Book Reviews
Review of Dongya wenhua jiaoliu zhong de Rujia jingdian yu linian:
Hudong, zhuanhua yu ronghe (Confucian Classics and Their Ideas
in the Context of Cultural Exchange in East Asia: Interaction,
Transformation, and Integration), by Huang Chun-chieh. Taipei:
National Taiwan University Press, 2011.［東亞文化交流中的儒家經典與理念：互動、轉化與融合／黃俊傑著．臺北：國立臺灣大學出版中心，

2010．台幣 200 元．184 頁．］

Dr. Chun-chieh Huang, Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies inthe Humanities and Social Science at National Taiwan University, has writtena large corpus of work dealing with international influences and confluencesin the field of Confucianism and East Asian intellectual history in general. A
pioneer in this field, as far back as 1984 he wrote an extensive paper
comparing the work of Dai Zhen (1724–1777) of the Qing dynasty, Itō Jinsai(1627–1705) of Tokugawa Japan, and Chong Yag-yong (1762–1836) of lateChosŏn Korea.1 Up to that point we see little or no work treating the thoughtof Korean and Japanese Confucian scholars as sources of insight that could
contribute to the enrichment of the Confucian tradition as a whole, let alone
work that made detailed comparative analyses of such thinkers.
The present work is much more sweeping in scope, but retains thecomparative angle that is the hallmark of Huang’s scholarship. In the opening
chapter of this book, Huang draws attention to five different angles that we
can take as we rethink cultural interaction in the East Asian context. First,
Huang argues that the study of East Asian intellectual history should be
deeply engaged in the complex interactions between regions, as well as
nations, and should free itself from a preoccupation with China as a static
center of influence. In the second section of the chapter the author suggests aturn from results to processes in the new purview of regional-history studies.
One of the most intriguing examples he gives of this approach is a switch infocus from texts alone to environment, which involves an analysis of howpolitical contexts influenced the interpretation of key classical texts. We can
1 Huang Chun-chieh 黃 俊 傑, “Tungya chinshih Juhsueh ssuch’ao ti shin tunghsiang: Tai Tung-yuan, It’eng Jen-chai yu Ting Ch’a-shan tui Menghsueh tichiehshih” 東亞近世儒學思潮的新動向 —— 戴東原、伊藤仁齋與丁茶山對孟學的解釋 (in Chinese and Korean), Tasan hakpo 6 (1984): 151–181.

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 4 2013

call this shift of focus a transition from a narrow preoccupation with texts to
the relationship between texts and contexts. This is followed by a section that
introduces two problematics in the proposed field of regional history: first, themutual influence between self (the complex mix of national and personal
identity) and broader intercultural identities, and second, the problematic thatemerges in the study of the relationship between culture and the power structure. In the following section, the author proposes three types of interaction as
worthy of more extended investigation: the interaction between “professional
intermediate agents,” such as envoys between countries, and the foreigncultures that they were frequenting; the interaction of texts, such as the books
exchanged by such emissaries; and the interaction of ideas, including theformation of self-identities resulting from such exchanges, as well as thecomplex impact of imported classical texts on individual world views. In the
concluding section of the chapter, the author proposes that the state-centricstyle of historical study be replaced by a broader East Asian perspective.
In the chapter titled “The Intellectual World of East Asian Confucians in
the Eighteenth Century,” Huang incisively examines new trends in the studyof Confucianism—an examination based on a comparative analysis of suchthinkers as the Qing scholar Dai Zhen, the proponents of ancient learning(kogaku 古 学 ) in Tokugawa Japan, and Chong Yag-yong of late Chosŏn
Korea, thus building on the landmark study mentioned at the beginning of
this review. At the outset of this sweeping piece of scholarship, Huang draws
attention to two intellectual trends prominent during this period. One was
opposition to Zhu Xi’s thought, especially his metaphysical approach, and thesecond was an emphasis on seeking reality on the basis of actual facts.
Following this analysis of key similarities, Huang goes on to reveal somefascinating differences in attitudes toward Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism, which
he ascribes to sharp political and cultural differences between the East Asian
powers.
The following chapter discusses the ideological implications of the concept
zhongguo (central state, China 中 國 ) in the Chinese classics, and how it wastransformed in early modern Japan and contemporary Taiwan. According to
the author’s analysis of key passages containing this concept in pre-Qin(221–206 BCE) texts, the ancient Chinese envisioned zhongguo as the epitomeof high culture and as the homeland of an educated, ethical people. In
contrast, Japanese references to zhongguo, as exemplified in the writings of
Yamaga Sokō, Sakuma Taika, and Asami Keisai, illustrate a Japanesetendency to use the term to refer to Japan and not to the mainland. For thesescholars, the geographical origins of the term zhongguo were deemphasized
and much greater significance was attributed to its cultural and philosophicalimport, specifically, a place that attained the mean, in terms of finding a

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social balance and achieving political stability. In the case of Taiwan, Huang
argues that the components of cultural and political identity embedded in theidea of zhongguo were turned into abstract ideals. He makes the intriguing
point that the romantic bent of Chinese intellectuals blinded many to theconflicts and fault lines dividing the cultural ideal from the political ideal in
Chinese History—a tendency that persists to this day.
In the concluding chapter of his book, Huang focuses on the delicate andcomplex relationship between interpretations of the Chinese classics andpolitical influences in China, Korean, and Japan. Since Confucianism cannot
be separated from political thought, as epitomized in the expression “selfcultivation and social harmony” (The Great Learning), this sort of analysis is
key to our grasp of East Asian Confucianism. The significance of thisapproach is well illustrated in Huang’s discussion about how new meanings
were imputed to key terms in the classics, especially by commentators who
felt the psychological pressure of imperial power. The author makes arevealing distinction between “soft filtering” and “hard filtering” of controversial textual content. Soft filtering, which apparently was exclusive toimperial China, was the filtering of topics to be covered by the civil-service
examinations, and hard filtering involved excluding passages from official
versions of the classics. In the conclusion of this chapter, Huang remarks that
there was a tendency for the political sphere to dominate the interpretation of
the classics in East Asia because the Confucian classics contained a “viable
set of values imbued with ideals and farsightedness, while the politicalpowers were realistic and shortsighted.” This discussion provides a concise
yet thought-provoking angle on the delicate tension that existed between
hard-nosed political leaders intent on meeting political exigencies and themore idealistic commentators on the classics, who sought Confucius’s visionof social harmony and peace realized through leadership by virtuous example,
as depicted in Mencius’s influential vision of the “Kingly Way.”In a succeeding section, “Political Interpretation of the Confucian Classics
in East Asia,” Huang looks at the opposite side of the coin. That is, he examines examples of East Asian scholar-bureaucrats who tried to influence thepolitical order through more idealistic interpretations of the classics, or in theauthor’s words, by “applying the Confucian classics to guide the direction ofpolitical power in their political contexts.” In the concluding paragraphs, oneof the most thought-provoking sections of the book, Huang points to a “third
relationship” between interpretation of the classics and political power,
namely, an effort by interpreters to maintain a balance between classical texts
and political reality.
In conclusion, this book builds and expands on the author’s pioneering
work on exchanges in what he calls “East Asian Confucianisms,” the intel-

