenth century due to the emergence of a worldview within Japan that rejected subordination to China.²⁴

The Ming dynasty, established in 1368, began to reinforce the Chinese international system by excluding non-tributary states from maritime trade and introducing a strict sea-ban (haijin) policy. Relations between Japan and Ming China temporarily deteriorated, as Japan was reluctant to join the Chinese system by vassalizing to the emperor of the Ming, prompting the Ming to even hint at the possibility of military action.²⁵ In 1401, however, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the third shogun of the Muromachi shogunate, pledged allegiance to the Ming, marking Japan’s return to the Chinese international system for the first time in 900 years. While Japan at times refused to send tribute even when requested by the Ming due to strong domestic resistance to subordination to China, the Chinese court continued to regard Japan as part of its system, and Sino-Japanese relations remained relatively stable.²⁶

As the monetized economy developed and demand for trade increased, it became increasingly difficult for the Ming to regulate maritime commerce. The Chinese international system, led by the Ming, which imposed the sea-ban policy and restricted trade to tributary states, was becoming increasingly dysfunctional, compounded by the decline of the Ming’s national power. In Japan as well, by the sixteenth century, the Muromachi shogunate had grown weak. Faced with severe financial difficulties and unable to procure sufficient tribute goods, the Muromachi shogunate began lending licenses to actors wishing to engage in tribute trade with China, allowing them to pose as envoys of the King of Japan, in exchange for monetary payments. The so-called ‘tribute missions’ conducted by powerful regional powers who received these trade licenses were little more than sham embassies.²⁷ The Ouchi clan, which had held a monopoly on official licenses, collapsed in 1551, bringing an end to the ‘official’ tribute by Japan. This marked Japan’s withdrawal from the Chinese international system in both name and substance.²⁸

European imperial penetration and the Spanish–Portuguese international system

In the sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal advanced a distinctive form of imperial order-building, centered on the division of global territories between their respective empires. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) and the Treaty of Zaragoza (1529), endorsed by papal authority, formalized this division, asserting claims over vast maritime and terrestrial domains. This Spanish–Portuguese international system was predicated on both colonial conquest and religious conversion – an order in which new territories were to be incorporated through both material domination and cultural subordination. The key characteristics of this Spanish–Portuguese international system are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. Spanish–Portuguese international system.

Source: Author

As Portuguese maritime reach expanded across Southeast Asia, China, and ultimately Japan, European actors unilaterally claimed Japan within the Portuguese sphere, despite Japan’s lack of consent. Initially, Portuguese interest in Japan was limited, with priority placed on trade with China. However, from 1549, with the arrival of Francisco Xavier and subsequent Jesuit missionaries, a new dynamic emerged.²⁹ European actors increasingly viewed Japan as a potential target for Christianization and, ultimately, for imperial incorporation.

Japan initially showed little alarm. Their arrival coincided with the decline of the Muromachi shogunate and the height of the Sengoku (Warring States) period, a time of constant warfare and fragmented political authority. Rather than resisting these foreign influences, sengoku daimyos, powerful regional warlords during the Warring States period, engaged with Portuguese merchants and missionaries pragmatically to enhance their military and economic capabilities.

Many sengoku daimyos eagerly sought trade with Portugal. In the 1550s, some sengoku daimyos in Western Japan sent letters of friendship to the Portuguese viceroy of India, expressing their desire to establish a trade agreement and their willingness to receive missionaries to facilitate this.³⁰ In addition, these sengoku daimyos actively procured cannons, gunpowder, and other supplies from the Jesuits and Portuguese merchants in exchange for promises of protection.³¹

European observers, in turn, referred to these sengoku daimyos as ‘kings’, reflecting their recognition of Japan’s fragmented but autonomous political landscape.³² The Portuguese, particularly the Jesuits, regarded sengoku daimyos as sovereign rulers who could protect Christian missionaries in East Asia. Notably, several prominent sengoku daimyos converted to Christianity, becoming known as Christian daimyos. However, many adopted Christianity not out of pure faith, but rather as a strategic move to secure the economic benefits brought by Portuguese trading ships.³³

