14. The Qin and Han Economies in Modern Chinese and Japanese Historiographies

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed some fundamental changes in the East Asian world, not only in terms of political, institutional, societal, and economic aspects, but also of historiography. The defeat of China by the Western powers during the two Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860) shocked the entire East Asian world. Some Chinese politicians and intellectuals began to realize the urgent need for reform. The Westernization Movement (also known as the Self-Strengthening Movement) which took place from 1861 to 1895, covering aspects such as diplomacy, military, and industrial production, was a response to the challenges posed by Western powers. However, the movement eventually ended in the Sino-Japanese War with the defeat of China in 1895, which seemed to suggest that Japan was more successful in its modernization scheme than China. One of the results of this war was the shift in intellectual and cultural exchange between China and Japan. China had long been the cultural center of the East Asian World and deemed a model by its neighbors, such as Japan and Korea. Already in the seventh century, Japan had developed a tradition of kundoku 訓読 (‘reading by gloss’), which combines reading and translation of Chinese texts into a single integrated act. The early Japanese could use this method to comprehend Chinese texts as well as produce new texts.1 During the Tokugawa 徳川 period (1600–1868), kangaku 漢学 (Chinese learning), which was mainly based on Confucian (ru 儒) learning, had formed the basis of the mainstream ideology among the educated in Japan. Although the defeat of China during the Opium Wars greatly surprised the Japanese, it did not stop them from learning from the Chinese and absorbing Western knowledge through Chinese works. A significant shift in intellectual and cultural exchange between these two countries occurred after the defeat of China during the Sino-Japanese War. Many Chinese intellectuals turned to see the ‘modernized’ Japan as their new model.2 New ideas and terminologies from the West flooded into China through the translations