The Japanese View Of China After World WarⅡ

The two concepts of " Japanese view of China " and "Japan’s view of China," have no strict distinction in academia currently, so they two are often used confusedly. This article shall define and clarify these two concepts. The former is universal and representative. It specially refers to recognition orientation or mainstream understanding of Japanese society on China in a specific period. It can be embodied as the Chinese concept of a Japanese or a few Japanese, it can also be embodied as the public opinion or the research of academia on China. While the latter, “Japan’s view of China” generally refers to "Japanese" positioning of Sino-Japanese relationship in its national policy and the understanding and awareness of China on the political level(in a broad sense, it includes political system, diplomatic, military, and the value of identity, ideology, etc. which relate to the content of country’s superstructure). Generally speaking, We can also say the former is the understanding of China by the concept of cultural theory; while the latter, “Japan’s view of China” generally refers to the understanding of China by the concept of political theory. Both of which represent and influence each other. When two concepts of "Japan" and "Japanese" coexist and it is hard to split the two to make a distinction, it seems to be more secure in the form of "Japan(Japanese people) view of China" for the presentation. In this study, the perspective of these two concepts in Japan on the view of China after World War II are summarized and analyzed. The specific methods are to classify the view of China in accordance with the two levels of "government" and "folk" : the government level is "Japan’s view of China"(including departments of government, the military, etc.), heads of government and politicians, military officials in the exercise of the right to speak on behalf of Japan also belong to this category; folk-level is "Japanese view of China", including academics, members of civil society, the media, public opinion, public awareness of the Chinese understanding.Based on this framework, I will sort and classify the view of China in the seventy years after World War II. On this basis, I propose the view of China post-war Japan(people) can be divided into three stages, namely, diplomatic relations sever period(1945-1971), golden honeymoon period(1972-1995), the transition period(1996-2014) for investigation and analysis.This study will examine the specific object "Tokyo press book" versions of junior high school history textbooks since World War II. By compiling detailed firsthand data, summarizing and sorting out accounts about China, I will refine their recognition of China, and thus, I will make a research and exploration on the characteristic and the evolution trajectory of mainstream view of China in the textbooks during various stages of the seventy years after World War II. Through comprehensive survey and analysis of the original historical data, and one by one interpretation on each version of the accounts of China, I will make a horizontal contrast between the views of China reflected in the textbooks. At the mean time, the mainstream view of China, each with features, will be summarized in three stages and combed vertically. I will try to make them exhaustive, and faithfully approach and reproduce the nature and mainstream level of Japan/Japanese awareness of China in the era.This thesis makes a macro description on postwar view of China embodied in history textbooks, and cross-supplemented with the case of contemporary Japanese politics representative Shinzo Abe analysis, trying in this way to show the panoramic view of Japan’s negative role that postwar Japanese history education plays on the formation and evolution of Modern Japan’s/ Japanese view of China. The negative impact mainly is, although there is a considerable part of the history textbook content to be more objective account of the history of the war of aggression against China, there are still many problems on its guiding ideology and some basic facts. The right-wing forces compiled textbooks beautifying aggression and distorting history, and it passed the revision from MEXT and was released. What’s more, it has series of measures of contempting Japan’s modern history textbooks on the curriculum. From these two, we can see the Japanese government is on the historical revisionism which occupies the dominant trend of the political mainstream(new nationalism). It induces and intervenes by the validation system for the preparation of textbooks. We can say the educational guidelines for education in the history education and the former two all are responsible for the Japanese people’s lack of understanding of the causes of aggression facts, unwilling to bear the responsibility for the war, they can not shirk responsibility; such history of education in turn has created a new generation of political elites and leaders, to inherit and maintain historical understanding of the Japanese government’s consistency. We can say that the history of education in Japan after World War II provided ideas and opinion for the increasingly conservative nationalism and the rise of a new national consciousness, and had a significant negative impact on the view of China from two levels of the civil society and the government.