Since the mid-sixteenth century, Portugal had been losing momentum. Meanwhile, Spain had colonized most of the Americas by destroying the Aztec kingdom in 1521 and the Inca empire in 1532. In search of spices, Spain expanded into Southeast Asia, and in 1565 succeeded in colonizing the Philippines.³⁴ Spain steadily colonized the Philippines, and in 1571 established a regular shipping route between Manila and Acapulco, with annual round trips. Many Spanish missionaries believed that China could be easily conquered.³⁵ As the colonial administration of the Philippines progressed, the Philippine governor-generals began making frequent appeals for the conquest of China.³⁶ Jesuit missionaries working in Asia began to support the idea of Spain’s attempts to conquer China after Felipe II became King of Portugal.³⁷ The missionaries reiterated the belief that Spain could easily conquer Ming China.³⁸

Japanese leaders grew increasingly aware of the potential colonial threat posed by European actors. The example of Spanish expansion into the Americas and Southeast Asia, combined with reports of European ambitions toward Ming China, underscored the risk that Japan itself might face similar pressures. By the late 1580s, sengoku daimyos perceived that European missionary activity and commercial penetration could serve as precursors to broader imperial ambitions. The advance of the Spanish–Portuguese international system into East Asia confronted Japan with a complex strategic dilemma. Japan’s liminal position – no longer fully integrated into the Chinese hierarchical order, yet increasingly exposed to European imperial dynamics – demanded new forms of strategic agency. It is within this context that Hideyoshi’s subsequent foreign policy choices, including the invasions of Korea, must be understood. The next section explores these Japanese strategic responses in greater detail.

Japanese strategic responses to inter-systemic pressures

The growing penetration of European imperial dynamics into East Asia, through both Spanish–Portuguese competition and Jesuit missionary network, placed Japan’s leadership in an increasingly precarious position. Initially, sengoku daimyos had engaged European actors pragmatically, leveraging Jesuit connections to acquire firearms, military supplies, and financial resources. For example, the Jesuits frequently provided financial assistance to Omura Sumitada, the first Christian daimyo in Japan.³⁹

Portuguese ships from Macau annually visited Nagasaki, which had been given to the Jesuits by Omura Sumitada as a refuge for their followers. Ryuzoji Takanobu relentlessly attacked the city in an attempt to monopolize the profits from this trade.⁴⁰ To protect the order and its followers from these attacks, the Jesuits built a wall around Nagasaki and armed the city with guns, ammunition, and cannons aboard their warships, transforming Nagasaki into a military fortress.⁴¹

As the Jesuit missionaries began to mediate arms sales and fortify Nagasaki, there was a growing sense of caution against missionaries in Japan. Additionally, it became known in Japan that Portugal and Spain were promoting colonization and missionary work in various regions. After his first tour of Japan from 1579 to 1582, Alessandro Valignano, the Jesuit East India patriarch, wrote that the sengoku daimyos ‘had a strong suspicion that the Jesuits might revolt in Japan with the Christians’ and ‘believed that the Jesuits would take the missionaries’ lands and try to recover the cost of the missionaries since they were sending missionaries to Japan at great expense’.⁴²

During this period, Oda Nobunaga was advancing the unification of the country. His subordinates repeatedly voiced concern to him about the Jesuits’ alleged intention to conquer Japan. Nobunaga, however, was not particularly worried about the Jesuits or Spain colonizing Japan. In his view, ‘It is impossible for enough soldiers to come from such a distant place to achieve their goal of conquering Japan’.⁴³

To avoid unnecessary conflict with the Jesuits and Spain, Nobunaga nevertheless considered it important to deter any attempts at colonization. To this end, he presented Valignano, on his return to Europe, with a folding screen painting that depicted a detailed view of Azuchi Castle and its surrounding town.⁴⁴ Valignano responded that the painting was more valuable than any other gift because it could introduce the castle to China, India, and Europe, which could not easily be explained in words.

