The Past, Present, and Future of East Asia—An Adventure in Global Political Thought

How has the East Asian world we live in been shaped to this day? And what kind of future is it heading toward? In my course, "History of Eastern Political Thought and Comparative Political Thought," we will address these major questions by comparatively examining political thought in East Asia from a historical perspective.

Currently, the situation in East Asia faces various challenges and shows an uncertain future. Diplomatic issues with neighboring countries, including China and South Korea, are deeply and closely related to Japan's politics, economy, culture, and social life. To find solutions to these contemporary issues, we must first go back in history to clarify the formation and transformation of the early modern and modern East Asian world and understand what lies in the background.

An important clue here is the recent new academic trend of Global Intellectual History, that is, the attempt to study intellectual history on a global scale.

When you hear the term "political thought," many of you may think of Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, or perhaps Arendt and Rawls. Of course, studying the works of these philosophers and thinkers is very important.

In recent years, however, there has been a growing reconsideration of the conventional Western-centric academic approach. Research focusing on the bidirectional chain and comparison of "knowledge"—how a political concept spreads to other cultures and regions and what transformations it undergoes through contact and conflict between different civilizations and cultures—is becoming more prevalent.

This also leads to a reexamination of the formation of modern and contemporary Japan. For example, during the Edo period, Japan was by no means completely closed off. Scholars in Tokugawa Japan studied Confucianism from China. In addition, Dutch studies (Rangaku) emerged through trade and exchange with the Dutch in Dejima, Nagasaki. Fukuzawa Yukichi, a leading thinker of modern Japan, was also a scholar of Dutch studies and was well-versed in Confucianism. The Meiji Restoration and the "Civilization and Enlightenment" (Bunmei Kaika) movement were only made possible on the foundation of this multi-layered and rich scholarly culture of the Tokugawa period.

In my research and classes, we will shed light on the history of negotiations between the West and East Asia concerning diplomacy, scholarship, economy, and law, thereby elucidating the process by which new international orders, state systems, and political cultures were formed in modern and contemporary East Asia. Through this work, we aim to cultivate the ability to analyze contemporary political and ideological problems from a global perspective.