A View of Eastern Culture and Western Culture and Modern Sino-Japan Cultural Exchange: Focusing on the ″Alternative″ Modern Japanese Enlightenment Thinker Nakamura Keiu
After the Meiji Restoration, most modern Japanese enlightenment thinkers, represented by Mori Arinori, Kato Hiroyuki and Fukuzawa Yukichi, took evolutionism as their ideological basis. They admired Western civilization, and regarded it as the apotheosis of human civilization. They advocated that Japan should abandon traditional Chinese and East Asian culture which were rooted in Confucianism. As an ″alternative″ representative of modern Japanese enlightenment thinkers, Nakamura Keiu was familiar with both Confucianism and Western learning. With his own experience and study, he formed the idea of ″worship of Heaven and love for mankind.″ He held that this idea was universal and formed the ideological elements and spiritual essence of Eastern culture and Western culture. The idea represented Nakamura Keiu's basic vie w of Eastern and Western cultures, and reflected the unique features of his viewpoint. On this ideological basis, Nakamura Keiu stressed the inheritance and promotion of Confucian culture. He published ″China Should Not Be Humiliated″, ″Sinology Should Not Be Abandoned″ and other articles, criticizing the viewpoint that Japan should embrace Western culture and completely repudiate Confucian culture. Meanwhile, he was active in communicating with Chinese scholars of late Qing Dynasty like Wang Tao and Huang Zunxian on cultural exchange and their common concerns. His representative works and translations were also introduced into China by Liang Qichao and other scholars, thus forming the interactive communication of modern Sino-Japanese cultural and ideological exchange. Reviewing Nakamura Keiu' view of Eastern and Western cultures and his cultural exchange activities is helpful to China in inheriting and promoting the reasonable factors of Confucianism and the fine tradition of Chinese culture, which can further strengthen national self-confidence and promote cultural self-confidence, and which can also provide some enlightenment on maintaining and advocating the principles of mutually-respected and mutually-understood openness, equality and tolerance under the international background of increasing multi-cultural exchange and cross-cultural exchange. It is worth noting that Nagamura Keiwu's view contains the sublime ideal and appeal for the harmony of humankind and the world. On the one hand, he consistently adhered to the norm of state equality in international relations. He unequivocally opposed the foreign policy of power politics and hegemony of Western powers which advocated oppression over small and weak nations. On the other hand, he used the Confucian ideal of ″great harmony of the world″ for reference, and advocated promoting the Chinese fine tradition of aiding the poor and performing the duty of aiding and protecting small and weak nations, in order that the countries of the world help each other and enjoy peace and welfare. Nagamura Keiwu expressed his appeal for the harmony of humankind and the world with the lofty aim of taking aiding and protecting small and weak nations as duty and mission, and this viewpoint was deeply rooted in the soil of Chinese culture.
肖朗. 东西文化观与近代中日文化交流——以日本“另类”启蒙思想家中村敬宇为考察中心[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2018, 4(1): 147-.
Xiao Lang. A View of Eastern Culture and Western Culture and Modern Sino-Japan Cultural Exchange: Focusing on the ″Alternative″ Modern Japanese Enlightenment Thinker Nakamura Keiu. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2018, 4(1): 147-.