【Article/Observer Network Columnist Penny】
A few days ago, there was a news, summed up as "a Japanese economist in an interview with the South Korean media said that 'Japan is now similar to the late Qing Dynasty'", in just one sentence gathered in three East Asian countries, this news is difficult not to generate traffic.
Speaker Yasuhara, who has held positions as an economic bureaucrat, think tank researcher, and university professor, became a member of the Bank of Japan Policy Committee in 2015 and has a considerable influence on Japan's financial policy.
Among Japanese economists, Harada is the representative of the "inflation faction", which has consistently attacked the financial and fiscal policies since the collapse of Japan's bubble economy (1991), and has strongly advocated financial easing, welfare cuts and structural reforms to stimulate inflation. Its attitude is generally inclined to neoliberalism. At the same time, in the vision of the Japanese mass media, Harada is known for his fierce rhetoric, often challenging the nerves of the Japanese public. Its "stimulating" rhetoric and policy claims include, but are not limited to:
Support the introduction of negative interest rate policies to stimulate inflation.
Strongly advocating structural reforms and giving priority to expanding employment over wage growth, arguing that "employment expands but wages do not rise" is "a dilemma that is (currently) unavoidable", better than "the economy is not good (in the 1990s) but wages continue to rise".
Arguing that the widening and solidifying gap between rich and poor ("grid difference") is not the result of structural reforms, but rather because "those who want to work hard are held back, and those who do not want to work hard are supported by (welfare)", he argues that welfare spending on the elderly should be reduced, with emphasis on reducing the burden of life for young people.
Oppose a large number of direct public infrastructure investment policies, and advocate financial subsidies for enterprises.
Actively opposes industrial transformation aimed at reducing carbon emissions, asserts that it will be a fatal blow to Japan's economic growth, and argues that Japan does not need to reduce emissions in its own industries, but only needs to achieve its emission reduction targets through "technical assistance to energy-inefficient and emission-emitting countries such as China and Russia."
Former Japan Oyuki Kang, Japan Professor Yasushi Harada of Nagoya University of Commerce
With Harada's consistently fierce style of speech, coupled with his consistent advocacy of radical neoliberal reforms and his attitude that Japan would be "a pill" without reform, comparing Japan to the "late Qing Dynasty" is not so much a conclusion of rigorous analysis by an economist as another figurative rhetoric intended to stimulate readers—Harada is said to have been called "the literary hero of the Economic Planning Agency" during the bureaucratic era. Therefore, when asked by a South Korean reporter where Japan resembles the "late Qing Dynasty", Harada's explanation is only: "I know that I am backward, but I cannot reform, and I can only continue to decline until I die."
To be sure, isn't that what happens to any country or society when it goes downhill? However, if Japan is like the Ottoman Turkish Empire, or like the British Empire, Japanese readers are unlikely to have a strong reaction, and only by saying "like the late Qing Dynasty" can Japanese readers immediately and instinctively reflect that this is cursing.
The essence of the meaning of the "late Qing" here is "to use an insulting word to stimulate and remind the Japanese of their vigilance against the status quo." Because since modern times, "the only developed country in East Asia" is the most important national pride of Japan, it is necessary to emphasize the "progressiveness" and "excellent learning ability" of the Japanese nation.
In "The Heavens of the Firmament", the Japanese actress Hiroko Tanaka plays Empress Dowager Cixi.
On the other hand, it is necessary to create a "nation" that lacks this "excellent nationality" as a contrast - "China in the late Qing Dynasty" played such a role. "Japan is different from China" is an important clue in shaping Japan's national identity since the Meiji Restoration.
The most profound influence of "China" on Japan is not the Chinese characters or the Tang Dynasty buildings, but the process of establishing a national self-cultural identity in Japan, especially at a time when social contradictions are sharp and history is facing a turning point, there is always an imaginary "China" to compare and determine the position of the self.
This phenomenon is actually normal, the geographical environment of China and Japan "one cloth with water", coupled with the early start of China's civilization as a "country". Just like today, in the process of modernization, developing countries must constantly compare themselves with Western developed countries when exploring their own development paths. However, for today's developing countries, due to the development of transportation and information technology, relatively accurate, objective and comprehensive information can be obtained, but for ancient Japan, the impression of "China" depends on more imagination.
Thus, according to Japan's historical needs, "China" is sometimes a sacred object of imitation, and sometimes it has become the culprit hindering Japan's development. Just like the legend that Prince Shengde sent Sui envoys to China, on the one hand, to learn China's production technology and legal system, but on the other hand, he had to call himself "the son of heaven at sunrise" and the Sui Emperor as "the son of heaven at sunset" (of course, the historical truth of this matter is doubtful, but it is a key link in the japanese historical narrative - the author's note). If the former is to "worship" China, then the latter is like "contempt" for China, but "worship" and "contempt" are actually two sides of the same coin, and it is precisely because Prince Shengde wants to build Japan into a unified monarchy as large as China, which will create the subjectivity of the Japanese state of "the son of the sun".