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 4 2013lectual interactions among some of the greatest minds of China, Japan, andKorea leading to some of the most creative trends in the unfolding ofConfucian thought, and will most likely trigger more scholarship in this badly
neglected area. Huang’s early work inspired this reviewer to conduct anin-depth investigation on the interaction between the practical-learning(sirhak 實 學 ) thinkers of late Chosŏn Korea and ancient-learning thinkers of
Tokugawa Japan. I have little doubt that Huang’s more multifaceted comparative work in this volume will lead to a greater awareness that East Asian
Confucianism is much more the result of complex international influences andconfluences than the result of the slow absorption of a monolithic Chinese“Confucianism” by neighboring states.
Mark K. SETTON
Associate Professor of World Religions, International College,
University of Bridgeport

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Review of Shu Ki “Karei” no hanpon to shisō ni kansuru jisshōteki
kenkyū (Critical Studies of the Texts and Thought of Zhu Xi’s
Family Rituals), by Azuma Jūji. Suita, Japan: Kansai Daigaku
Bungakubu, 2003.［朱熹『家礼』の版本と思想に関する実証的研究／［Chinese translation:
吾妻重二．吹田：関西大学文学部，2003．299 頁］
朱熹《家礼》实证研究／吾妻重二著．上海：华东师范大学出版社，2012．
420 頁］
This monograph in the field of Neo-Confucianism by Prof. Azuma Jūji
of Kansai University was recently translated and published in Mainland
China.1 Prof. Azuma graduated from the School of Humanities and Social
Sciences at Waseda University. During the course of his studies, he was one
1 After the publication of the Chinese translation of the present work, Prof. WuZhen, in Zhonghua dushu bao, published a review titled “A Magnum Opus in
the Field of Neo-Confucianism” 朱子学研究领域的一部巅峰之作. Since Prof.
Wu, the editor of the Chinese translation, presented in detail the origins of thework and Prof. Azuma’s scholarly accomplishments, I will omit such details
here.

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77of the first group of Japanese students to study in China, studying in the
Philosophy Department of Peking University. While at Waseda, he studied
under the well-known Daoist scholar Kusuyama Haruki, but he neverthelessdecided to do research in the field of Neo-Confucianism. The thesis that hesubmitted in 2003 and for which he was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree
was “New Research in the Field of Neo-Confucianism: The Horizon of theHistory of Early-Modern Scholarly Thought” 朱子学の新研究: 近世士大夫の思
想史的地平 (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 2004). Within this work, Prof. Azuma alreadypresented detailed analysis of Zhu Xi’s works and thought while also paying
close attention to the development of his thought in history and practice. In
the present work, Prof. Azuma, focusing on Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals 家禮, notonly continues to produce research of the quality of his former studies, butalso broadens his field of vision to include all of early-modern East Asia andmore thoroughly and exactingly investigates the practical and institutional
developments of Zhu Xi’s thought.

I

Prof. Azuma believes that for a long time, people have understood Zhu
Xi’s Neo-Confucianism as a system of philosophical thought and a programfor personal cultivation. These aspects are indeed the most important part of
Neo-Confucianism, but whether from the perspective of the richness of thewhole of Neo-Confucianism or from the perspective of the multiple levels of
the influence of Neo-Confucianism on later ages, one needs to recognize also
the comprehensive cultural aspects of Neo-Confucianism. More specifically,
Neo-Confucianism is an organic whole that encompasses philosophy, naturalscience, history, economics, literature, ethics, political theory, education, religious sacrificial rites, and decorum, and its influence has permeated many
aspects of early-modern Chinese and East Asian history and social life.2
Taking Neo-Confucianism as a comprehensive cultural whole as his point of
departure, Prof. Azuma made Zhu Xi’s thought on decorum the focus of his
research. Bearing the greatest weight in the historical practice of Confucian
thought was the notion of decorum 禮 as the external manifestation ofhumanity 仁 and as the form of heavenly principle 天 理 之 節 文. In the sameway, Zhu Xi’s thought on decorum is the most faithful manifestation of Zhu
Xi’s thought in practice and in institutions. Among Zhu Xi’s many studies of2 This view of Prof. Azuma’s is found in his essay “Zhu Xi and the Reform ofConfucian Rites” 朱 熹 と 釈 奠 儀 礼 改 革, in 朱 子 学 と 近 世・近 代 の 東 ア ジ ア(Neo-Confucianism and Early-Modern and Modern East Asia), edited byInoue Katsuhito 井上克人, Huang Junjie 黄俊傑, and Tao Demin 陶徳民 (Taipei:
Guoli Taiwan Daxue Chuban Zhongxin, 2012), pp. 139–154.

