During the first half of the 19th century the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan faced a series of sociopolitical crises that increasingly revealed the inability of the highly conservative Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, to effectively respond to this multitude of daunting new challenges to Japanese sovereignty. Central to this was the increased military and political presence of Western, colonialist powers in the South Pacific. The relatively large and influential Japanese samurai-bureaucrat class watched with growing concern as the Qing Dynasty attempted to directly confront Western powers over the negative influences of the massive opium trade. The brutal defeats of the first and second Opium Wars resulted in more than the continuation of the drug trade; the British seizure of Hong Kong, combined with the forced opening of Chinese ports, and the myriad indemnities and penalties of the Tianjin Treaty severely hurt the sovereignty of an already weakened and internally divided late-Qing dynasty. To many Japanese, it seemed increasingly likely that China would go the way of other Asian “once-greats” such as India. The Shogun’s policy of executing foreigners who entered Japan and Japanese who left, as well as the extremely limited amount of trade allowed with Western nations further reduced the degree of contact. Among members of the gentry and bureaucracy a general consensus was abound: something had to be done to protect Japan from a similar fate as the Qing. That something was to be the Meiji Rebellion.

​

The well known intrusion of Commodore Perry and his battleships was merely the flashpoint for this already powerful movement within the Tokugawa government. Many high ranking samurai and bureaucrats felt that the Shogun’s exceptionally conservative attitude in the face of the total inability of the Tokugawa government to effectively respond to Western political and military pressure would spell certain death for the Japanese state. In open rebellion, they overthrew the Shogun and returned the imperial dynasty to the seat of political power, ushering in a series of drastic sociopolitical changes. It would be a mistake to characterize the Meiji rebellion as a liberal or reformist shift: the samurai bureaucracy had little interest in instituting democratic policies, and the re-ascendency of the imperial dynasty was based on the precedent of a centuries old bloodline. Nevertheless, the Meiji era was to be a period of rapid technological, social and political change--much of it quite radical when contrasted with the preceding years of the Tokugawa.

​

The new Japan of the Meiji era was a consciously, carefully designed work of statesmanship and historical construction that reflected a new Japanese understanding of civilization--one that was underwritten by a capitalist, empiricist, European model positing a single correct mode of development. In forging a new, modernist Japan Meiji historians and politicians not only attempted to replicate Western technological and political developments, they consciously contrasted Japanese civilization with a vision of China (and the wider Asian continent) as the opposite of modernity--something to be avoided. Many of these Japanese discourses played into traditional Euro-American depictions of the Orient as described by Edward Said in his treatise, Orientalism.  The Japanese discourse on Asia and civilization was more nuanced than a simple replication of the preexisting Occidental modes of thought, however. Japanese academics such as Fukuzawa Yukichi and Naito Torajiro recognized many of the ills concealed within the western conception of civilization. Seeking to mitigate the negative influences of Western tendencies towards individualism and capitalism as well as maintain important aspects of their own culture, Japanese scholars deployed a unique framework that took the body of Chinese and continental Asian history as a whole and encapsulated it in the concept of toyo. Central to the organization of toyo was shina, a pre-Tokugawa era term for China which served as the codified and historicized basis for for this new formulation of Japanese history. Shina and toyo would be the tools that Japanese scholars utilized to mark their distinctiveness from the West, as well as their superiority to less developed Asian nations such as China. However, in taking toyo as the object of culture and Japan as the realized subject, Japanese scholars replicated a western teleology of civilization more than they intended to and produced a contradictory, internally conflicted discourse. This problematic can be clearly seen in two famous publications by Fukuzawa Yukichi, a Meiji era journalist, academic, translator and diplomat: Datsu-A and Outline of a Theory of Civilization. In Datsu-A, (trans., leaving Asia/Goodbye Asia) Fukuzawa argues for the necessity of accepting civilization as well as the inevitability of a Japanese sociopolitical shift away from the Asian continent towards a new form of Japanese civilization. In An Outline of A Theory of Civilization, Fukuzawa elaborates his theory of how civilizations developed and elaborates upon which civilizations he believes are most advanced. 

​

In constructing toyo, and in their depictions of shina, Japanese scholars drew on many orientalist tropes which lent both logic and descriptive elements to the distinctions drawn between Japan and China. To properly understand the role that orientalism played in the construction of a Japanese past and future it is necessary to reiterate Said’s characterization of orientalism:

“Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient --dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient... My contention is that without examining Orientalism as a discourse one cannot possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage --and even produce-- the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period. In brief, because of Orientalism the Orient was not (and is not) a free subject of thought or action.... European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self” (Said 26).