Since then, Japan's history has also been marked by the tangled struggle between "sinicization" and "de-sinicization." The early aristocrats imitated the Sui and Tang Dynasties to engage in "Dahua Reform" (by the way, "Dahua Reform" was because of "worship of China" or "to resist the Chinese threat", there is still a debate in Japanese academic circles and public opinion today - the author's note). The first samurai to seize supreme political power, Hira Kiyomori, targeted the Song. When the Japanese samurai successfully resisted the Yuan dynasty army, a kind of "divine kingdom" confidence that Japan was superior to China began to grow.
However, when the samurai Tokugawa Ieyasu ended hundreds of years of war, he introduced the Chinese Confucian Zhuzi doctrine and transformed it into an ideology conducive to maintaining the samurai feudal hierarchy, which became an important ideological guarantee for the Tokugawa shogunate for 260 years.
Last Shogun Tokugawa Keiki (1837-1913)
By the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, the system was rigid and no longer adapted to the times, and the official Zhuzi school became the target of public criticism. On the one hand, some Japanese Confucian scholars claim that Chinese Confucianism has long since degenerated, and Japanese Confucianism is orthodox. On the other hand, the "national scholars" claim that Chinese Confucianism has led to wars and rebellions in Japanese history, and it is necessary to return to the "ancient system of the divine kingdom" that honors the emperor in order to have a way out. But the common denominator is that there is no way out without breaking with "China."
Just when the ideological tendency to "go to China" was wild, the First Opium War occurred, which triggered a sense of crisis among the Japanese elite, and a few years later, US Navy Commodore Perry came to Japan with a warship to ask for "the founding of the country", and the most considered nature of the Japanese elite at this time was that "we cannot become like the 'Qingguo'".
The paradoxical consequence of this wonderful historical whirlpool of time is that although, like many non-Western countries, Japan has awakened to modern nationalism directly because of the force (threat) of the "Western colonialists", unlike most countries that regard Western colonialists as the object of "national independence", Japan regards "China" as the object of its own national independence.
In Modern Japanese Nationalism, the "Late Qing Dynasty" played the role of a villain or a clown. The sense of crisis that "we must not become like the 'Qing Dynasty'" pushed the japanese middle and lower samurai and some high-ranking people to unite to overthrow the shogunate that practiced Zhuzi studies, "restore" the imperial system in Japanese mythology, and begin the Meiji Restoration.
Subsequently, Japanese intellectual circles began to advocate "de-Asia", and radical democracy activists prefixed traditional ideas and behaviors that were incompatible with the development of modernization as "Chinese/Qingguo", and advocated that China should be treated in the same way as Western countries by aggression and division, believing that this is really "freedom" and "democracy".
After that, the fanatical "Westernization" trend of thought began to cool down, but the emerging Japanese "national" scholars and thinkers, in the process of starting to construct the historical narrative and cultural consciousness belonging to Japan, they had to vigorously exclude the historical imprint of Chinese culture, in order to emphasize the political and social "harmony" of Japan's "one lineage of all generations", "China" was shaped as a "turbulent" carrier of power struggle, and naturally the late Qing Dynasty was also shaped as a decline because of "struggle" and "selfish desires", in order to highlight that modern Japan is because of "unity" and "dedication" only to succeed.
At the same time, some "Oriental scholars" who are familiar with sinology are committed to constructing the impression that "Chinese cultural orthodoxy has degenerated in the local area, while Japanese culture that has absorbed Chinese culture is more superior", and the "Qing Dynasty" is portrayed here as the reason for the "decline of Chinese cultural orthodoxy", thus providing a "legitimacy" resource for Japan's invasion of China.
Current situation diagram
Combing through it in this way, perhaps the reader can probably appreciate the insult of saying that Japan is "like the late Qing Dynasty". As Yasuhara put it in the interview, "[If the Japanese economy continues like this]] could be excluded by the Group of Seven (G7),' (even if not left behind from developed countries) ,...... It is also close to the lowest level in developed countries. ...... In the distant future, we may not be developed countries, although the status quo will remain for decades. ’”
That is to say, it is intended to "warn" that Japan will be "kicked" out of the ranks of "developed countries (G7)" like the Qing Dynasty, and even face a tragic fate - this is probably a Kind of Japanese "Backward will be beaten" thinking: "It is natural for developed countries to 'fight' underdeveloped countries." ”
In fact, in addition to "backwardness" and "rigidity", another impression of the "late Qing Dynasty" in modern Japan is "arrogance". Although the arrogance of the rulers of the late Qing Dynasty and the delay in the development of modernization are indeed objective facts. However, therefore, to describe "arrogance" as China's national nature, and at the same time emphasize that Japan's national nature is "good at learning" and "not arrogant", is this also a kind of "arrogance"?
As mentioned earlier, Harada Ishi is a radical reformist, and since the 1990s, various reform programs in Japan's government and opposition have emerged in an endless stream, but in addition to becoming more and more politically right-leaning, the key economic "reforms" have always been chaotic, and there has been no expected "rejuvenation" effect. This is "Japan", not "late Qing Dynasty".
It is very normal for a country to have ups and downs. Compared with talking about "nationality", it is better to find out the objective reasons and explore the path of practice in a down-to-earth manner in order to make some improvements. Criticizing Japan today with the term "late Qing Dynasty" does not seem to help find a path of reform that is truly suitable for Japan, although it is highly "insulting" to the Japanese.
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