Research On Political Activity Of Chomin Nakae And His Political Thoughts

Chomin Nakae is a famous modern Japanese thinker, political theorist of free and democratic movement, and materialism atheism philosopher. Many of his works not only profoundly influence the thinking public and the Japanese pursuing democracy and freedom in the Meiji Restoration, but also are significantly important to the navigation of the political modernization in Japan.After Meiji Restoration, the freedom and right of people are gradually highlighted, the necessity of the modern constitutional regime is also gradually recognized by the Japanese, therefore, the bourgeois democratic movement, that is, the free democratic movement is happened in the mid of 1870s, with the center of seeking for free democratic rights. Through this movement, it's the first time the idea of democratic right is popularized in Japan, and Nakae is playing an important role as a theoretical instructor in the movement.Political thoughts are important components in the thoughts of Nakae. As an important thinker in the Meiji Restoration of Japan, the specific influences of Nakae after the Meiji Restoration could be briefly summarized into the following four points:â‘ Nakae has played an important role in the press circles during the Free Democratic Movement. One of his theoretical contributions in Free Democratic Movement is that he has introduced and advocated the"freedom"thoughts related to Rousseau. He is the major contributor to"TOYO Freedom News"and the"Political Theory Essay"journal founded by him, which greatly support the development of democratic movement.â‘¡Through spreading the freedom thoughts of Rousseau of France, Nakae is playing an important role of criticizing the autocratic government as for the founding of the democratic election house.â‘¢The idea of"Govern by Monarch and People"illustrated by Nakae is a modern democratic concept, which has pointed out the clear pattern of regime for the political system in Meiji Restoration. He has clearly disclosed that political power is a res publicae of the national citizens, rather than a res privatae of the autocratic government.â‘£Nakae is the first advocator of"Rule of Morality"after the Meiji Restoration of Japan. Besides explaining the truth of freedom, Nakae is integrating the"morality"advocated by the Chinese Confucianists with the western political ideas, and is depicting the principle and importance of"self restriction"between the nation and the people. And Nakae highlights that only the upholding of the"morality"could be the foundation for the great cause Meiji Restoration.At the beginning of Meiji Restoration, the early enlightening thinkers of Japan represented by Fukuzawa Yukichi are scourging the feudal system, they have enlightened the Japanese to establish the dignity of personality and to liberalize from the restriction of feudal thoughts, have stimulated the democratic awareness of the people, and the political requirements of exceeding the limited reformation scope from the Meiji Government are raised. However, they fail to put forward a specific blueprint on how to establish an ideal democratic society corresponding to an autocratic feudal society. 10 years after Meiji Restoration, the revitalization of the free democratic movement enables the thinking public to forge ahead toward the center of people's sovereignty, the constitution and the establishment of parliament from the single propaganda of universal equality. The theoretical research and literary theories are aiming at answering these questions. Besides accelerating the development of the free democratic movement through spreading the thoughts of Rousseau, as a theoretical thinker capable of building system, most of Nakae's thinking activities are centering with the issues of exploring the polity and the specific modern Japanese government system plan. Before the new form adaptive with the existence and development of the western free democratic thoughts and the polity is being established in Japan, the tasks of Nakae including seeking for the common ground of the traditional and western political thoughts, in order to successfully plant the advanced western political thoughts into the Japanese society, and reforming the traditional on the new basis, so as to make the western thoughts adapted to the local Japanese environment. The most featured part of his thoughts is to seek for the unitarity between the oriental tradition and the western civilization, and to build up his ideology based on the unitarity. In the opinion of Nakae, the thoughts of the oriental Confucianists and the western free democratic thoughts are not opposite, on the contrary, they could be mutually integrated and complementary. He employs the Confucianist traditional thought resources, attempts to find a universal spiritual value capable of interpreting and integrating the modern free and equal thoughts. The"Democratic Interpretations"in the form of Confucianist theory, absorbing and illustrating the thoughts of Rousseau is a masterpiece translation illustrating the theories of Rousseau in the form of Confucianism, which poses the"Rousseau Storm"during that period. Meanwhile, he also makes new comments on the Confucianist"theory"with the free democratic thoughts of Rousseau, puts forward"democratic rights are supreme and freedom and equality are great", therefore, the Confucian theory is creatively converted.Make a general view of Nakae's thoughts, we could find the oriental liberalism, the democratic theory, the foreign affairs theory and other political thoughts of Nakae are unique in the Japanese political thoughts and are enjoying a remarkably important status. The political thoughts of Nakae are the manifestations of the modern Japanese political thoughts generated in the historical background of building a constitutional state and national state for Japan. Therefore, we could observe the building of Japan as a constitutional state and national state from the evolutions of Nakae's political thoughts, the influences from the mutual collisions between the democratic theory and autocratic theory, some significant historical events in Meiji Restoration, particularly, the rise and decline of free democracy and the establishment of some basic phenomena and laws in constitutional politics.