Although Said is largely concerned with Orientalism as it functions within the western discourse, it is my contention that the discursive mode of orientalism operated in a very similar manner during Meiji era Japan. This academic discourse sought to make China intelligible via authorizing descriptions of its linguistic, racial, and philosophic heritage. Sometimes implied, sometimes stated was the assumption that Chinese scholars could not sufficiently perform this task themselves. 

​

The purpose of the Orientalist Japanese discourse was twofold: it helped both sharpen the Japanese conception that they were more advanced than China, which remained stagnant, and produced a static object of cultural heritage (toyo) from which Japanese scholars could draw on to supply themselves with a body of traditional, oriental thought and culture. Toyo and shina would provide the grounding basis for a Japan both modernized but still distinctly Asian: the best of both worlds, so to speak. It is Stefan Tanaka who has provided me with much of my understanding of this uniquely Japanese Orientalism, and his description of the positioning of shina within the discourse of toyo is central to my thesis.

“Toyo (lit., eastern seas, normally translated as the Orient) became the archives--the pasts--from which history could be constructed. The leading object within the realm was shina...the spatial locus of shina takes it meaning within Japan’s formulation of a new geocultural entity, toyo. My argument is that the concepts embodied in the word toyo served to unify the varied and disparate tendencies that existed in Japan during this period...through this concept, which contained and ordered the pasts of Japan and toyo, the Japanese created their modern identity” (Tanaka 3, 11).

Japanese scholars sought to create a history that would provide themselves with a distinctly non-Western foundation which would secure Japanese cultural and social elements in the face of western hegemony, while simultaneously adopting Western military and technological advancements as well as philosophic and academic traditions. But in reducing China to shina, a mere object within the larger, also objectified and static repository for history, toyo, Japanese scholars ultimately replicated aspects of a Western teleology which posited China (and much of Asia at large) as inferior, historically static, and in need of strong leadership to properly traverse the ladder of civilization. Imperial Japan was to adopt this logic to justify beginning an Asian “civilizing mission” of the sort undertaken by the Western colonial powers.

​

Datsu-A makes clear the dilemma that Japanese academics, Fukuzawa included, felt they were facing. The Meiji rebellion had occurred because, to many, the Shogun’s policy of isolation seemed to spell certain doom for Japan in the face of an ever growing Western political and military presence in East Asia. Adopting some aspects of Western civilization seemed necessary, but preserving a Japanese identity was equally so. Fukuzawa proposed the following solution.

“For those of us who live in the Orient, unless we want to prevent the coming of Western civilization with firm resolve it is best that we cast our lot with them. If one observes carefully what is going on in today’s world, one knows the futility of trying to prevent the onslaught of Western civilization. Why not float with them in the same ocean of civilization, sail the same waves, and enjoy the fruits and endeavors of civilization? The movement of a civilization is like the spread of measles. Measles in Tokyo start in Nagasaka and come eastward with the spring thaw. We may hate the spread of this communicable disease, but is there any way of preventing it? I can prove that it is not possible….In a civilization, damages may accompany benefits, but benefits always far outweigh them, and their force cannot be stopped...Our basic assumptions can be summarized in two words: ‘Good-bye Asia’” (Lu 351-353).

The Japanese adoption of a European conception of the development of a people/nation can be seen clearly in much of this passage. Fukuzawa’s explicit correlation of civilization with the West is a central aspect of the liberalist theory of history which posits that the most technologically advanced and powerful nations are, by extension, the most civilized. In the West the justification for this belief was in part derived from Whig history, which positioned the modern, parliamentarian, democratic nation state as the final stage in the teleology of history. Social Darwinism was the foil to this Whiggery--an adaptation of the “survival of the fittest” tenant applied on the large scale. Stronger nations could rightfully dominate weaker ones because it was natural for them to do so. Like animals, there are fit and unfit peoples; domination by a stronger nation could be avoided by adapting--becoming civilized. This logic was positioned as logical, rational, and empirically founded. 

 

These tenants were not directly received and adopted by the Japanese through Whig and Darwinist texts, however. Stefan Tanaka reveals that much of this logic entered the Japanese discourse through the importation of a German, Rankean, pseudo-positivist scholar to the University of Tokyo.