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 4 2013

decorum, the work most widely disseminated and having the greatest influence on later ages was without doubt his Family Rituals.
Regarding Family Rituals as “an epochal work,”3 Prof. Azuma believes,“The appearance of Family Rituals was a great event in early-modern Chinese
intellectual history, and its influence was in no way inferior to [Zhu Xi’s]
Sishu jizhu 四書集注 (Collected Annotations on the Four Books).”4 There were
three reasons for this. First, compared to his Etiquette and Rites 儀禮, a representative classic in the decorum literature, Family Rituals was an entirely newclassic in the literature on decorum in China in the early-modern period (fromthe Song to Qing dynasties). Second, Family Rituals broke through the traditional notion that “decorum does not extend down to commoners” (Book of
Rites 禮 記, “Summary of the Rules of Propriety” 曲 禮, part 1). It thus let
Confucian notions of decorum enter the lives of commoners so that both
gentleman and commoner might realize such norms. This truly reflected theegalitarianism of Neo-Confucianism noted in the assertion “Anyone can be asage.” Third, as a result of the universal spread and influence of
Neo-Confucianism throughout early-modern East Asia, the influence ofFamily Rituals extended beyond China’s borders to the rest of East Asia,
principally Japan and Korea. Moreover, decorum became the central criterion
for distinguishing the civilized from the barbarian.
This book is thus a collection of Prof. Azuma’s studies of Family Rituals.
It is divided into two parts. The first part contains research essays, and thesecond part contains studies of the historical literature. But in terms ofcontent, the book in fact covers three stages of the research. The first stage isa systematic ordering of previous studies of Family Rituals. Chapter 1 falls
under this stage. The second stage is a textual study of Family Rituals. This
stage includes the discussion of the printings and editions of Family Rituals
in chapter 3 and the comparison of different versions of Family Rituals in part2, chapter 8. The third stage covers monographs on Family Rituals. This stage
includes Prof. Azuma’s explanation of the overall situation concerning thestudy of decorum in Tokugawa Japan, as discerned by means of bibliographic
methods, in chapter 2. It also includes his detailed discussions of such key
components of the decorum of Family Rituals as family shrines in chapter 4,
memorial tablets in chapters 5 and 6, and formal shenyi robes in chapter 7. In
contrast to studies of Family Rituals as a classic or as a document in thehistory of decorum, Prof. Azuma, in his study of Family Rituals, remains
focused on Family Rituals as a development of Neo-Confucianism. Hence,
below, in addition to introducing the main features of the chapters of the
3 Azuma Jūji, 朱熹《家礼》实证研究, Preface to the Chinese edition, p. 1.
4 Azuma Jūji, 朱熹《家礼》实证研究, p. 75.

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79

present work, I will attempt to point out the immediate explanatory value thatthese features have for the study of Neo-Confucianism.

II

Chapter 1 of the present work is “The Present State of, and Topics in, theStudy of Confucian Rites, with a Focus on Family Rituals” 儒教儀礼研究の現
状 と 課 題 ―『 家 礼 』を 中 心 に. Jyukyō 儒 教 is the term that Japanese
Sinologists use to designate Confucianism. The character kyō 教 indicates that
Confucianism is a system of education consisting of thought and training. In
this chapter, Prof. Azuma not only discusses the relationship between
premodern Chinese rites and Confucianism. He also examines, in detail andup to the present, some central research topics concerning Chinese Confucian
rites, especially topics related to Family Rituals. For example, he examines“the issue of the identity of the author of Family Rituals,” “the connection
between Family Rituals and Letters and Ceremonies 書儀, by Sima Guang 司
馬光,” “the spread and elaboration of Family Rituals in East Asia,” and “family
problems concerning funeral rites and sacrifices to ancestors.” Also worth
mentioning is the appended “List of Research Literature on Family Rituals.”This list records nearly all the modern studies of Family Rituals by scholars
from all over the world, and it also organizes them by category. One cannot
help but admire the extensive collection of works in this list and the industryof the author. One can say that one of the greatest features of Prof. Azuma’s
research methods is the importance he attaches to previous studies. This not
only helps one to have an overall understanding of the research history. Even
more important, the author can consciously place his own research in the
research tradition and thus establish a dialog with previous studies. Throughdialog, we can continuously discover new issues and new areas of study, andthus can continuously advance our research. The other research essays in thiscollection all make use of this methodology to establish their points and maketheir advances.

III

Chapter 3, “Printings and Editions of Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals up to theGreat Compendium on Human Nature and Principle”『 家礼 』の刊刻と版本:『性理大全』まで, and chapter 8, “A Critical Version of Family Rituals” 校勘本, are basically textual studies of Family Rituals. As the title of the『家礼』
present work advertises, another special feature of Prof. Azuma’s method of
research is his textual criticism. As he sees matters, whether we concern
ourselves with thought or institutions, in carrying out a critical study of its
history, we have to rely on the written literature. Hence, for a study of Family
Rituals, the primary task is to determine an authentic text of Family Rituals

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 4 2013

through textual criticism. In this regard, Prof. Azuma has made three contributions.
First, he has thoroughly clarified the routes of transmission of Family
Rituals and on this basis has determined the Southern Song Zhou text to be
the most authentic. Moreover, after determining the particulars of the transmitted texts, he has carried out an exhaustive critical study of the Song text.
In chapter 8 he presents to scholars his final results, a reliable critical versionof Family Rituals.
Second, he has resolved the controversy over the identity of the authorof Family Rituals, providing us with the reliable conclusion that Zhu Xi had
not finalized the text of Family Rituals. Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals had been
regarded as a forgery since Wang Maohong 王 懋 竑 (1668–1741) first madethis assertion. After the compilers of the Complete Library of the Four
Branches of Literature 四庫全書 acceded to this view, it approached the statusof received opinion. More recently, scholars such as Qian Mu 錢 穆 (1895–
1990), Ueyama Shunpei 上山春平 (b. 1921), and Chen Lai 陳來 (b. 1952) have
all had serious doubts about this position. Prof. Azuma, building on previous
research, studied the various editions of Family Rituals and ancillary materials,
especially prefaces and afterwords, and has provided us with strong evidence
against the forgery theory. As he points out, soon after Zhu Xi passed away,
there appeared several editions of Family Rituals, including the Wuyang
edition 五 羊 本, the Yuhang edition 余 杭 本, and the Yanzhou edition 嚴 洲 本.
And the individuals closely connected with these editions—Chen Chun 陳淳,
Huang Gan 黃 榦, Liao Mingde 廖 明 德, and Yang Fu 楊 復 —were all direct
disciples of Zhu Xi. Moreover, in the prefaces and afterwords that they wrote,they all regarded Family Rituals as Zhu Xi’s work, and they all expressed thegreatest admiration of this work. If Family Rituals were really a forgery
produced by someone else, this state of affairs certainly would not be thecase. Wang Maohong thought that the prefaces of Family Rituals were also
forgeries. Wang’s view is directly disproved by the preface in Zhu Xi’s own
handwriting to a reprint of the Song edition of Family Rituals, by the Late
Zhu Xi, Illustrated and Annotated 纂圖集注文公家禮. On Wang’s assertion that
Family Rituals contains inconsistencies, Prof. Azuma accurately notes that thiswas because when Family Rituals was published, it was still in draft form andhad not been finalized. It was a work that Chen Chun called “an unfinishedcode of ritual” (Family Rituals, with an Afterword for Chen Xian 代陳憲跋家禮 ) and that Huang Gan said Zhu Xi “did not have time to revise” (A Brief
Life of Zhu Xi 朱 子 行 狀 ). Hence we cannot take these inconsistencies asevidence that the work is a forgery.
Third, Prof. Azuma’s purpose in ordering the history of the editions ofFamily Rituals was not only to clarify the lineages of the editions, but also toBook Reviews