Oda Nobunaga sought to make his power and the prestige of the Japanese nation known to the world.⁴⁵ According to Luis Frois, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary and historian renowned for his close interactions with Nobunaga, Nobunaga stated that he would conquer the Ming dynasty after uniting Japan, expressing his rivalry with Portugal and Spain.⁴⁶ In the context of a weakening Chinese international system and the growing presence of Spain and Portugal in Asia, the notion arose that Japan could seek to conquer the Ming as a means of countering the Spanish–Portuguese international system.

When Nobunaga was killed in a rebellion in 1582, it was Hashiba (later known as Toyotomi) Hideyoshi who proceeded to unify Japan. In July 1587, on his way back from his conquest of Kyushu, he abruptly issued a decree banning missionaries, ordering them to leave Japan within 20 days. Many Jesuit missionaries, caught off guard by the crisis, seemed to believe they should resist their persecutors by military force.⁴⁷ Gaspar Coelho, the Jesuit superior of the Japan mission, asked the governor-general of the Philippines to dispatch reinforcements, but none were sent.⁴⁸ Ultimately, as Hideyoshi strongly wished to continue trade with Portugal, he ended up not strictly enforcing the order to expel the missionaries. The Jesuit missionaries’ presence in Japan was tacitly approved thereafter.

It is certain that Hideyoshi became aware of the missionaries’ military power when Coelho showed him a fusta ship loaded with cannons. It was, in fact, nine days after seeing the fusta ship that Hideyoshi issued the decree banning missionaries. Furthermore, Hideyoshi had begun to feel threatened by the fact that the missionaries had the power to influence the Christian daimyos and that the Christians were strongly united. Hideyoshi ‘often made clear his belief that the Jesuits had come to Japan under the pretext of conversion and were trying to become rulers of the Japanese nation’.⁴⁹ The decree to expel missionaries also served as a policy tool for domestic unification. He began to use shinkoku shisou, the divine nation ideology, as a tool to legitimize his rule as well as expelling missionaries.

The Christian missionaries’ conversion of the Japanese people and the destruction of temples and shrines undermined the religious ideological framework Hideyoshi was using to promote the unification of Japan.⁵⁰ Another reason for Hideyoshi’s decision to expel the missionaries was their involvement in the Japanese slave trade.⁵¹ On 18 June 1587, Hideyoshi issued a memorandum emphasizing that ‘Japan is a country protected by the gods,⁵² and it is not permitted to impose evil laws from a Christian country’ (Article 1). He also criticized ‘the destruction of shrines’ (Article 2) and ‘strongly condemned and prohibited the buying and selling of Japanese people’ (Article 10).⁵³ The following day, he issued the decree banning missionaries in Japan.

Hideyoshi’s foreign policy vision extended beyond defensive measures. In response to both the weakening of the Chinese international system and the rising Spanish–Portuguese imperial threat, Hideyoshi pursued an ambitious strategy to reconstruct the Asian order under Japanese leadership. Hideyoshi had articulated his intention to attack the Ming dynasty even before completing the unification of Japan. At this time, Hojo Ujimasa in Kanto and Date Masamune in Tohoku, both with significant power, had not yet yielded to Hideyoshi.

