Comparative Study On Fukuzawa Yukichi’s View Of Korea And China

Based on Fukuzawa Yukichi’s treatises, the dissertation investigated Fukuzawa’s view of Korea and China in detail and analyzed the similarities and differences and reasons in between combined the domestic and overseas’situation of Japan just at that moment.The introduction was composed of research purpose and significance, developing trend of research in the world and overseas and research methods.The whole paper was divided into four parts, in which the key points of the dissertation were the third part and the fourth part.In chapter one, we briefly introduced Fukuzawa’s life. He lived in the late Tokugawa Shogunate period in his teenage. Influenced by the environment of society and his family, he studied Sinology and gradually started to rebel the feudal system and tradition thought, which trained his strong desire of pursuing freedom and learning new knowledge. Japan was forced to open its ports in1854. As a result, the influx of the Western doctrine put an end to the policy of seclusion. At the same time, he came to Nagasaki for Dutch learning when he was19ages. The experience of Dutch learning made him realize the Western civilization was advanced and also made him with the faith of learning from the West. In1858, Fukuzawa gradually contacted British learning, which showed that he had a clear awareness for the world situation of that moment and was ahead of other western learners by virtue of the keen feeling of time. Through the British learning, he had the further understanding of the western civilization, which provided him with the advantages of being employed in Tokugawa Shogunate and the trip to Europe and America. The three trips of Europe and America since1860provided a chance to experience the modern western capitalism civilization and made him know more about western civilization from book knowledge to perceptual knowledge and then to rational knowledge. After the Meiji Restoration, he resigned from Tokugawa Shogunate and became an unofficial scholar due to the distrust to politics, the misunderstanding to Meiji government and the self-confident of survival as a scholar. At that moment, he took effects to propagandize the enlightenment ideas and started to actively preach the aggression against China. The chapter two mainly discussed the view of Korea and China of Fukuzawa from1860s to1870s. He published few works about Korea and China in this period, and his view of Korea based mainly on against Seikanron that was supported by Gentry while his view of China was principally discussed on the comment of the First Opium War and the events of Japanese invasion of Taiwan. His view of Korea was affected by Japan history, which appeared his contempt to Korea all the time in his works of against Seikanron and others. When analyzing the Opium War, he didn’t clearly express the thought of despising China. It was because Japan hadn’t become a powerful country. But in his comment of the Japanese invasion of Taiwan, he slightly looked down upon China due to the victory for Japan. Because the victory of invading Taiwan didn’t make European and American Powers admit Japan when amending the treaty, Fukuzawa thought China and Japan were all in the stage of semi-civilized. The causes of differences in his view of China and Japan were that he was influenced by Japan history and China and Korea had different power.The chapter three mainly discussed the Fukuzawa’s view of Korea and China in the first half of1880s. In this period, his view of Korea and China mainly centered on occurrence of Korean Im-ou military revolt and Kapshin coup and Sino-French War happened in1883. In1881, he proposed the idea for the East-Asia leadership which had the same essence with the Asianism. The idea was the affirmation to the civilization degree of Japan, i.e. Japan had become a leader of East-Asia and also showed an implicit contempt to China and Korea. The idea also indicated the establishment of his view of China and Korea based on the civilization theory and then became the guiding ideology for the policy on China and Korea. The essence of the ideas for the East-Asia leadership was to make the aggression against China and Korea justification under the pretext of guiding China and Korea civilization. The burst of Sino-French War and the failure of "Kapshin coup" announced the temporary failure of his ideas. The view of Out of Asia proposed in March of1885showed that he thought Japan had achieved or approached the western capitalism in civilization level and his contempt of degree for China and Korea became completely the same. It also signaled the establishment of his disparaging view to China. In this period (mainly referred to the time before publishing the view of Out of Asia), Fukuzawa despised Korea as well as China, which the differences were just expressed in forms and degree. From the forms of expression, we could find that his view of Korea had changed from the idea for Korea leadership before "Im-ou military revolt" to the reform view of Korea in "Kapshin coup" and his view of China had transformed from the view of against interference Korea when "Im-ou military revolt" took place to the idea of perish and tough for Korea During the period of "Kapshin coup". In the contempt of degree, his view of Korea became a coexistence state of despising and sympathizing Korea from simple despising it. But for China, he took a change of revering and despising China to completely despising it. The causes for his view of Korea and China were the differences in the national conditions and strengths of the two countries, the available enlightenists in Korea and the burst of Sino-French War.We expounded the Fukuzawa’s view of Korea and China of half past1880s in chapter four. After the treaty of Tientsin, Fukuzawa’s view was basically expressed by his comment on the important events about Japan which happened in China and Korea. During the First Sino-Japanese War of1894-1895and later, he consciously followed the Japan’s foreign policy and positively advocated the aggression against Korea and China. In this period, the contempt of degree for Korea and China generally became the same in his views, i.e. very hostile. His view of Korea basically represented as the reform view of Korea while his view of China was changed a lot from the tough attitude before the First Sino-Japanese War of1894-1895to idea of aggression and then turned to the reform and division view of Taiwan after the war. The reasons of the differences in his view of Korea and China were that he consciously followed the Japan’s policy on Korea and China.The essence of Fukuzawa’s view of Korea and China was to make the Japanese invasion of Korea and China legalization with the excuse of guiding civilization. Fukuzawa was the most famous enlightenment thinkers in modern history of Japan. But as a representative in Japan ideological circles, he was impossible beyond times and national limitation. We should respect for Fukuzawa’s achievements of enlightenment and also deeply criticized his contempt view of Korea and China.