81build on this foundation in order to look at how Family Rituals spreadthrough, and had an effect on, early-modern Chinese society. This researchstrategy of the author’s gives us a glimpse of the true concerns lying behind
his evidentiary methodology. For example, among the printings during theYuan dynasty, the author lists the Yao Shu 姚 樞 edition of Family Rituals. In
1235 the Yuan army captured the Dean border region in present-day Hubei.
After Yao Shu, who was following the army, saved Zhao Fu, also known as
Mr. Jianghan, the latter “gave him all manner of Neo-Confucian books by theCheng brothers and Zhu Xi.” This famous story is an indication that thedissemination of Neo-Confucianism began in the North. After Yao Shu retired
to Mt. Sumen in Huizhou (present-day Henan province), he printed, together
with some books on Daoism, Zhu Xi’s Elementary Learning 小學書, Questions
and Answers on the Mengzi 論 孟 或 問, and Family Rituals. This shows that
Family Rituals must have been included in the books that Zhao Fu gave to
Yao Shu. But more important, we can infer that from the beginning when
Neo-Confucianism spread to the North, Family Rituals was an important partof that doctrine. Worth noting is that Prof. Azuma not only showed that
Family Rituals gained the attention of both the elite and commoners. He also
pointed out that since the section on marriage etiquette in the Yuan legal code
元 典 章, that is, the imperial edict promulgated by the court in 1264, clearlystipulates that marriage etiquette must follow the norms of Zhu Xi’s Family
Rituals 朱文公家禮, this work must have already entered the national norms of
etiquette from the beginning of the Yuan dynasty. This, without doubt, isanother important way in which Neo-Confucianism entered the national legal
code, second only to the well-known institution of Zhu Xi’s Collected
Commentary on the Four Books 四書集注 as the standard for selecting candidates through the civil-service examinations early in the reign of Emperor
Renzong (r. 1311–1320) of the Yuan dynasty. A related issue is Prof. Azuma’s
examination of the Ming work Great Compendium on Human Nature andPrinciple 性理大全. The source of many annotated editions of Family Rituals
published in Korea and Japan was the version found in the Great
Compendium. Hence, the Great Compendium version can be called the version
authorized for popularization, in Prof. Azuma’s view. But the significance of
this version does not stop there. Prof. Azuma notes that the inclusion of
Family Rituals in the Great Compendium by the imperially commissioned
editors Hu Guang 胡 廣 et al. indicates that a version of Family Rituals was
now officially recognized and formally approved. Moreover, according to the“Norms of Etiquette” 禮制 chapter of the History of the Ming 明史, the normsof Family Rituals were formally decreed for use by the entire nation during
the Yongle period (1403–1424). Prof. Azuma thinks that the version of Family
Rituals decreed for public use was the rewritten version that appeared in the

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 4 2013

Great Compendium. Thus, Family Rituals, a work produced by a private-sector
Neo-Confucian school of philosophy, garnered official recognition, and then,conversely, was promoted in the private sector by the government.

IV

From the above, particularly Prof. Azuma’s third contribution in section
3, we can see that his interest in the literature, spurred by his evidentiary
methodology, seeks to go beyond the literature. Behind his extensive gathering and minute examination of the literature lies an interest in weighty
issues in the history of scholarship and the history of ideas. In other words,
while he pursues his evidentiary methodology by first examining the literature, throughout the process he has a clear perception of the issues. Thisfeature of Prof. Azuma’s research also appears in every part of his study ofFamily Rituals.
Chapter 2, “A Study of Confucian Decorum during the Edo Period” 江戸
時 代 に お け る 儒 教 儀 礼 研 究: 書 誌 を 中 心 に, is an examination, based on theliterature, of the reception of the three ritual classics (the Rites of Zhou 周禮,
Etiquette and Rites 儀 禮, and the Book of Rites 禮 記 ) and Family Rituals in
the Edo period (1603–1867). Previously, Japanese scholars harbored thepreconceived notion that the study of ritual exerted only an intellectual influence in early-modern Japan, that as a studied and lectured-on set of ideas, it
had no practical influence on people’s actual lives. But as Prof. Azuma points
out on the basis of his ordering of Edo-period works on ritual, in the latter
half of the seventeenth century there arose an interest in Family Rituals. This
interest found expression not only in works on Family Rituals by Zhu Xi andWang Yangming scholars, but also in the actual funeral and memorial rites ofscholars and politicians, such as Hayashi Razan 林羅山, Tokugawa Mitsukuni德川光圀, and Ikeda Mitsumasa 池田光政, who carried out these rites in accord
with Family Rituals. This revelation of the extensive historical use of Family
Rituals in funeral and memorial rites not only corrected previous widespreadpreconceptions, but also highlighted the unique features of the Japanese
reception of Confucian rites in comparison with China and Korea, which also
witnessed the widespread adoption of the Confucian capping, marriage,
funeral, and memorial rites found in Family Rituals.
Chapters 4 through 7 examine some central elements of the norms of
etiquette in Family Rituals. Below I will use the discussion of family temples
in chapter 4 as an example to explicate the special features of Prof. Azuma’s
research mentioned above.
In chapter 4, “Song Family Temples and Ancestor Worship” 宋代の家廟と祖先祭祀, “family temple” 家廟, an installation for venerating the souls of aclan’s ancestors, is a general term encompassing ancestral-portrait halls 影堂,

