Japan and its East Asian neighbors: Japan's perception of China and Korea and the making of foreign policy from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

摘要

This dissertation is a study of Japanese perceptions of its East Asian neighbors---China and Korea---and the making of foreign policy from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century. Previous studies have overwhelmingly argued that after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan started to modernize itself by learning from the West and changed its attitudes toward those neighboring countries. It supposedly abandoned its traditional friendship and reverence toward its neighbors and adopted aggressive and contemptuous attitudes. I have no intention of arguing here that the perspective of change and discontinuity in Japan's attitudes toward its neighbors has no validity at all. In this dissertation, through examination primarily of official and private documents, I maintain that change and discontinuity cannot fully explain the Japanese policy toward its East Asian neighbors from the early seventeenth to the late nineteenth century. The Japanese perceptions and attitudes toward China and Korea had some aspects of continuity. I also challenge previous studies' argument about the change in Japanese attitudes toward China. Although they have argued that Japan turned aggressive soon after the Meiji Restoration. I contend that kind of change did not occur at the time.;In the first two chapters (Chapter 2 and 3), following the introduction, I examine the early modern Japanese perceptions of China and Korea and foreign policymaking by the Tokugawa shogunate (bakufu) (1603--1867). Chapter 2 focuses on the Tokugawa perceptions of and diplomatic relations with Korea. Chapter 3, focusing on Tokugawa China policy, examines the Tokugawa vision of the Chinese tributary system and policy toward China.;In the subsequent two chapters (Chapter 4 and 5), I examine the Meiji government's perceptions and diplomatic attitudes toward China and Korea in the late 1860s and the 1870s. Chapter 4 focuses on the attempt of the Meiji government to establish a government-to-government relationship with Korea. Chapter 5 deals with two issues of the early Meiji Japanese policy toward China.;This dissertation demonstrates the following two points. First, a broader perspective is required to understand Japan's attitudes toward its East Asian neighbors. Along with change and discontinuity, continuity is a necessary and valid perspective in respect to Japan's perceptions of and policies toward China and Korea. Second, change did occur after the Meiji Restoration, but it did not occur in the form of an aggressive posture toward China at the initial state of the Meiji period. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)