The study of nationalism, the most powerful political emotion in the modern world, has often become enmeshed in polemic and ideological combat. In Japan during the past century, evaluations of the historical role of nationalism have tended to oscillate between extremes. Some of its first serious students in the late nineteenth century, writers like Kuga Katsunan and Miyake Setsurei, opposing the prevalent Westernism, were convinced that nationalism was a necessary ingredient of Japanese survival; and they would have agreed with Tocqueville's aphorism that “the interests of the human race are better served by giving every man a particular fatherland than by trying to inflame his passions for the whole of humanity.” Since 1945, however, in a mood of national self-alienation, many Japanese writers have shared Veblen's turgid conclusion, “Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to lead human institutions to the service of dissension and distress. In its material effects it is altogether the most sinister as well as the most imbecile of all the institutional incumbrances that have come down out of the old order.” Once seen as necessary and beneficial, nationalism came in the post-war period to be villified or simply ignored amidst the scholars' preoccupation with their anti-establishment liberal heroes. With some notable exceptions, nationalism has been slow to receive in Japan the thoughtful, dispassionate study it needs.

This author will attempt to present a preliminary study of the economic aspects of the Imperial Household (Nei-wu-fu), which played a unique role during the Chʻing Dynasty in the grand strategy of the Manchu rule over China. The fact that this vital area of Chʻing history has long been neglected can be gauged from the lack of scholarly studies on the Nei-wu-fu up to the present. Even in the imperial days, few Chinese scholars knew about the actual workings of the Nei-wu-fu, for it remained a closed field to outsiders—almost a shrouded mystery. The reasons for its mysterious character were twofold: on the one hand, inaccessibility of sources of information prevented people from getting a clear picture of the Imperial Household; on the other hand, Chinese were inhibited from investigation, since to peer into the “secret affairs of the Court” (Kung-wei chin-shih) was to run a political risk.

President Nixon's visit to China has excited hopes in the United States that a new era of good relations may emerge between our two nations. Five weeks ago China's leaders accorded the President a formally correct but cool reception when he arrived in Peking on “The Spirit of '76.” This exhibition of nonchalance seemed designed to impress on the expectant world that in foreign relations China is its own master. Having established this point, Chairman Mao and Premier Chou turned about to display the classic Chinese hospitality for which their culture is justly famous.

During much of the period under discussion Formosa was ruled by civilian governors-general who tolerated limited political activities to induce native cooperation. Formosans, however, wanted to use their organizations to obtain political concessions. The Assimilation Society (Dōkakai 1914–1915) and the New People's Society (Shinminkai, 1918–1923) sought equal treatment with the Japanese. The League for the Establishment of a Formosan Parliament (Taiwan Gikai Kisei Dōmei, 1920–1934) and the Taiwan Cultural Association (Taiwan Bunka Kyōkai, 1921–1930) advocated home rule by creating a colonial legislature. The Popular Party (Minshūto, 1927–1931) and the League for the Attainment of Local Autonomy (Taiwan Chihōjichi Kisei Dōmei, 1930–1937) supported the liberalization of local autonomy by demanding suffrage, irrespective of race. All resorted to racial consciousness to augment their movements, while staying within legal limits. In the end all were suppressed. Their leaders were heavily influenced by the political liberalism of the 1920's in Japan and received the active support of many famous Japanese liberals. Significantly, while Formosan leaders were conscious of being Chinese and were even stimulated by certain nationalistic events in China, their movements never produced sentiment supporting the island's restoration to China.

Cities and towns first developed in the Philippines as a product of Spanish rule and Roman Catholic mission activity. In this context a new three tiered hierarchy of settlements was established above the preexisting village level. Elements of social and spatial segregation derived from Mexico were imposed in these settlements. Due to a lack of economic base, the towns set up to serve as regional centers soon declined. Substantial provincial urbanism appeared only with the rise of commerce and commercial agriculture during the nineteenth century. Manila achieved early predominance as a combined result of its ecclesiastical-administrative position and its role as the principal entrepot in the trade of Mexican silver for Chinese goods. Despite the collapse of that trade, Manila retained its primate position by becoming the chief point of import and distribution for Western manufacturers as well as a major collecting area for the export of agricultural commodities

Universal suffrage was enacted into law in Japan in 1925 under a coalition government formed the previous year by the two major parties, Kenseikai and Seiyūkai. The law abolished an existing tax qualification for voting, expanding the electorate from three million to twelve and one-half million adult males. The Kenseikai had endorsed universal suffrage in late 1919, after an internal debate which began about a year earlier. The Seiyūkai by contrast accepted universal suffrage only in 1924, after several years of expressly rejecting it. This article traces the stages whereby these parties became committed to the legislation, and also examines the reaction to the issue on the part of other elements which had at least a potential voice in this legislation: the nonparty cabinets which governed from 1922 to 1924, the privy council, the House of Peers, and the genro, or elder statesmen.