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memorial-service halls 祭 堂, and ancestral halls 祠 堂. In other words, family
temples (or ancestral halls) are places for carrying out memorial rites. Book 1of Family Rituals, “Common Etiquette,” begins with a discussion of ancestralhalls, beneath which, in small print, is a note by Zhu Xi that says, “Thischapter was originally in the part titled ‘Memorial Rites.’ Now to return tobeginnings, respect the ancestors, and truly have a clear division of roles in
the family, I begin this project by informing readers of the original intention.
Hence, I rewrote this chapter specifically to begin this part.” From this quote,one can see that Zhu Xi, in his vision for Family Rituals, gave ancestral halls
pride of place. Obviously, in this study Prof. Azuma also takes family
temples (or ancestral halls) as primal. By the research of this chapter, Prof.
Azuma seeks to show the historical evolution of the Song system of family
temples. By examining the system of family temples before and after Zhu Xi,
one can see the gains and losses attributable to his proposals for family
temples, and their historical significance. Prof. Azuma notes that a feature of
the system of family temples in the ancient ritual literature, such as the Bookof Rites, was that only those of a certain status and rank could build family
temples, the right to build a family temple being a prerogative of high officials. In this system, if the descendents lost an ancestor’s official rank, theymight also lose the right to build a family temple. Up to the Tang dynasty, apowerful aristocracy could carry out a system of family temples, but in theSong dynasty, which limited official ranks to one generation, the system offamily temples became an empty form unsuited to the times. This caused thenational norms of etiquette surrounding the family-temple system to atrophyduring the Song period. In response, Neo-Confucian scholars such as Han Qi
韓琦, Sima Guang 司馬光, Zhang Zai 張載, Cheng Yi 程頤, and Lü Dafang 呂
大 防 began exploring new norms. Especially worthy of our attention are
Cheng Yi’s views, which can be summarized as follows: First, all scholargentlemen ought to have family temples. Second, one may make use of gods
that formerly only high officials could use. Third, as stipulated in the norms
for morning apparel in Etiquette and Rites, those perpetually memorialized in
the family temple cannot be further back than the great-great-grandfather,four generations back. Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals took over Cheng Yi’s proposal
and institutionalized it. Thus, the efforts of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi resulted ina reform of ritual in a certain sense, and through this reform, family temples
were transformed from the exclusive province of the aristocracy to a common
institution of the scholar-gentleman. From this discussion we can see that
Prof. Azuma has not only discovered a previously unnoticed connection
between the thought of Cheng Yi and that of Zhu Xi, namely, Zhu Xi’s use ofCheng Yi’s ideas in his proposed system of family temples. He has also
pointed out the political and social changes driving the historical reform of the84

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family-temple system. Even if we regard the demand that the scholargentleman have a family temple, an idea that Family Rituals takes over fromCheng Yi, as an equalizing trend in the thought of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, wemust also not overlook the objective political and social changes occurring in
the historical background that produced Family Rituals. At this point we canask, Since political and social changes had already made it difficult topromote a system of family temples, why were the Neo-Confucians so
anxious to reform the system of family temples? In addition to the reason
given by Zhu Xi in the note quoted above, Prof. Azuma notes that the establishment of family temples caused the site for venerating ancestors to movefrom the memorial temple to the family temple. A memorial temple 墓 祠,
common in the Song period, was an ancestral temple placed at the side of agrave. In those days, such graves, called grave temples 坟寺 or grave cells 坟庵, were usually taken care of by Buddhist temples. All such installations canbe considered memorial temples. There were also cases of Daoist temples
looking after graves and of ancestral halls built within the confines of Daoist
temples. Thus, in terms of both the care of installations and the performanceof rituals, Buddhism and Daoism bore a considerable responsibility for
private-sector veneration of the dead. Hence, transferring the veneration ofancestors from memorial temples to family temples in fact meant transferring
this important social rite from Buddhist or Daoist forms to Confucian forms.
Prof. Azuma also discusses, in chapters 5 and 6, the issue of memorialtablets 木主, the most important ritual implement in the family temple. And inchapter 7 he discusses formal shenyi robes 深 衣, the Confucian vestments
discussed in Family Rituals. As before, Prof. Azuma pursues these two
research topics by ordering the literature in detail, and on this basis produces
seminal views overturning the theses of previous researchers. Owing to limitations of space, I cannot go into detail. Suffice it to say that in his treatmentof memorial tablets and shenyi robes, two key topics of Family Rituals, we
can see even more clearly how he pursues his research with an unwavering
focus on cultural interaction in East Asia. For example, in his study ofmemorial tablets, Prof. Azuma examines their influence on not only China but
also Japan, Okinawa, and Korea. And in his study of shenyi robes, hediscusses practices in Chosŏn Korea and Tokugawa Japan. One can thus saythat the author, as his basic slant for this work, consistently approaches
Neo-Confucianism from the perspective of cultural interaction in East Asia.
WANG Xin
Department of Philosophy, Peking University

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Review of The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the
French Revolution, by Francis Fukuyama. New York: Farrar, Straus,
and Giroux, 2011.

I

In The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama provides a lucid
historical account of the development of political order in human societies,
from a strongly synthetic perspective. The bulk of nearly 600 pages represents only a half of his project. A second volume will deal with the period
from the nineteenth century, in which, Fukuyama claims, conditions for theformation of human political institutions have undergone fundamental
changes. As indicated repeatedly, this book was inspired by SamuelHuntington’s 1968 work Political Order in Changing Societies, which
Fukuyama believes must be supplemented with a historical investigation of
how the modern polity developed. (Huntington’s analysis of the problems
faced by contemporary developing countries in modernizing their politicalsystems, according to Fukuyama, takes for granted the existence and exemplary role of such institutions as the state and political parties.) By this investigation, Fukuyama expects to reveal the historical contingencies of state
formation in different societies and to examine in a historical light the causesof diverse failed attempts to build a modern state.
At this point Fukuyama’s philosophy of political development becomesapparent. He lays particular emphasis on the idea of contingency, mainly toward off accusations of historical teleology concerning the emergence of, or
global convergence toward, the modern Western political establishment.
However, he also argues that once the three key institutions—the state, therule of law, and government accountability—took shape, fortuitously
combined together, and stood the test of time, they became imitable andindeed desirable for non-Western nations, although the degree of success intransplanting institutions is, again, historically conditioned. Thus, in thisambitious work, history assumes a strategic character. To wit, resorting tohistorical circumstances endows the narrative of the development of thepolitical order with complexity. Nonetheless, replacing a linear view ofhistory with a circumstantial, contingent one does not assume historical relativity. Theoretically, Fukuyama regards a well-balanced combination of thesethree institutional factors to be the key to sustainable political success, as well
as a guarantee of both state power and social welfare. Indeed, at the end of
this volume, Fukuyama attributes the chronic dysfunction of democracy in the
United States, the European Union, Japan, and India to different degrees ofmutual alienation among the state, the rule of law, and accountable govern-

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ment. According to Fukuyama, this historical investigation serves to reconfirm the superiority of these institutions emerging out of contingencies, eventhough their necessity and rationality in an even larger historical perspective
is not obviously in question. Little wonder that this standpoint, ahistorical toa certain degree, reminds some reviewers of Fukuyama’s Western-centric,
end-of-history conceit, revealed in his previous works. The author’s eruditionand organizing power warrant a thorough reading of this thought-provoking
book, yet its historical argument needs a critical review from the stance ofhistorical studies in general and historical thinking in particular.

