The Samurai Next Door: Chinese Examinations of the Japanese Martial Spirit

要旨

Characterization of Japan as martial, as opposed to a China emphasizing civil virtues, has colored views of both societies for centuries. The Samurai spirit has at times been credited for Japan’s economic success and technological progress, but is also associated with militaristic imperialism. The underlying conception of a martial Japan carried into the modern age, where it flowed into the emerging discourse on bushido, or “the way of the warrior” which began to be popularized in the late nineteenth century. In China, bushido, or wushidao, played an important role in shaping views of Japan from then on; expansion and popularization of bushido coinciding with a huge influx of Chinese students, reformers, and exiles to Japan. Chinese intellectuals credited bushido with driving the Meiji Restoration and subsequent reforms, while students at Japanese civilian and military schools were exposed to the then-pervasive bushido ideology. This study places its examination of Chinese bushido thought into the broader historical context of transnational bushido discourses in order to consider how bushido developed in China, and how it continues to influence popular understandings of both Chinese and Japanese identity in the twenty-first century.

主題