It is important to note that even before completing national unification, Hideyoshi informed the Jesuits of his plan to invade the Ming dynasty, thereby signaling his intention to counterbalance European influence. In other words, plans to attack Ming China did not emerge only after domestic unification; rather, Hideyoshi already perceived the need to signal such intention to Portugal and Spain while unification was still underway. He even declared, ‘I do not intend to occupy the Ming dynasty if it becomes a vassal to me’, suggesting that territorial expansion was not his primary objective. Instead, Hideyoshi sought to reconstruct a hierarchical international order centered on Japan.⁵⁴

In the same year he issued the edict expelling the missionaries, Hideyoshi began demanding submission from neighbouring countries and launched a project to restructure the international system in Asia. In 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshi demanded that Joseon submit to him. The following year, in 1588, he also demanded that Ryukyu submit to him. In 1589, the Ryukyu Kingdom paid tribute to Hideyoshi. Joseon dispatched an envoy to Japan in 1590, recognizing Japan’s new ruler.⁵⁵ Hideyoshi interpreted the envoy’s visit as a gesture of submission. Subsequently, Hideyoshi guaranteed Joseon’s security and demanded its participation in leading Japan’s planned attack on the Ming dynasty,⁵⁶ but Joseon refused. In 1591, Hideyoshi sent a letter to the vice-king of India in Goa, suggesting that Portugal submit to him.⁵⁷ In the same year, he sent a letter to the governor-general of the Philippines in Manila, directly threatening to dispatch an army if the governor-general did not submit to Hideyoshi.⁵⁸ In response, the governor-general declared martial law in Manila and requested reinforcements from the king of Spain via Mexico.⁵⁹

In 1592, Hideyoshi dispatched an army to Joseon. As he advanced his plan to conquer the Ming dynasty, he had already devised a further scheme ‘to attack India thereafter’.⁶⁰ He also threatened the Philippines, declaring that he would send troops if they refuse to engage in trade with Japan,⁶¹ and in 1593 he repeated his demand that they submit to him. Around the same time, Hideyoshi demanded submission from Taiwan⁶² and even issued a warning to the King of Spain, saying, ‘King of Castile, do not disrespect Japan merely because it is far away’.⁶³

Both Hideyoshi’s actions leading up to the invasions of Korea and his subsequent behaviour suggest that territorial expansion was not the primary objective of the campaign. Had expansion been his goal, there would have been no need to issue threats even against Spain. Rather, his aim appears to have been to deter Portuguese and Spanish encroachment into Asia and to assert Japan’s primacy by explicitly presenting a vision of an international order centered on Japan and demonstrating the capacity to realize it. With only a small Spanish garrison defending Manila, colonial authorities feared their rule would collapse if Japan launched an attack.⁶⁴ In response, ships carrying soldiers and weapons were dispatched from Mexico to reinforce Manila’s defenses.⁶⁵

Hideyoshi’s invasion of Joseon was not merely an extension of territorial expansion following the unification of Japan. His demands for submission from Joseon and Ryukyu, together with his vision of conquering Ming China, were not simply expressions of personal ambition but part of a calculated effort to reshape regional order on Japan’s terms. He declared his intention to settle not in Beijing but in Ningbo after unifying Japan and subduing Korea and the Ming dynasty.⁶⁶ This plan to establish himself in Ningbo, a key hub for maritime transportation, suggested that he did not seek to replace the Ming emperor at the center of the existing Chinese international system, but instead envisioned the creation of an alternative order.

The fact that Hideyoshi demanded submission from Taiwan, the Spanish-ruled Philippines, and Portuguese-ruled India – entities that were not subordinate to the Ming at the time – clearly indicates that he was not merely attempting to replace the Ming as leader of the Chinese international system. Rather, he sought to transcend that system and construct a new international system encompassing not only East Asia, but also Southeast Asia and India.⁶⁷

To counter the potential conquest of Japan by Spain and Portugal, Hideyoshi expelled the missionaries and invaded Joseon to demonstrate his formidable military power. However, despite such signaling, missionaries continued to travel to Japan. In particular, when Franciscan missionaries from the Spanish Philippines arrived in Japan, Hideyoshi responded with open hostility. In fact, the Franciscan Martín de la Ascensión was a strong advocate for the conquest of Japan.⁶⁸ Ascensión arrived in Japan in 1596 and began missionary work.

