China In The Eyes Of The Japanese

The relation between China and Japan is one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world but how did the Japanese view China in ancient times? How did views change throughout the course of history? How could China’s image be improved in Japanese people’s eyes? This book provides an analysis of the history of contact between China and Japan and surveys the present situation to understand general views of Japanese society toward China. Through scientific public opinion surveys as well as in-depth interviews, the book examines ordinary and elite Japanese people’s views of Chinese culture, society, politics, the economy, media and Sino-Japanese relations. In addition, it analyzes the main causes of the formation of such views, and makes suggestions on promoting positive public opinions of China. The authors hope that this title can deepen Japanese society’s understanding and comprehension of China, help promote Sino-Japanese non-governmental exchange, and lay the foundation for continuous development of Sino-Japanese relations. This title will appeal to students and scholars of cultural studies, international relations and Asian studies.

"The relation between China and Japan is one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world but how did the Japanese view China in ancient times? How did views change throughout the course of history? How could China's image be improved in Japanese people's eyes? This book provides an analysis of the history of contact between China and Japan and surveys the present situation to understand general views of Japanese society toward China. Through scientific public opinion surveys as well as in-depth interviews, the book examines ordinary and elite Japanese people's views of Chinese culture, society, politics, the economy, media and Sino-Japanese relations. In addition, it analyzes the main causes of the formation of such views, and makes suggestions on promoting positive public opinions of China. The authors hope that this title can deepen Japanese society's understanding and comprehension of China, help promote Sino-Japanese non-governmental exchange, and lay the foundation for continuous development of Sino-Japanese relations. This title will appeal to students and scholars of cultural studies, international relations and Asian studies"--

Argues that Sino-Japanese relations are based on bitter war-time memories and that Chinese sophistication in the understanding of the US and USSR is not matched in the case of Japan.

Conventional scholarship reads the story of Japan's late 19th-early 20th century encounter with China backward through the lens of wartime, cherry picking evidence to develop a picture consistent with Japan's later acts of aggression. Using a wealth of resources, including diaries, newspaper accounts, and contemporary journals, Asia for the Asians: China in the Lives of Five Meiji Japanese dispenses with dominant narratives to explore the Meiji view of China, imagined, real and evolving, through the eyes of five people who actually lived and traveled in China and worked with the Chinese. The new picture that emerges, while highly complex, suggests that the potential for cooperation was stronger, the road to conflict less certain, and the responsibility for things gone wrong more difficult to assign than is usually assumed.

Chinese, Japanese, South (and North) Koreans in East Asia have a long, intertwined and distinguished cultural history and have achieved, or are in the process of achieving, spectacular economic success. Together, these three peoples make up one quarter of the world population.They use a variety of unique and fascinating writing systems: logographic Chinese characters of ancient origin, as well as phonetic systems of syllabaries and alphabets. The book describes, often in comparison with English, how the Chinese, Korean and Japanese writing systems originated and developed; how each relates to its spoken language; how it is learned or taught; how it can be computerized; and how it relates to the past and present literacy, education, and culture of its users.Intimately familiar with the three East Asian cultures, Insup Taylor with the assistance of Martin Taylor, has written an accessible and highly readable book. Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese is intended for academic readers (students in East Asian Studies, linguistics, education, psychology) as well as for the general public (parents, business, government). Readers of the book will learn about the interrelated cultural histories of China, Korea and Japan, but mainly about the various writing systems, some exotic, some familar, some simple, some complex, but all fascinating.

Some striking act in a man’s career is necessary to attract general attention to him. The one who moves along through his path in life doing nothing out of the ordinary, will win few glances from the public, and little will the world notice his existence. Worthy of the worthiest he may be, but if he does nothing to demonstrate it, how shall the world know his merit or his strength? But with all this true, it does not follow that it is man’s duty to seek an occasion to advertise these qualities. Only when the necessity for action arises, then should he act, and then will the world know what his ability and character are. The same is true as to the nations of the earth. Those years during which they move onward in their national life and history in peace and quietness, however full of latent strength they may be, are not the ones which command the attention of the eyes of the world. It is the year of supreme test, of struggle, moral or physical, that furnishes crucial testimony what the nation really is. War is always a curse unless it be waged to advance justice and assure more worthy peace. But if such a war be necessary, the progress of it, the results, and the lessons they teach are essential to the student of humanity, in whatever quarter of the globe the battles are. China, Japan and Corea are a strange trinity to most of us in the western world. Separated from us by long distances and by immense differences in race, in language, in religion, and in customs, they have been known here only through the writings of the comparatively few travelers who exchange visits. Of late years, it is true, the hermitages of the Orient have been opening to freer intercourse, trade and treaties have multiplied, and students have come to us for the knowledge we could give them. But there was needed a great movement of some sort to awaken the Orient from its centuries of slumber, and to make known to us the truth of eastern affairs. Nothing could do this as the War in the East has done. We can study its conduct and its results if 6we will, in a way to teach us more of the characteristics of the three nations than we could learn in any other way. It has been the object of the author in the present volume, to record the facts of the war and its preliminaries so clearly that every seeker for knowledge might trace the lessons for himself. To justify this effort, it is necessary to say no more than that the conflict involves directly nations whose total population includes more than one-fourth of the human race. And the results will affect the progress of civilization in those countries, as well as the commercial and other interests of all the European and American nations. Invertebrate China, with scorn of western methods, and complacent rest in the belief that all but her own people are barbarians, had to face an inevitable war with Japan, the sprightly, absorbent, adaptive, western-spirited, whose career in the two score years since her doors were opened to the call of the American Perry has been the marvel of those who knew it. And the conflict was to be on the soil of the Hermit Nation, Corea, “the Land of Morning Calm,” for centuries the land of contention between “the Day’s Beginning” and “the Middle Kingdom.” It is to record the history and description of these realms and peoples in sufficient detail to make plainer the facts of the war that the preliminary chapters are written. The work must speak for itself. The importance of the subjects included in the volume must be the explanation of any inadequacy of treatment.

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Chinese leaders once tried to suppress memories of their nation’s brutal experience during World War II. Now they celebrate the “victory”—a key foundation of China’s rising nationalism. For most of its history, the People’s Republic of China discouraged public discussion of the war against Japan. It was an experience of victimization—and one that saw Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek fighting for the same goals. But now, as China grows more powerful, the meaning of the war is changing. Rana Mitter argues that China’s reassessment of the war years is central to its newfound confidence abroad and to mounting nationalism at home. China’s Good War begins with the academics who shepherded the once-taboo subject into wider discourse. Encouraged by reforms under Deng Xiaoping, they researched the Guomindang war effort, collaboration with the Japanese, and China’s role in forming the post-1945 global order. But interest in the war would not stay confined to scholarly journals. Today public sites of memory—including museums, movies and television shows, street art, popular writing, and social media—define the war as a founding myth for an ascendant China. Wartime China emerges as victor rather than victim. The shifting story has nurtured a number of new views. One rehabilitates Chiang Kai-shek’s war efforts, minimizing the bloody conflicts between him and Mao and aiming to heal the wounds of the Cultural Revolution. Another narrative positions Beijing as creator and protector of the international order that emerged from the war—an order, China argues, under threat today largely from the United States. China’s radical reassessment of its collective memory of the war has created a new foundation for a people destined to shape the world.