Embracing 'asia' In China And Japan: Asianism Discourse And The Contest For Hegemony, 1912-1933 (palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series)
by Torsten Weber /
2017 / English / PDF
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This book examines how Asianism became a key concept in
mainstream political discourse between China and Japan and how it
was used both domestically and internationally in the contest for
political hegemony. It argues that, from the early 1910s to the
early 1930s, this contest changed Chinese and Japanese
perceptions of ‘Asia’, from a concept that was
foreign-referential, foreign-imposed, peripheral, and mostly
negative and denied (in Japan) or largely ignored (in China) to
one that was self-referential, self-defined, central, and widely
affirmed and embraced. As an
This book examines how Asianism became a key concept in
mainstream political discourse between China and Japan and how it
was used both domestically and internationally in the contest for
political hegemony. It argues that, from the early 1910s to the
early 1930s, this contest changed Chinese and Japanese
perceptions of ‘Asia’, from a concept that was
foreign-referential, foreign-imposed, peripheral, and mostly
negative and denied (in Japan) or largely ignored (in China) to
one that was self-referential, self-defined, central, and widely
affirmed and embraced. As anism
ism, Asianism elevated ‘Asia’
as a geographical concept with culturalist-racialist implications
to the status of a full-blown political principle and encouraged
its proposal and discussion vis-à-vis other political doctrines
of the time, such as nationalism, internationalism, and
imperialism. By the mid-1920s, a great variety of conceptions of
Asianism had emerged in the transnational discourse between Japan
and China. Terminologically and conceptually, they not only paved
the way for the appropriation of ‘Asia’ discourse by Japanese
imperialism from the early 1930s onwards but also facilitated the
embrace of Sino-centric conceptions of Asianism by Chinese
politicians and collaborators.
, Asianism elevated ‘Asia’
as a geographical concept with culturalist-racialist implications
to the status of a full-blown political principle and encouraged
its proposal and discussion vis-à-vis other political doctrines
of the time, such as nationalism, internationalism, and
imperialism. By the mid-1920s, a great variety of conceptions of
Asianism had emerged in the transnational discourse between Japan
and China. Terminologically and conceptually, they not only paved
the way for the appropriation of ‘Asia’ discourse by Japanese
imperialism from the early 1930s onwards but also facilitated the
embrace of Sino-centric conceptions of Asianism by Chinese
politicians and collaborators.