That same year, the navigator of the Spanish ship San Felipe, which had drifted ashore in Japan, was interrogated and reportedly responded, ‘Spain was able to establish its vast overseas territories by first sending missionaries to tame the population and then sending troops to conquer them’. Toyotomi Hideyoshi was outraged by this statement and ordered the execution of six Franciscan missionaries and 20 Japanese Christians in the event known as the ‘Martyrdom of the 26 Saints of Japan’, which also included the execution of Ascensión.⁶⁹

After peace negotiations with the Ming failed, Hideyoshi launched his second invasion of Korea in 1597. However, he found himself at a stalemate with Joseon, which had received reinforcements from the Ming dynasty. After Hideyoshi’s death in 1598, Japan withdrew from the Korean peninsula. And thus, Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea came to be frequently regarded as a reckless failure. It is certain that the invasions were a foolish war that inflicted immense human and material losses on Korea, Ming China, and Japan alike. However, it also seems clear that Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea were driven, at least in part, by an intention to pre-empt European imperial encroachment by asserting Japan’s role as an autonomous order-builder. This strategic agency – rooted in Japan’s liminal position between two competing systems – underscores the complex ways in which liminal actors navigated plural and contested international environments. As the next section will show, Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea constituted a central component of this revisionist order-building project.

Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea reconsidered through liminality

Understanding Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea requires situating them within the broader context of Japan’s strategic positioning amid competing international systems. Far from being driven solely by territorial ambition or personal megalomania, these campaigns reflected a calculated effort to reconfigure regional order and establish a Japan-centered system in response to the decline of the Chinese international system and the growing challenge of European imperial expansion.

As Japan achieved increasing internal unification under Hideyoshi, the weakening of the Ming-centered international order created both opportunities and dangers. With Portugal and Spain advancing their imperial ambitions in East and Southeast Asia – and with missionary networks acting as potential vectors of subordination – Hideyoshi faced a strategic imperative: to assert Japan’s autonomy before it could be drawn into an unfavorable regional configuration.

From the late 1580s onward, Hideyoshi articulated an expansive vision of regional order. He demanded submission from Joseon Korea and Ryukyu, presenting these moves not as acts of conquest but as steps toward constructing a new Asian order centered on Japan. His diplomacy with both Portugese India and Spanish Philippines likewise reflected this intent: rather than seeking territorial incorporation, Hideyoshi aimed to secure recognition of Japan’s leadership and to deter imperial encroachment into Asia. His threats to Manila and correspondence with the Spanish and Portuguese authorities reveal a deliberate strategy of signaling – demonstrating Japan’s military strength and political will.

The decision to invade Korea emerged from this order-building logic. Initially, Hideyoshi sought Joseon’s cooperation in a broader plan to advance against Ming China. When this was refused, military action followed – not merely to occupy Korea, but to create a platform for projecting Japanese influence deeper into the continent. Hideyoshi’s campaign rhetoric and strategic planning extended beyond Korea, envisioning a post-conquest Japanese-led regional system encompassing China, Southeast Asia, and even India. Importantly, Hideyoshi’s approach echoed elements of the Chinese international system while also diverging from it.

Similar to the traditional hierarchical Chinese international system, Hideyoshi sought to establish a Japan-centered hierarchical international system not by directly governing subordinated states, but by treating them as vassals of Japan. States that submitted would retain local autonomy under Japanese leadership. This, however, did not mean that Japan aimed to replace China as the leader of the Chinese international system. Whereas the Chinese international system, at least nominally, sought to stabilize hierarchical order under the authority of the emperor, Hideyoshi lacked the Confucian and cultural authority that the Chinese emperor possessed.⁷⁰ Therefore, he sought to construct a hierarchical international system on the basis of force. In other words, Hideyoshi had no choice but to threaten to attack those who refused to submit.

