Introduction

Abstract

This chapter introduces Asianism discourse in China and Japan as the topic of the book and explains the goals of the study. It defines the spatial scope with a focus on the transnational space of China and Japan and its temporal scope consisting of the two decades between 1912 and 1933. During this period the concept of ‘Asia’ was publicly negotiated and gradually embraced by Japanese and Chinese. The chapter also addresses the theoretical framework of Orientalism and self-Orientalization as well as the methodological framework of discourse analysis based on conceptual history within which this embrace is analysed. In addition, it includes a section on the state of the field of Asianism studies in English, Chinese, and Japanese language scholarship.

I suspect that just as plants exist for the sake of animals, and animals exist for the sake of human beings, so perhaps the ‘ East ’ ( Tōyō ) exists for the sake of Europeans. ¹

—Tokutomi Sohō (1886)

The glory of Europe is the humiliation of Asia! The march of history is a record of the steps that lead the West into an inevitable antagonism to ourselves. ²

—Okakura Tenshin (1902)