Few concepts in modern times are as full of paradoxes as nationalism. Widely agreed to be a general phenomenon of modern politics, it is known also to vary drastically in character in every country. It is presumed to make politics rational and purposeful, yet it is conceptually irrational, more akin to a “religion,” as Carleton Hayes once noted, than to a definable conceptual construct. Lacking precise definition, it is subject to manipulation and to being used as justification for a bewildering variety of often contradictory forms of political and social action. Despite this imprecision, it is thoroughly enmeshed in modern historiography, and the historian has little recourse than to seek greater precision in the use of this concept by providing it with explicit historical content. Of the many tasks that might be undertaken in this area, certainly one of the more serious is the reconstruction of patterns of political thought formulated in the traditional setting that exercised powerful influences on the specific character of nationalism in the modern history of a country. Especially important from the standpoint of this essay are those modes of thought that conceptualized subjective action against existing politics as being in the real or purported interest of the wider polity. For nationalism in modern Jajan, the key in this regard is, without question, the concept of “restorationism.”

Because the so-called “three teachings” (Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism) lost much of their separate identity and exclusivist appeal during the 300 years between mid-T'ang and Southern Sung, the syncretism developed by Chu Hsi and others in the 13th century represented not an explicit fusion of these three teachings, but an integration of several 11th and 12th century interpreters, of proliferated early Confucian canonical literature, and a revival of the tao, which served to confirm the legitimate position of the “contemporary” Sung with respect to their classical heritage. This new syncretism, called tao-hsüeh, was immediately vulnerable as the vain, unnecessary and fundamentally unacceptable effort of a few men to monopolize the true tao, both to solidify their own philosophical position and to gain political advantages. As the attack on tao-hsüeh turned to an attack on wei-hsüeh (“false learning”) in the 1190's, it became associated with a wave of anti-intellectualism generated in part by the exclusivism of serious (i.e., tao-hsüeh) philosophers, the simultaneous commonization of general learning, and the pretention of would-be intellectuals. Tao-hsüeh then became orthodox in the early 14th century primarily in an effort to reverse this anti-intellectual trend.

While Japanese historians have characterized the period from the 1720's to the mid-nineteenth century one of a “stagnant” population due to depressed economic conditions, recent economic evidence suggests that peasants were enjoying a higher standard of living. By making use of demographic data obtained from the shūmon-aratame-chō (religious investigation registers), the hypotheses that the standard of living was rising and that the Japanese were controlling population were tested for Fujito village of Okayama. The population increased from 596 to 694 between 1775–1863. In the 1820's, with rapid economic growth in the form of land reclamation and the increased adoption of farm by-employments, principally weaving, the natural growth rate of the population was rejected through an analysis of the effects of the Temmei famine (1780's) and the Tempō famine (1830's). Rather, the slow rate of growth was due to the smallest number of children ever born to women in the village (mean of just over three), resulting from a high age at first birth (24.6 years) and a relatively low age at last birth (35–37 years). The low age at last birth, added to a statistically biased sex ratio of last-born children (favoring males), indicate that abortion and infanticide were probably practiced to some degree. This fact, combined with the economic development of the nineteenth century, suggest that in Japan, as in England, premodern population was kept at closer to an optimum rather than a maximum level, making possible rapid industrialization.

Loyalty is at present an agonizing question to many concerned Chinese who face either divisive circumstances or imposition of particular political lines. Few topics could be more relevant than their heritage of loyalty and its implications today. Never a simple matter in politics, loyalty often produced great tensions and even ironical tragedies that filled the pages in Chinese history. As early as the Shang period, according to the ancient legend, an official most loyal to the state was killed by the displeased last king for not being loyal to him. In the more recent period of the Ming, for example, Yü Chien (1398–1457) suffered the same fate. Having defended Peking and thus saved the realm during the emperor's brief captivity, he was later executed by the same emperor who returned and eventually retook the throne. Of all these ironical tragedies—loyal men condemned as disloyal—the case of Yüeh Fei has been highly significant. He was for centuries a much mythologized and even deified symbol of loyalty. With superstitious beliefs swept away by modern waves, many Chinese still identify his image with nationalism, anti-imperialistic stands, and attachment to the fatherland. This essay will analyze the following: pertinent points in Yüeh Fei's career, the neo-Confucian theory and practice of loyalty in political science terms, and his evolving myths in intellectual history with regard to both the elite heritage and the mass heritage.