II“The purpose of this book is less to present a history of political development than to analyze some of the factors that led to the emergence of certain
key political institutions” (p. 22). “What I am aiming for in this book is a
middle-range theory that avoids the pitfalls both of excessive abstraction (thevice of economists) and excessive particularism (the problem of many historians and anthropologists). I am hoping to recover something of the lost
tradition of nineteenth-century historical sociology or comparative anthropology” (p. 24). These statements well specify the purpose and methodologyof the project, in which Fukuyama takes on a nineteenth-century style ofgrand narrative that does not shy away from extensive comparisons andgeneralizations.
To begin with, Fukuyama supports the inevitability of the developmentof the human political order on biological grounds. Part 1 of the book,“Before the State,” expounds on the necessity of politics and the formation ofearly human political organizations. After a broad survey of works on
biology, psychology, and anthropology, Fukuyama comes to the conclusionthat group orientation, construction of a mental model of causality, rule
following driven more by emotion than by reason, and the desire for recognition constitute natural building blocks for us to construct a theory of politicaldevelopment. On this basis he sets out to delineate the four successive stagesof political development: “For bands and tribes, social organization is basedon kinship, and these societies are relatively egalitarian. Chiefdoms and states,by contrast, are organized hierarchically and exert authority on a territorial
rather than a kinship basis” (p. 53). Evidence shows that the four types ofhuman society can coexist, but the direction of evolution is unmistakable.
Kinship organizations are an outgrowth of human nature, Fukuyama argues,
since one of its biological building blocks, group orientation, promotes kin
selection and reciprocal altruism. Though tribes are complex in nature, theirdecentralized structure and lack of clear rules of succession impose limitations on the solidification and expansion of tribal societies. Fukuyama does

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not really discuss the structure of chiefdoms, but the crucial step out of thetribal stage is the effort of political agents to detach themselves from kinshipinfluence and favor functionality. Here we enter the domain of impersonal
political mechanisms that seek to maximize efficacy in the group’s dealings—an achievement that heralds the birth of the first key institution of themodern political order, the state.
Fukuyama challenges the notion of Western centrism not only by arguingthat modern political institutions arose from historical contingencies without
foreshadowing the inevitable rise of the West, but also by claiming that China
had the first organized state. Following Max Weber’s definition of the state as“an organization deploying a legitimate monopoly of violence over a defined
territory” and Weber’s criteria for modern states as “subject to a rational division of labor, based on technical specialization and expertise, and impersonal
both with regard to recruitment and their authority over citizens,” Fukuyama
finds the first appearance of mature state apparatuses in ancient China when
independent states under the nominal dominance of the Eastern Zhou dynasty(770–256 BCE) strove to annex each other and usurp the authority of the Zhou
kings. With the unification of China under the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE andcritical revisions of the imperial system carried out by the succeeding Han
dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), China came to be “the first civilization to invent
the modern state” (p. 78). (Intellectually uneasy about this claim, I will return
to it in the third section.) Yet as the formation the Chinese state was driven
solely by war, other key institutions and societal forces were not in place tocheck sovereign power. Hence, imperial China was cyclically plagued by bademperors who abused their centralized power or failed to exert it at all,personally contributing to political decay.
In part 2 of the book, “State Building,” Fukuyama discusses India andthe Islamic world along with China. Indian history presents a sharp contrast
to Chinese political development. On the one hand, the frequency of warfare
characterizing pre-Qin China found no counterpart in ancient India, whichaccordingly was not incentivized to make a strong, centralized state. On theother hand, Hinduism provided Indian society with a sense of providence, a
sense that laws are more elevated than secular decrees, which thus formed arudimentary framework for the rule of law. However, Hindu’s introduction of
the rigid caste systems of varna and jati virtually frustrated any attempts tobring the whole subcontinent under a powerful regime, with the result thatIndia suffered repeated external invasions and rule by foreign powers. Even
to the present day, Indian democracy still lacks a state with the ability toexert authoritarian power.
The Islamic world constitutes another major reference for comparison
with the West. As faith was the binding force for political cohesion in the

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Islamic world, the rule of law was not absent, at least theoretically, in theIslamic political tradition. To prevent kinship influence in states, there
emerged in successive Islamic regimes a system of cultivating slave civilian
and military staff, who were cut from their families and native cultures andeducated in an elitist style to furnish states with outstanding bureaucrats andsoldiers. The system, called Mamluk, was strictly nonhereditary at the beginning, but the biological nature of human beings made such rule unsustainable,
and there were no effective social forces to hold the increasingly entrenched
upper classes of such states accountable. Hence, the decline of this peculiar
recruitment system led to the decline of Islamic empires. From China to theIslamic world, Fukuyama accumulates sufficient examples to argue for theimportance of the coexistence of the three institutions—the state, the rule oflaw, and accountable government—which Western Europe came to possess inthe course of modern history.
Parts 3 and 4 of the book, “The Rule of Law” and “Accountable
Government,” are dedicated mainly to the rise of these two key institutions
and their coming together in the West. The Catholic Church played a significant role in preserving a social space exempt from excessive state intervention. With its hierarchical structure and well-defined clerical and lay functions, the Catholic Church also provided a model of the rule of law for
emerging European states to emulate. In contrast, the Orthodox Church of the
Byzantine Empire never evolved out of a caesaropapist type of authoritarianism in which the law was invariably subjugated to the state. Further
comparison reveals that while traditional China never saw the emergence of arule of law, with such moral notions as the Heavenly Mandate being the solecheck on imperial power, Indian rule of law existed only in primitive forms,
and the rule of law in the Islamic world was more symbolic than real.
In presenting the formation of accountable government, Fukuyama breaks
the topic into the British, French/Spanish, Hungarian, and Russian cases,
explaining how the different configurations of political actors decided
governmental accountability and thus stability of individual political systems.
“The amount of resistance to state centralization depended on the degree towhich the three groups outside the state—nobility, gentry, and Third Estate[consisting of tradesmen, merchants, free serfs, and other town and citydwellers]—were able to work together to resist royal power. It also depended
on the internal cohesion that each one demonstrated. And finally, it depended
on the cohesion and sense of purpose of the state itself” (p. 333). In addition,
despite their great number, peasants were historically too scattered to form
any durable political bodies to claim self-interests. While it is impossible towade into the historical details of the aforementioned cases, only in England
did the balance of power help the country to thrive, and the superiority of its

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institutions became all the more conspicuous after the Industrial Revolution.
In France, political forces other than the state were too fragmented to resist
being co-opted by the latter. This political collusion placed an unbearable
burden on the peasantry—a predicament eradicated only through the French
Revolution. In Hungary, nobility and gentry formed a strong coalition thatparalyzed the state and accelerated its demise. In Russia, all political forceswere rigorously subjugated to the state in a perfect absolutism.