“The conditions in which these Meiji intellectuals lived bore several similarities with those facing European writers, including...Auguste Comte...most instrumental in formulating a positivistic sociology....according to Comte, the development of man can be traced through the progress of his mental facilities: from theologism--the attribution of events to supernatural forces---to positivism--the use of reason and observation to unearth truth...the history department of the Faculty of Letters at Tokyo Imperial University was organized in 1887. To shape this new discipline, a young student of Leopold von Ranke, Ludwig Reiss, was hired to teach ‘modern’ history….Reiss also fostered the collection of material, the establishment of archives, the objective evaluation of historical data, the publication of empirical articles...in his fourth year in Japan, Reiss celebrated these accomplishments...in which he reflected…‘Japanese scholars...are working to renovate their former ways, elevate the level of historical research, and make history purely scientific’” (Tanaka 38, 42).

This fusion of Rankean documentarian history and Comtian positivism formed the procrustean bed for Japanese objectivist history. The issue with positivist/objectivist history, however, is that it glosses over the role of the historians themselves in choosing who and what is worthy of note in the writing of history. There is an implicit core of value judgements to the Comtian methodology which, when unaddressed, leaves the authority of establishing knowledge in the hands of the historian--certainly not an impartial judge, regardless of what Comte might say. In the Meiji Japanese context, where a widespread academic and political preoccupation in forming a new Japan was predominant, the unchallenged objectivity of this new history leant undue authority to the historian in their “scientific” determinations of category, value, and cause/effect. The result of this historiographic method was the widespread adoption of an understanding of civilization based on hierarchy and a single mode of development, quite similar to the hegemonic discourse in the West. 

​

Despite its predominance, the positivist objectivity of the University of Tokyo scholars was not totalizing within the Japanese discourse. The prominence of the disease metaphor in Fukuzawa’s Datsu-A reveals well founded reservations towards a teleological understanding of civilization. Unlike many Europeans and Americans, Fukuzawa clearly did not conceive of Western civilization as entirely beneficial. The measles metaphor describes civilization spreading insidiously, entropically, and, like a disease, infecting anyone, regardless of consent. Certainly, Fukuzawa and others knew that Japanese adoption of Western technology and knowledge would not come without downsides as well. And yet Fukuzawa opines that these negatives are surely less significant than the positives of civilization; additionally, since civilization cannot be resisted even if one wanted to, there is no use quibbling over the potential harms. Civilization must be adopted by Japan. In this aspect, Datsu-A is emblematic of the degree to which Western empiricist ideology had penetrated but not totally subsumed Japanese thought. A preponderance of reservations still existed, but at the same time the Japanese acceptance, unproblematized, of the Comtian, inevitable progression of civilization reveals the degree to which Western thought had been adopted by Japanese scholars. The conclusion was inevitable, even if the effects were worrying.

​

Later passages of Fukuzawa’s Datsu-A reveal the degree to which aspects of the Western Orientalist discourse, as described by Said, had become integral to Japanese depictions of China and other Asian nations.

“Japan is located in the eastern extremities of Asia, but the spirit of her people have already moved away from the old conventions of Asia to the Western civilization. Unfortunately for Japan, there are two neighboring countries. One is called China and another Korea. These two peoples...have been nurtured by Asiatic political thoughts and mores...The Chinese and Koreans are more like each other and together they do not show as much similarity to the Japanese. These two peoples do not know how to progress either personally or as a nation...Their love affairs with the ancient ways and old customs remain as strong as they were centuries ago...as for their morality, one only has to observe their unspeakable acts of cruelty and shamelessness….in my view, these two countries cannot survive as independent nations with the onslaught of Western civilization to the East….Why is this so? Simply at a time when the spread of civilization and enlightenment has a force askin to that of measles, China and Korea violate the natural law of this spread. They forcibly try to avoid it by shutting off air from their rooms. Without air they suffocate to death” (Lu 352-354).

This passage by Fukuzawa is significant because it repeats many of the tropes and themes of the Western, orientalist discourse of the era. Fukuzawa’s descriptions of China and Korea as culturally and politically static and clinging to outdated beliefs reflect the accusations leveled at the “old empires” by writers across Europe and America. In sites as disparate as India, Indochina, and Morocco, colonizers repeated the same claims that their subject nations/peoples were essentially temporally frozen, and, in isolation, would remain the same unchanging lands forever. Only with the intervention of a vibrant, developed nation--always a Western power--could these grand but ossified empires be revitalized. The deployment range of this discourse hints at its truth value. Certainly China, India and South Africa were not truly static. The Qing Dynasty specifically, was, during the mid 19th century, undergoing a period of rapid imperially sanctioned reforms aimed at modernizing the military, civil bureaucracy, and tax system. The static trope was a central aspect of a discourse that justified imperialist domination. Edward Said describes this thematic in the writings of Cromer and Balfour, two prominent Orientalists.

