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영어

The issue how the modern Japanese people regard China has decided the Japanese policy towards China. Over the past 2,000‐some years, the Japanese people’s understanding of China has experienced a course ranging from worshipping, looking forward to, holding in awe and veneration to insulting. When China or the Chinese culture was prosperous and China had strong strength, the Japanese people worshipped and look forward to Chinese culture. Some of them took a long trip to China to learn Chinese culture at the risk of their lives. Especially before the Meiji Restoration of Japan, Japan was filled with fear of the Qing Empire, always worrying about that it would offend the Qing rulers someday. Accordingly, Tokugawa Shogunate strictly prohibited the Japanese people from contacting with other countries. However, after the decline of China’s national strength and the stagnation of China’s cultural development, the Japanese people began to look down upon, or belittle and repel Chinese culture, and even took China as the object for them to tease and discriminate. After the Opium War, China’s big defeat in front of the rising British Empire came as a total surprise to the intellectual community of Japan; and the Western‐school intellectuals of Japan headed by Fukuzawa Yukita advocated the “inferior of the Chinese nation”, and maintained that the Western academy should be adopted and Japan should break with Chinese culture. After the Sino‐Japanese War of 1894‐1895, Japan began to look down upon and insult China, and finally made China as the object of aggression. All these changes were based on the internal changes of the social structure of Japan, the impulse of foreign culture and the renewal of the cultural structure of Japan. Its guiding ideology was pragmatism, and putting the national interest first was the main characteristic. In the 21st century today, along with the growth of the national comprehensive strength of China and the upgrade of China’s international position, Japan’s understanding of China is welcoming the fourth great change. We are waiting to see whether this change will break away from the above‐mentioned period and look for a new and objective view on China. Under the present situation, the Japanese publication community has launched an upsurge of publishing a great number of Chinese books. Yoshino Sakuzo and China which I would like to introduce is one of representative books. Through the description and analysis of Yoshino Sakuzo, a flagman of the people‐oriented movement, the author tries to look for the modern Japanese intellectuals’ understanding of China, or the self‐track.