III

Fukuyama deals with so many Western countries to avoid the pitfall of
Whig history, which entertains the progressive view that the Western politicaltradition arose in Greek and Roman times, was codified in the Magna Carta,
then was firmly established by the Glorious Revolution, and with the expansion of the British Empire, was spread to the rest of the world. Instead of thisview, Fukuyama insists that British political success arose contingently. Noneof its liberal tradition, concentration of social forces through feudalism, orwidespread practice of customary laws was predestined. Nevertheless, it caneasily be observed that Fukuyama’s theory of political order is approaching an
end not unlike that of the Whig view: the British political system at its prime
speaks for its own legitimacy; it hardly needs further justification. For
Fukuyama, the well-balanced political mechanism that happened to mature in
the West, especially in England—that is, the interdependent yet mutuallyautonomous institutions of the state, the rule of law, and accountable government—guarantees a sustainable political order. Indeed, in part 5 of the book,“Toward a Theory of Political Development,” different combinations of thethree institutions are examined to explain the success or failure of various
regimes worldwide.
Obviously, Fukuyama’s account is deeply rooted in international
anarchy—the notion that the state is not only the unit of political action but
also the end of political development. Of course, Fukuyama’s realist theory
construction is admirable, whose state-centric perspective relies heavily onreference to biology, which tells us that the tendency toward violence andcompetition is no less embedded in human nature than the tendency toward
cooperation. Nonetheless, his deliberate detachment from Western centrism
cannot be fully successful if modern Western institutions—rather young inhuman history without having sufficiently stood the test of time—are
enthroned as the ultimate form of human political organization. (Fukuyama
does not make this claim, of course, but his theory, while allowing reconfiguration, allows for no improvement of the key institutions.) Furthermore, resort
to biology also obliges Fukuyama to compare biological and political evolution (pp. 446–449)—a project that would benefit from greater nuance and90

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more historical insights.
Thus, in a sense, this book is more typological than historical. It can beclaimed to be historical in its delineation of the political development of eachselected tradition. Yet throughout the book that historical account is spunaround crystallized notions of the state, the rule of law, and accountable
government, and shortcomings of their development in different regions areindicated with purposeful comparison with their later maturation and evenconsummation in the West. More important, Fukuyama deals with each tradition mainly in isolation, although he is aware that intensive interaction andmutual influence occurred between civilizations. In his rather fragmentarytreatment, however, he frequently and freely draws analogies between situations in different contexts, a method that calls for extreme caution in historical studies, and he often directs such analogies at the differences between
Western and non-Western political developments.
Under this circumstance, the claim that China had the first organized state
hardly amounts to anything more than a slogan that, paradoxically, betrays thedifficulty of departing from Western centrism. Fukuyama claims, “China was
the first civilization to invent the modern state” (my italics). This obviously
achronological statement can only be understood in a typological rather thanhistorical sense. That is, the modern state can find a prototype in ancient
China (not an origin in a strict sense, as a historical relationship has not been
established). Likewise, India and the Islamic world are drawn into the narrative with the same typological logic: the historical intricacies of these civilizations being largely omitted in favor of the modern West as the centerpieceof comparative political development. Besides, some historical actualities
presented in the book need reconsideration. For example, Fukuyama oversimplifies in portraying Empress Wu (Wu Zetian, 623–705) of China as purely
evil, and he is not precise in describing modern China (prior to World War II)
as a colony.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, Fukuyama classifies civilizations—China, India,
the Islamic world, Russia as approaching the West, and Latin America asderived from the West—in a style similar to that of Samuel Huntington in
The Clash of Civilizations. While such classification is not intrinsically wrong,
this treatment is problematic in at least two aspects. First, minor traditions are
simply invisible in this picture. Second, the diversity only of the West
receives Fukuyama’s attention, with the inner variations of other civilizations
being ignored. Indeed, any comparative work of such a vast temporal andspatial scope will bog down if too many historical details are required, but amore balanced treatment of civilizations is certainly desirable.
Fukuyama makes an interesting observation: “One of dynastic China’s
great legacies, then, is high-quality authoritarian government. It is no accident

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that virtually all of the world’s successful authoritarian modernizers, includingSouth Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and modern China itself, are East Asian
countries sharing a common Chinese cultural heritage” (p. 313). Following
this clue, one may be prompted to ask, given that the state, the rule of law,and accountable government are cornerstone institutions, can countries withdifferent traditions achieve a good political order with different proportions ofthese institutions, or is there a golden ratio that they have to approximate, as
exemplified by certain Western paradigm countries?
Finally, it is reasonable to ask whether the state, the rule of law, andaccountable government furnish all that is necessary for a good politicalorder. Based on human biology, which features both reciprocal cooperationand violent competition, Fukuyama’s ideal political world is characterized bya balance of institutional powers. Ideas are extremely important in making
political systems, as he fully admits. How can cultural, ideological, psychological, and moral factors help to define, refine, or even transcend this mechanism of mutual checks? This is an issue worthy of more in-depth study.
Yu-Ting LEE
Doctoral Candidate in Cultural Interaction Studies,
Kansai University, Japan







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

Review of Qingmo Zhongri jiaoyu wenhua jiaoliu zhi yanjiu (Researchon Educational and Cultural Interaction between China and Japan
during the Late Qing Era). By Lu Shunchang. Beijing: Commercial
Press, 2012. ( 清末中日教育文化交流之研究／吕顺著．北京：商务印书
馆，2012．RMB 32.00 元，401.)
The historiography of Asian connections through the study of pre-colonialand early modern maritime trade is longstanding, but academic interest in
Asian connections of the modern period is recent. In Prasenjit Duara’s words,
this new interest is “unable to grasp the continuities and discontinuities thatform the present.” 1
1 Prasenjit Duara, “Asia Redux: Conceptualizing a Region for Our Times,” The
Journal of Asian Studies 69, 4 (2010): 963.