“Now at last we approach the long-developing core of essential knowledge, knowledge both academic and practical, which Cromer and Balfour inherited from a century of modern Western Orientalism: knowledge about and knowledge of Orientals, their race, character, culture, history, traditions, society, and possibilities. This knowledge was effective: Cromer believed he had put it to use in governing Egypt. Moreover, it was tested and unchanging knowledge, since ‘Orientals’ for all practical purposes were a Platonic essence, which any Orientalist (or ruler of Orientals) might examine, understand, and expose...Cromer puts down a sort of personal canon of Orientalist wisdom: Sir Alfred Lyall once said to me: ‘Accuracy is abhorrent to the Oriental mind. Every Anglo-Indian should always remember that maxim.’ Want of accuracy, which easily degenerates into untruth-fulness, is in fact the main characteristic of the Oriental mind” (Said 50).

A similar process to Balfour’s is occurring in Fukuzawa’s text. In positioning China and Korea as unchanging, Fukuzawa is simultaneously establishing these two nations as objects in the context of a subject/object distinction. The object, necessarily, cannot act--it must be acted on, made intelligible and clear. The Platonic nature of the Orient-as-object gives all descriptions of it an authorized universality: Orientals, regardless of their location, all generally contain a similar essence. They cling to outmoded traditions, participate in cruel and unusual practices, and, perhaps most significantly, cannot truly understand their own history or national character. It is in this sense that Fukuzawa claims to know the best for ignorant Chinese, who futily attempt to resist the inevitability of civilization. The superior Japanese, who have modernized, are no longer objects like the rest of Asia. The Japanese nation has become something greater, with the foresight and ability to help save their backwards relatives on the continent. It is this same sentiment which is repeated by the renowned Japanese sinologist, Naito Torajiro, who penned comprehensive studies of the ethno-linguistic origins of the Japanese and Chinese scripts. Torajiro repeatedly expressed frustration with his Chinese interlocutors who, he felt were ignorant of their own history: something Torajiro claimed to know far more comprehensively. 

 

The conceptual deployment of shina and toyo is prominent in this passage by Fukuzawa. His description of Chinese and Korean customs as timeless and largely conflatable fits the logic of toyo completely. Takana claims that a central aspect of toyo (and shina within Toyo) is its construction as a body of pan-Asian tradition and culture which, to Japanese historians, was largely unchanging. The foundations of Japanese society could be sought out in the building blocks of toyo, providing a cultural anchor for Japanese modernization. Japanese orientalist attitudes towards China such as those depicted in the preceding passage by Fukuzawa provided logic and justification for the creation of the sublimating categories of toyo and shina. With toyo forming the basis for a new Japanese national history, China, as an unchanging entity, leant much of this essentially “Asian” character to the new Meiji Japan. In the minds of Meiji Japanese intellectuals, Japan had transcended the other Asian nations, moving beyond “object of the Orient” to the class of nations and peoples who possessed the insight and critical power to make the Orient intelligible. 

 

The ascendency of this this western, objectivist history and the acceptance of the inevitability of modernity, reservations aside, was to have long lasting effects on Japanese foreign policy during the 19th and 20th centuries. An understanding of civilization which posited Japan as the only fully developed Asian nation and endowed Japanese scholars and politicians with a sense of destiny, indeed, even duty, to unify Asia and lead the continent into modern prosperity was to be the ideological backdrop for much of the imperialist conflicts waged by Japan during this period. These wars were justified on very similar terms to those undertaken by Western nations. It is my intent to argue that much of the justification for these conflicts lay in the classical liberalist conception of civilization and history adopted by both Japan and the West. In positing a unilinear model of development culminating in modernity, violence and colonialism against perceived inferiors was thus justified on the grounds of the civilizing mission. I believe that some of this logic can be seen in passages of Fukuzawa’s An Outline of a Theory of Civilization. This is significant because it reveals the range to which such themes had penetrated the Japanese discourse. Even Fukuzawa, on the more liberal end of the reformer spectrum, who expressed more west-skepticism than many others, still accepted certain fundamental assumptions of Western thought.