Of course, Chinese dynasties sometimes threatened to attack those who refused to submit, as when the Ming demanded Japan to pay tribute to the court. Yet, at least in form, surrounding states were expected to offer tribute out of admiration for the Chinese emperor’s virtue, to which the emperor would respond with reciprocal gifts. In practice, these return gifts often exceeded the value of the tribute several times over, thereby creating strong incentives to participate. As a result, many neighbouring states voluntarily offered tribute to the Chinese dynasty, contributing significantly to the formation and maintenance of the hierarchical order. By contrast, Hideyoshi sought to construct a hierarchical order almost entirely through force.

Hideyoshi also aimed to expand the scope of regional order beyond the traditional Chinese world. The Chinese international system, rooted in the Confucian authority of the emperor, was largely confined to East Asia. Hideyoshi, lacking such cultural authority, faced no such limitation. In reality, even if the Chinese international system could be stabilized, it would not have been easy to halt the advance of Spain and Portugal, which were expanding into Southeast Asia and India.

For this reason, Hideyoshi sought to counter European expansion by securing recognition of Japan’s hegemony in Asia. Accordingly, he threatened Spanish-ruled Philippines and Portuguese-ruled India, in an attempt to construct a Japan-centered international system that encompassed a vast area stretching across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. His vision of order was therefore shaped by strategic concerns and represented a fundamentally different model from the Chinese international system. Table 3 summarizes the key features of the international system envisioned by Hideyoshi.

Table 3. Hideyoshi’s vision of the Japanese international system.

Source: Author

Unlike Iberian colonialism, which pursued conversion to Christianity and colonization, Hideyoshi’s order-building vision did not aim at religious conversion or direct rule. Instead, it sought to reconstruct order in Asia through the subordination of various polities to Hideyoshi and their recognition of his authority, thereby deterring the advance of European powers into the region. As in the Chinese international system, as long as these polities accepted subordination to Hideyoshi, they were expected to retain a certain degree of autonomy. From the perspective of the Asian countries targeted by Hideyoshi’s order-building project, it was, in some respects, merely a substitution of Japanese domination for Iberian rule. Yet unlike Iberian imperialism, which sought to expand empires across the globe, Hideyoshi’s vision of order was primarily aimed at securing the autonomy of the Asian region and countering the Iberian imperial expansion into Asia.

While strongly influenced by the Chinese international system, Japan consistently avoided receiving investiture from the Chinese emperor and thus refrained from formally joining the system from the late fifth century onward – except for several decades in the early fifteenth century when it submitted to the Ming. In other words, Japan mostly remained in a liminal position. For this very reason, it had neither the desire to reintegrate into the Chinese international system nor any hesitation in dismantling it. Moreover, lacking the Confucian and cultural authority of the Chinese emperor, Hideyoshi could not realistically contemplate reconstructing that system in China’s place.

Japan also sought to avoid incorporation into the Spanish–Portuguese international system. Although it initially engaged pragmatically with Spain and Portugal – and some sengoku daimyos even converted to Christianity – there was no prospect of Japan joining that system on equal terms. Incorporation would have meant becoming a colony, something utterly unacceptable. While Japan occupied a liminal position within the Spanish–Portuguese international system, it seemed inevitable that it would eventually be absorbed into it. In this context, Hideyoshi sought to construct a new international system distinct from the Chinese one. He pursued this project through threats backed by military force. His reliance on military power also reflected an effort to deter the advance of the Spanish–Portuguese international system into Asia and to assert Japan’s hegemony in the region to the Europeans.

Although this attempt ended in grand failure, it nonetheless had significant regional effects. The campaigns signaled to European observers that Japan possessed formidable military capacity, creating a deterrent effect against potential European interventions. Spanish plans to subjugate Japan faded in the aftermath of Hideyoshi’s campaigns.⁷¹ Moreover, the image of Japan as a strong and autonomous actor persisted into the Tokugawa period, shaping European perceptions and contributing to Japan’s later ability to avoid colonization during an era of global imperial expansion.

When Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hideyoshi’s successor, began to implement the so-called national isolation (sakoku) policy, Spain, Portugal, and other European countries initially resisted but ultimately had no choice but to accept it. As Rodrigo de Vivero, the provisional governor-general of the Philippines, observed: ‘It is difficult to invade Japan by force, because Japan has a large population and strong fortifications. If they were as savage as the Mexican natives, there would be little to fear, but the Japanese have bows, arrows, spears, and swords, and use long guns with great skill’.⁷²

At the same time, Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea also had significant ramifications for Japan’s domestic governance structure. Specifically, the invasions served as a catalyst for further centralization, through which Japan developed into a late premodern state.⁷³ The seemingly ‘reckless’ Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea had an impact that cannot be ignored as one of the factors that helped Japan avoid European colonization.

Viewed through this lens, Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea represent a historically significant case of revisionist order-building by a liminal actor. Facing the collapse of one regional system and the rise of another, Hideyoshi pursued an ambitious – but ultimately untenable – strategy to assert Japan’s autonomy and leadership within a contested international environment. His campaigns illustrate how liminal polities could engage in proactive order contestation – not merely adapting to systemic pressures but seeking to reshape them.

Concluding remarks

This article has reconsidered Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea through the lens of order-building from the margins, situating them within Japan’s liminal position between a declining Chinese international system and an expanding Spanish–Portuguese one. By reframing these campaigns not as reckless aggression or mere extensions of domestic consolidation, but as a deliberate attempt at systemic construction, the study highlights how liminal actors navigate and reshape international environments marked by competing orders.

Lacking the cultural legitimacy of the Chinese emperor and rejecting subordination to Iberian imperialism, Hideyoshi turned to military force and deterrent signaling to assert autonomy. Japan thus illustrates how liminal actors may pursue alternative order-building, challenging both dominant and encroaching systems. This reinterpretation also underscores the dynamism of liminality. Japan’s ambiguous position was not a static status but a condition that enabled strategic agency. Through the Korea campaigns and associated diplomacy, Hideyoshi sought to transform Japan’s structural role in regional politics, reimagining the parameters of order at the cusp of early modern global integration.

The broader theoretical significance also extends to debates to global IR.⁷⁴ Hideyoshi’s ambitious but unsuccessful project demonstrates that Japan was not a passive subject of Chinese hierarchy or European imperialism, but an active participant in revisionist contestation. Such cases remind us that international order has long been plural and contested, with creativity and resistance emerging even from the margins.

Regionally, Hideyoshi’s campaigns reshaped the trajectory of East Asian order in paradoxical ways. They temporarily deterred Iberian colonization and contributed to Japan’s later autonomy, yet they simultaneously devastated Korea and deepened regional enmities. The Japan-centered order he envisioned might have pre-empted colonial domination, but it was not necessarily more just or humane. In this sense, Hideyoshi’s project exemplifies the moral ambiguity of order-building from the margins – an enterprise that can resist external hierarchy only by constructing another.

Finally, viewing Hideyoshi’s Korean invasions through the lens of liminality offers lessons for the present. In today’s world of overlapping and rival orders, many states find themselves in liminal positions. Diplomacy of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) under US–China rivalry, for instance, is often interpreted through balancing or hedging,⁷⁵ perspectives that risk portraying it as passive. A liminality perspective instead highlights the capacity of such actors not only to adapt but also to subvert existing frameworks and initiate new ones.

Whereas nineteenth-century Japan was compelled to adapt to the Western system, sixteenth-century Japan could still pursue alternative visions of order, demonstrating the importance of political space for the exercise of strategic agency. As Hideyoshi’s ultimately failed but consequential project illustrates, liminal actors may also destabilize existing orders and bring about widespread destruction, yet they can also generate novel arrangements that transcend systemic rivalries. In today’s world of competing orders, it remains crucial to recognize how actors in liminal positions practice their agency to contest and reimagine international order.