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The emergence of Sino-Japanese history as a sub-field of this burgeoning
interest in Asian connections owes much to the work of Hamashita Takeshi,
Benjamin Elman, Joshua Fogel, Akira Iriye, and Gilbert Rozman, who haveanalyzed the histories of China, Japan, and Korea (as well as lost polities
such as the Ryūkyū Kingdom; see Hamashita) in detail. These scholars havealso mapped out the contours of interactions and similarities between
different groups and individuals in the East Asian region. Scholars in China
and Taiwan, such as Kan Huai-chen, Kao Ming-shih, Wang Hui, and Zhang
Feng have also contributed studies that deepen our understanding of the East
Asian region in general and Sino-Japanese interactions in particular. Moving
beyond diplomatic and economic relations, these scholars have begun inrecent years to take a fresh approach to Sino-Japanese history by examining
the cultural and intellectual relationships between the Chinese and Japanese
literati of the modern period.
Taking the late Qing period as his point of departure, Lu Shunchang
scrutinizes the various encounters and perceptions of Qing literati andstudents who studied in Japan, as well as how the Japanese perceived theireducation of the Chinese students. Lu posits that Chinese had always imagined cultural similarities between China and Japan, and that the ignominious
Chinese defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) reversed thecultural role of China as patron to that of client of a modern Japan, which
had long been a recipient of Chinese culture. Instead of learning from theWest, the Chinese now explored the option of learning from Japan, a country
that they had regarded as a culturally and politically inferior client state.
Sino-Japanese interactions of the late Qing reached another peak after their
inception during the Sui-Tang period. Lu’s main argument is that Chinese
students saw Meiji Japan as a model for Qing China and perceived Japan asa mediator between China and the West.
In particular, Lu discusses Zhejiang students in Japan, whom he views aslate Qing pioneers of New Learning and interlocutors of Western knowledge
and modern science. By emphasizing the cultural and geographical advantages of Zhejiang Province, Lu explains how the influence of Japan onmodern Chinese education became more profound through the transmission of
New Learning by Zhejiang students and literati.
Using Japanese newspapers and magazines as his main primary sources,
Li postulates that the enthusiasm and support of Japanese politicians for theWestern education of Chinese students was the result of a national ambition
to engender a sense of goodwill in Chinese students and hence seek future
economic benefits and political concessions in China. This explains why,according to Lu, despite an initial interest in acquiring Western learning
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93

intentions and finally hostile to Japan as political developments unfolded.
The analytical lens that Lu uses is education; he explicates in detail how
Chinese study groups consisting of court officials and provincial literati
remained interested in acquiring rare classics that had been lost in China. He
also discusses how they keenly observed and adopted the Japanese school
system and curriculum at all academic levels, from elementary school totertiary institutions. From a close reading of private letters and official documents of Chinese observers and students in Japan, such as Wu Qingdi, Zhang
Dayong, and Cheng Enpei, Lu shows how the Chinese literati were impressedby Japanese determination and efforts at modernization through reformativeeducation. Further, Fan’s The World of Education, an academic journal whose
editors translated Japanese articles for Chinese readership, was one of several
initiatives of the Zhejiang literati to expound the virtues of modern Japanese/
Western education. Zhejiang students in Japan published The Official Paper(Guan-bao), an official newsletter that records both the operations and reportsof the Qing Student Supervision Department in Tokyo, as well as the paperwork and routines of Chinese students in Japan, who were usually supported
by Qing funding and scholarships. To further illustrate the prominence ofZhejiang students in Japan in future cultural and political developments inmodern China, Lu highlights the impact of renowned personalities such as Lu
Xun, Chiang Kai-shek, Jiang Baili, Qiu Jin, and Zhang Zongxiang—Zhejiang
natives who had received at least part of their education in Japan. According
to Lu, the educational background of these Zhejiang natives explains why
some students were ambivalent toward Japan while others were cynical about
Japanese motives.
The book under review succeeds in its narrative of Sino-Japanese interactions on several counts. First, the book is a useful and welcome addition to an
important area of inquiry in East Asian history: education. Chinese, English,
and Japanese scholarship lacks a systematic analysis of education andexchanges on education between China and Japan other than the common
tenet of mutual cultural borrowings and influence, and especially lacks an
in-depth analysis of Japanese-influenced education in modern China. Second,
the book provides an engaging and readable account of how Qing Chinese
steered the direction of their modern learning from the West to Japan,
although Lu does not explain how the Chinese appropriated Japanese contextualization of New or Western Learning. Finally, and most importantly, thiscomprehensive book has linked “the continuities and discontinuities that form
the present” with a discussion of how old Chinese classics and learning
remained relevant and perhaps even fundamental to the acquisition andimplementation of New Learning through the medium of Japan. The bookgrapples with the question of mutual perceptions of China and Japan, elabo-

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rating on why the Chinese saw the Japanese as both benefactors and malefactors, as well as on how the current Chinese perception of Japan as a malicious neighbor has its origins in the cultural and educational interactions
between China and Japan during the late Qing period.
As a lay reader, however, I am not convinced of the book’s claim that
Zhejiang’s liberated culture and geographical proximity to Japan were themain reasons why Zhejiang students, not those from other parts of the nation,
had spearheaded New Learning and major socio-cultural changes in modern
China. The gentry and literati of other parts of China, most notably
Guangdong Province, also contributed in significant ways to the political andsocial changes that swept modern China. A comparison and discussion ofsuch contributions warrants a separate analysis that this review cannot coverin detail, however. More significantly, the book repeats the longstanding
claim of many Chinese scholars that Qing China’s defeat in the First SinoJapanese War demonstrates the failure of the Foreign Affairs Movement tointroduce Western science and technology; according to these scholars, thefailure necessitated more radical cultural and educational changes after the
war in order to follow Japan’s lead in modernizing and coping with foreign
imperialism. However, Benjamin Elman rightly points out that such a narrative is misleading because it forgets and represses earlier adaptations of newscientific and technological learning.2 Education in Qing China had witnessedcertain changes due to the influence of Catholic Jesuits, Protestant missionaries, and Western advisers prior to the war. Finally, the book does notconnect Chinese educational reforms with the abolition of the civil service
examination in 1905, ignoring the role of these reforms as key to both the“New Governance” policies of late Qing China and the new Ministry of
Education’s preference for science education and textbooks based on theJapanese scientific system.3 The inclusion of this point would have strengthened the book’s argument that Japan was the main mediator between the West
and Chinese literati and officials during the late Qing period, having replaced
the Christian missionaries and Western advisers in this role. Another interesting point that the book could have raised was the promulgation of government schools and implementation of state curricula in late Qing China, which
the imperial state had never attempted before; prior to the late Qing period,
the state had left the provision of education largely in the hands of affluent
households, monasteries, temples, and private academies.
2 Benjamin A. Elman, “Naval Warfare and the Retraction of China’s SelfStrengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure, 1865–1895,”
Modern Asian Studies 38, 2 (2004): 285.
3 Ibid., p. 323.

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Despite its shortcomings, the book is an eclectic study in its coverage andscope of an often-neglected topic. The book is an important contribution to
the syncretic examination of early Meiji Japan’s educational system andChinese perceptions of it in the monumental period of the late Qing. The
book could also be read as a commentary on the intermediary role of theJapanese in transmitting Western knowledge to China during this period.
CHAN Ying Kit
National University of Singapore