“While civilization is civilization relative to the semi-developed stage, the latter, in its turn, can be called civilization relative to the primitive stage. Thus, for example, present day China has to be called semi-developed in comparison with Western countries. But if we compare China with the countries of South Africa...then both China and Japan can be called civilized…seen in this light, civilization is an open-ended process. We cannot be satisfied with the present level of attainment of the West…but shall we therefore conclude that japan should reject it?...We cannot rest content with the stage of semi-development; even less can the primitive stage suffice...Hence present-day Europe can only be called the highest level that human intelligence has been able to attain at this juncture in history...my own criterion throughout this book will be that of Western civilization, and it will be in terms of it that I describe something as good or bad, in terms of it that I find things beneficial or harmful” (Fukuzawa 45-50).

There is a compelling tension present in Fukuzawa’s text; namely, that he recognizes certain issues within the rigidity of the Western teleology that claims the modern parliamentary democracy as the pinnacle of civilization, but, on the whole, Fukuzawa still accepts the logic that civilizations can indeed be ranked, and that certain nations are distinctly superior to others. Fukuzawa attempts to undercut orthodox Western rhetoric by challenging the oft upheld position that the West of the 19th century represents the real pinnacle of development by appealing to the relativity of civilization categories. Specifically that the distinctions between primitive, semi-developed, and developed are only intelligible in context with one another. In arguing this, Fukuzawa is attempting to shift the locus of civilization away from the specific focus on wholly Occidental manifestations of it towards a broader conception that would allow for nations such as Japan to be considered fully civilized as well. This quandary repeats itself continually in works of Japanese history and statesmanship of the Meiji period; the issue was how to remain distinctly Japanese while still modernizing to a level that would allow Japan to compete with Western powers on a world stage. The fundamental assumption of Fukuzawa and other academics was that a hierarchy of civilizations, relative or not, did exist in some form. Thus, even skeptics like Fukuzawa and Naito Torajiro, who recognized many ills in Western society, ultimately still centered a teleology of civilization in their analyses--this assumption underwrote the discourse as a whole, and was to have drastic political consequences.

 

John A. Hobson’s monograph Imperialism, A Study has provided me with a comprehensive depiction and critique of the logic of the imperialist, colonial project and it is his description of the moral, philosophical and empirical justifications for imperialism that are reflected in the darker side of a classical, liberalist conception of civilization. It is the same logic  that Hobson describes which fueled imperialism, and, as I have just argued, underwrote the Meiji era Japanese understanding of civilization. It is my contention that, in adopting an understanding of civilization which posited clear superiors and inferiors, the theories of civilization advanced by Fukuzawa Yukichi and other Japanese scholars of the period contained the same seed of imperial violence that lay within the Western liberalist discourse.  Hobson describes the thesis of imperialist thus.

“It is desirable that the earth should be peopled, governed, and developed, as far as possible, by the races which can do this work best, i.e. by the races of highest “social efficiency”; these races must assert their right by conquering, ousting, subjugating, or extinguishing races of lower social efficiency. The good of the world, the true cause of humanity, demands that this struggle, physical, industrial, political, continue, until an ideal settlement is reached whereby the most socially efficient nations rule the earth in accordance with their several kinds and degrees of social efficiency” (Hobson 322).

In both the Western and Japanese understanding of civilization, efficiency and utility fueled by technological development are the hallmarks of a truly civilized people. Despite conscious efforts by some Meiji scholars to avoid replicating an understanding of civilization which positioned Europe and America at the top of the proverbial ladder, the varying theories of civilization produced by Fukuzawa Yukichi, Shiratori Kurukichi, and Naito Torajiro all contained a kernel of this same imperialist rhetoric. A unique characteristic of this Japanese discourse was that Japan, instead of the West, was positioned as the pinnacle of civilization within Asia. Japanese politicians felt it was their duty--not Europe’s--to bring Asia into modernity. This vision was justified by the usage of toyo as a central aspect of Japanese historical and national identity. With toyo as their past and the technological advancements of Europe in hand, Japan, so it was said, was uniquely capable of modernizing Asia without the forced adoption of harmful Western values such as excess individualism and the extreme pursuit of capital. It was this framework which lead Japanese academics to continually challenge the ability of their Chinese interlocutors to properly understand China’s history and ethnolinguistic roots, as well as the judgement of Chinese intellectuals in devising a proper plan for modernization. Ultimately, this Japanese vision of superiority would damage Japanese-Chinese relations and scholarly communication/cooperation. Stefan Tanaka describes the extent to which perceived Japanese superiority dominated intellectual discourse by examining the writings of Shiratori Kurakichi, considered to be one of the more progressive and liberal Meiji era Japanese historians. 