Kōtoku Shūsui is generally known as a socialist and anarchist who participated in the plot against the life of the Meiji emperor in 1910 and was executed for the crime of “high treason” the following year. Such an individual hardly strikes one as a nationalist. Why deal with him on a panel that proposes to address itself to the question of nationalism? And yet, contrary to surface appearance, Kōtoku was and remained a nationalist. But his image of nationalism, and the role that this force should play in the lives of the Japanese people differed considerably from that of the Meiji leadership. It is to this image, to how it was derived, and to how it was sustained that this paper is addressed.

Post-Restoration Japan faced a number of serious problems in its relations with East Asia and the West, all of which came to a head in seikan ronsō, the clash in the Council of State, October 1873, over sending a punitive expedition to Korea. Essentially this was a struggle to define the nature of the Meiji Restoration—how radical would it be—and to decide who would control the politics of Japan's renovation, but intermixed with these domestic issues were several questions of foreign policy. To Japan's leaders, the Ryukyus, Taiwan, and Sakhalin were as important as Korea; security of the frontier in East Asia as significant as equal treaties with China and the West. And for historians with the advantage of a century of hindsight, the debate is important evidence in assessing the strength and sophistication of expansionist sentiment in early Meiji Japan. Does modern Japanese imperialism date from this period as consistent and persistent government policy or simply as a set of commonly held aspirations and desires, stronger in some than others or more evident outside of government than within it? To assist in answering these questions there is a wealth of Western and Japanese language diplomatic correspondence and numerous memoirs, letters, and diaries. The clash pitted die returning members of the Iwakura embassy and their allies at home against prominent officials in the caretaker government. The envoys, who had gained from their journey to die West a better understanding of international politics and the instability of the world order as well as a clearer perception of the gigantic transformation Japan must undergo, won with the argument of restraint abroad and rapid reform at home. But were the differences primarily in methods and timing and not ultimate intentions? Were Japan's leaders only biding their time until domestic strength made foreign adventurism possible, as is often charged? There is little evidence that Iwakura's group had such ulterior motives. In the grosser sense of the existence of an elaborate plan of conquest, there was no imperialist conspiracy. In the more complex sense of consistency of dreams, aims, or ambitions, there was more continentalism among public critics than officials. The victors in the debate wished to create a strong and enlightened state capable of taking whatever measures seemed necessary, whether at home or abroad. Expansion into frontier regions therefore was always a possibility but even then for security and prestige rather than overseas dominion. Such thinking guided the government for the next twenty years. However more research is needed on the basic character of Meiji Japan's political and economic institutions, the expansionist sentiments of the government's critics, changing concepts of security, and Japan's response to Western imperialism.

On the fateful day of July 3, 1914, the second Simla Convention was signed and sealed by Sir Arthur Henry McMahon and Lonchen Shatra (actually, while the Lonchen signed and sealed, McMahon initialed and sealed); Ivan Chen, who had initialed the first earlier in April, kept his own counsel. A joint British-Tibetan declaration stipulating that its terms would apply to China only when the latter fell in line with its two other signatories was attached to the Convention. On that same day, in Simla, the new Trade Regulations between British India and Tibet were signed.

According to prevailing historical opinion, the United States made reasonable claims against China after the Boxer rising in 1900 and later spontaneously remitted the surplus indemnity as an act of friendship. In gratitude, the Chinese freely determined to use the returned funds to educate Chinese in the United States. The records of the Chinese foreign office and the Department of State suggest a different story. In 1901 John Hay intentionally inflated American claims against China despite protests that his demand of $25,000,000 was excessive (in fact twice real claims). After three years of persistent effort, the Chinese Minister to the United States committed the reluctant Roosevelt administration to return of the surplus. But W. W. Rockhill, the Minister in Peking, feared the Chinese would squander the money and campaigned to have the funds devoted exclusively to education even though the Chinese government preferred projects of more immediate benefit. In 1908 Yuan Shih-k'ai and Hsu Shih-ch'ang sent a subordinate, T'ang Shao-i, to Washington to propose use of the funds in Manchuria. However, the Roosevelt administration, already won by the education scheme, rebuffed T'ang. The remission was accomplished essentially on American terms in 1909.

