A Rush For Europeanization Of The Rokumeikan Era

The early meiji government proclaimed"acquire knowledge from all over the world", showed intention to learn from Western and took"Civilization"as one of the three basic state policies. During the process of learning from Western countries,"Civilization"got to the top at the Rokumeikan era. The Rokumeikan era, which was called Europeanization, was the result of"Rokumeikan Diplomacy"by Inoue. Inoue considered that Japan should become a"new European empire"in order to abrogate unequal treaties,and processed proactive Europeanization policy. With Ito-Hirobumi's support, this Europeanization movement became increasingly intense, so the All-Japan started a tide of Europeanization.In China, there was no specific study on"A Rush for Europeanization of the Rokumeikan Era". Moreover, even if some related study consisted, they mainly concentrated on criticizing its vulgar Europeanization and lost sight of its positive aspects. Taking primary sources as the base, this paper discussed the problem in detail and seemed for the positive meaning of"A Rush for Europeanization of the Rokumeikan Era".This paper mainly consisted of three parts. The first part explained textual history background, that is,"Civilization"in the early Meiji government and"Rokumeikan Diplomacy". The second part was a important discussion of the performance of"A Rush for Europeanization of the Rokumeikan Era". With the vigorous push and backing of Inoue and Ito-Hirobumi, the All-Japan started a tide of Europeanization. Meanwhile, various improvements sprung up in social life. For the rush, there were two characteristics of"the guiding of the government"and"total Europeanization".The third part discussed the vanish and influence of"A Rush for Europeanization of the Rokumeikan Era". With the failure of"Rokumeikan Diplomacy"and appear of Populist and Nationalism in Meiji 20s, a Rush for Europeanization gradually vanished. Nevertheless, the rush played active roles in switching on people's wisdom, promoting the development of social culture and revealing unequal treaties, so it is not altogether bad.