“‘I [Kurakichi] believe that there is certainly a group of Chinese who have become aroused, but it is an awakening that has no precedence on such a massive scale. Because a major percentage of Chinese are anachronistic and still have no understanding of world affairs, the new ideas are not understood at all, and in particular far beyond this group.’ From this conviction in his objective knowledge of what China needed, Shiratori’s understanding gradually diverged (if in fact there ever was a true understanding of the actual conditions) from events there. For Shiratori, this eventually lead to his declaration in 1940 that the Chinese must eliminate their condescension towards Japan, recognize Japan’s superiority, and accept the value of Japan’s syncretic culture over that of Europe. This frustration reflects the limitations of his understanding of shina and an emerging rift between Shiratori’s shina and the real China” (Tanaka 167).

Japanese claims to be the sole peoples capable of syncretically fusing to an essentially Asian culture (toyo) with modernity, combined with claims of a superior level of civilization drove an irreparable divide between Chinese and Japanese scholars that increasingly frustrated intellectual participants on both sides of the divide. The Japanese understanding of China, premised on orientalist conceptions of the nation, severely limited the ability of Japanese scholars to productively engage with the Chinese. In the political sphere the increasingly conservative Japanese imperial polity reacted with hostility towards Chinese and Korean reluctance to submit to the perceived obviousness of Japanese superiority. Seen in this light the imperial violence exhibited in the occupation of Taiwan, annexation of Korea, and both Sino-Japanese wars is the logical conclusion to a Japanese conception of history built upon the twin pillars of an Orientalist conceptions of the Asian mainland and a positivist view of history which established objectivist criteria for ranking civilizations. Despite their efforts to establish a uniquely Asian modern Japan Japanese intellectuals relied on elements of Western intellectual thought which justified, indeed, almost demanded, conquest and colonialism in the name of advancing civilization.

 

With this paper I have attempted to demonstrate the significant influence that the intellectual foundations of a discourse may have on its development, especially within the field of history, where the conscious construction of a national character, mythos, and destiny is quite prominent. The act of writing history is never objective nor truly free of ideological trappings; the close proximity of historical studies to nationalist politics during the 19th and 20th centuries (indeed, today as well) meant that the role of the historian in a newly modernized nation such as Japan was exceptionally influential. The nationalist drive in Japan (and elsewhere) to define a sense of polity and universal character is never far from myth making. The works of Meiji reformers such as Fukuzawa Yukichi, Naito Torajiro and Shiratori Kurakichi all reveal a preoccupation with defining and delineating the history and character of a new Japan; a Japan that was seen to be the product of the best of Orient and Occident. The contributions of Edward Said and Stefan Tanaka have lead me to the conclusion that, in seeking to establish a sense of difference from “backwards” Asian nations such as China, Japanese historians relied on aspects of Western historiography and Orientalist thematics in a manner that would eventually provide justification for imperialist violence on a massive scale during the first half of the 20th century. 

 

In using toyo and shina as the static objects for the construction of a generalized “Asian” historical heritage Japanese historians implicitly and explicitly positioned China as inferior--the object of history which Japanese intellectuals could take, make intelligible, and use as they wished. The thematics of toyo were heavily indebted to pre-existing European tropes regarding the Orient: namely, that it is static, illogical, and requires study by a civilized superior to be made intelligible. This uniquely Japanese Orientalism in combination with the positivist understanding of the teleology of civilization which dominated the Japanese university system would eventually drive a wedge between Japan and the continent, academically as as politically. This widening difference and the increased inability or willingness of Japanese scholars and politicians to engage with China, Korea, or other Asian nations on equal terms would culminate in a form of imperial dominance quite similar to that exercised by Western nations in their colonial holdings across the globe. The intellectual foundations of this new Japanese history, in part borrowed from the West, would eventually enable the rise of an extremely nationalist, militaristic Japanese government with designs on all of Asia.

Works Cited

 

Fukuzawa, Yukichi. An Outline of a Theory of Civilization. Trans. David A. Dilworth. University of Columbia Press. 1995.

​

 Hobson, John A. Imperialism, A Study. James Pot & Co, 1902.

​

Lu, J. David. Japan: A Documentary History Vol. 1. East Gate. 2005.

​

Said, Edward. Orientalism. Vintage Books, 1979.

​

Tanaka, Stefan. Japan’s Orient: Rendering Pasts into History. University of California Press, 1993.