This essay deals with the concept of “political economism” (keiseisaimin) as expressed by Dazai Shundai, one of the leading practical thinkers in the school of “ancient studies” in early eighteenth century Japan. It argues for the need to look seriously at “traditional” schemes of political conceptualization. Exploring Dazai's analytical perception of political structure and of how political structure should perform in concrete historical situations, the essay shows how Dazai takes the logic of “ancient studies” beyond agrarianism and status quo economics toward die possibility of permitting maximum economic development as a function of politics.

It is often said that the nationalism of the 1930's was more “narrow,” more “parochial,” more “isolationist,” and more “pathological” than the nationalism of Meiji. In the earlier period, men like Fukuzawa Yukichi and Ōi Kentarō, who had ingested the liberalism of the late Victorian West, defined Japan's identity and role in the world in cosmopolitan, even revolutionary terms. By contrast, it is said, the nationalists of the 1930's were “frogs at the bottom of a well,” whose vision of the nation was clouded by folkish myths of national superiority or who were moved at most by narrow concern for national self-interest. The men of Shōwa, unlike those of Meiji, lacked a conception of Japan's role in the world which admitted the claims of higher goal or value than the nation itself.

In Japan, as in most modern, industrial societies, medical care has become highly politicized. Doctors and patients are part of a network of relationships which include politicians, bureaucrats, and leaders of organized interest groups. The politicization of medical care is reflected in the objectives and activities of the Japan Medical Association which claims to represent the medical profession. Roughly seventy-five percent of Japanese doctors are members of the JMA. Even though it is organized along democratic lines, the national leadership under President Takemi Taro exercises considerable control over the affairs of the Association. JMA leaders accept the fact of extensive governmental involvement in medical care and die principle of compulsory, national health insurance. However, they strongly oppose the present system of health insurance and demand fundamental revision which would lead to a single, unified, community based system. They insist that such a system would be best for both doctors and patients. While the organization and activities of the JMA have a peculiar Japanese flavor, students of western politics will find much that is familiar and characteristic of associational interest groups in general.

Nationalism is an emotionally colored concept in many respects, and this makes it quite difficult for an outside observer to attain an objective, rational understanding of it. When we deal with the nationalism of modern Europe, we can find a common background of Christian culture which transcends all the differences in nationality and national character among European countries. No doubt each variety of modern European nationalism is characterized by its own national tradition, national interest and national mission. There have also been severe competition and numerous conflicts among the national states of Europe, and whatever differences exist among European countries can be easily attributed to the uniqueness of national character and can be explained in terms of nationalism. But those differences are only relative and parts of the unified whole.

Despite the bitter legacy of clashes between India's Hindus and Muslims since the 1880's, the alienation of Muslims from the Indian National Congress, which was reflected in die rise of the Muslim League, was reversed as the result of a number of political developments between 1910 and 1916 and through the efforts of leading personalities on both sides, most notably Jinnah, Wazir Hasan, Gokhale and Mrs. Annie Besant. Nationalist Muslims, some of whom were already prominent in Congress, increasingly captured control of key positions in the Muslim League, and linked hands with Congress' goal of secularism and its claims to represent all Indians. A series of developments and meetings led to the compromise of the Lucknow Pact. This prepared the way for Hindu-Muslim cooperation in agitational politics, 1919–22. Simultaneously, however, the negotiations for the Pact alienated important groups, notably Hindu groups in the Punjab and Bengal, and encouraged Hindu and Muslim communalists to build up communal organisations asserting and working for the separate interests of tJieir respective communities. This helped to prepare the way for the communal clashes in the 1920's.

The term munshi (scribe) usually refers to the clerical assistants employed by Indian lawyers (vakils), particularly by those who practice at the district and subdivisional courts at the lowest level of the legal system. The majority of vakils maintain only the most rudimentary records of their cases; their business correspondence is minimal and often conducted by postcard; the average law practice accounts are kept for the most part in the vakil's head, with occasional help from a note scribbled on a file cover. Not surprisingly, the routine duties of the munshi are relatively simple and easily mastered. They include safeguarding the documents the vakil does maintain during a case; completion of applications to the court; copying of cause lists obtained from magistrates' clerks; updating the vakil's diary of pending cases; occasional copying of case material; and running innumerable errands for the master, often of a purely domestic kind. In several respects, the munshi's role is a marginal one. His duties, for example, are not formally defined within the legal system. Nor are a munshi's services indispensible to a lawyer; many a vakil gets along without an assistant. The population of munshis at a district court is likely to be a transient one: munshis move from vakil to vakil, working only a year or two for each employer; and they drift in and out of the occupation, usually from and to ones of equally low status. Finally, the occupation is economically marginal: it provides a precarious livelihood for the majority of munshis; only a few are prosperous or enjoy much security.