Pan-Asianism

In the late nineteenth century, when the leaders of the Meiji government pursued Western-style modernization, Pan-Asianists emphasized Japan's affinity with Asia. They felt that Japan's progress could not be secured without the liberation of Asian neighbors from poverty and backwardness and that the Japanese had a mission to lead Asians out of stagnation. Many of the early Pan-Asianists began their political activities in the Freedom and People's Rights movement, demanding democratic participation in the national government. Miyazaki Tōten (pen name of Miyazaki Torazō; 1871–1922) came from a family of rural samurai well known in their area for their devotion to the People's Rights movement. He was an outstanding example of romantic Pan-Asianism who devoted some thirty years of his life to the cause of Sun Yat-sen's republican revolution in China.

Anxiety over national security was at the root of Pan-Asianism. Tarui Tōkichi (1850–1922), who explored the coast of Korea in the early 1880s, wrote Daitō gappōron (Federated states of great East), a proposal for a federation of Japan and Korea. His idea, that the only hope for survival for the small Asian nations was in joining forces, reflected a perception among the contemporary Japanese that the "white race" was superior in physical, intellectual, and financial power to the "yellow race."

Defense of indigenous tradition was another issue at this time of rapid modernization. Miyake Setsurei (Yūjirō; 1860–1945) and other cultural nationalists formed in 1888 a political association, Seikyōsha, for the purpose of raising national pride in kokusui (cultural essence of the nation), and published a series of popular periodicals, Nihonjin (the Japanese), Ajia (Asia), and Nihon oyobi Nihonjin (Japan and the Japanese). Naitō Konan (Torajirō; 1866–1934), a prominent Sinologist, associated with this group in his early career as a journalist. He held China's culture in high esteem but maintained that China had lost its vigor and needed Japan's guidance for reform. Okakura Tenshin (Kakuzō; 1862–1913), a gifted art historian who studied with Ernest Fenollosa at Tokyo University, called for the resurgence of the East. He underscored the creative vitality of Chinese and Indian civilizations that had adapted to changing historical circumstances over millennia and attained high levels of maturity. "Asia is one," stated at the opening of Okakura's Ideals of the East, was frequently quoted and had enormous influence.