And I have to make another vine in this thread because the author of this article talks about something Westerners poorly understand: so-called "Chinese" influence in East Asia. Anyone writing this kind of narrative should be embarrassed for lacking rigour and for being lazy.
Of course, this author (among many others on here) too is enamoured with the UNSTOPPABLE RISE OF CHINA. He seems to think that Japan is embarrassed by the Taika Reforms, a so-called "Chinese import" from the Tang Dynasty.
There are people who argue that Japanese "ultranationalism" is on the rise just because Abe Shinzo waves a figurative phallus to his neighbours & envisions a "beautiful Japan" dominated by modern bureaucratic statism & rotting corpses of keiretsu that rely on foreign labour.
What is really on the rise, and has been in place since 1945, is Atlanticist postwar conservatism. Conservatives think and do things within the framework of liberal democracy) - in that sense they are fundamentally different from the "radical ultranationalist".
Dec 12, 2018 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Thread on why Meiji Japan economically "developed" and why Joseon Korea and Qing China did not.
Interesting subject that doesn't actually get talked about a lot, at least outside of Korean economic departments. I had a conversation with a good friend a while back about this, but I did not really pick up the literature until now.
Nov 19, 2018 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
What is considered "controversial historiography" in East Asia is historiography that delves into the fact that members of the same royal family ruled over what is now Yamato and what is now Baekje, and also the Imperial Family's origins in Buyeo.
It means that part of Korean, Manchurian and some part of Eastern Chinese territories are de jure property of His Imperial Majesty. All of these do hinge on a big "if", but these are what are in genealogical records (the Shinsen Shojiroku). You can't really argue against them.
Nov 16, 2018 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
The notion of Japan as a monolithic entity is a weird stereotype that most people have. All they have to do is read the Kojiki and they can see before their very eyes, the supremacy of the Yamato kingdom over several smaller polities.
Izumo itself has been a controversial region of Japan (Yamato state) for literally two millennia now. It represents a jarring counterargument to Japan as a single homogeneous entity, and to the centralization of the Emperor into a state.
Nov 12, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Since somehow it has become popular to hate Korea around here for their behaviour - here is a thread I made about East Asian historical education which heavily influences Korean mentality.
From discussions with other Koreans about education, it seems that the colonial period (1910-1945) overshadows everything else in Korean history. Emphasis is given to it. Modern Koreans don't really care about Goguryeo, Baekje, or even Dangun.
Nov 9, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Gee, maybe you shouldn't have made the Imperial House an organ of the American-occupied government, and made it autonomous like it traditionally was.
japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/11/0…
The history set by the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki no longer has any credence. Neither does the kokutai. It has been absorbed by secularist thought. The "death of Japan" that can be implicated from Nishida's writings could very well be near if things like these keep up.
Oct 3, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The essence of Japanese politics lies sunk in the Geum River - in muddy depths of Hakusukinoe - in the division between Baekje and anti-Baekje. King Ujia lives still through His Imperial Majesty and in the fiery spirit of Goguryeo in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
👀👀👀 It would be most prudent for Prime Minister Abe to answer to the call of his ancestors... the gozoku of Yamato beckons to honour its ancient alliance with the lost kingdom of Baekje... and initiate the Baekje Restoration. Gwangju will once again rejoice.
Aug 6, 2018 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
I don't think I've really met any "Chinese" who could really explain to me what "Han" or "Huaxia" identity is.
It's funny to me that most of the West, and even a lot of overseas Chinese, view the body of China as a monolithic entity. In some sense Westerners buy into the rhetoric that mainstream Chinese nationalists like to perpetuate: That China is ethnically and culturally homogeneous.
Jul 24, 2018 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
"Sokichi Tsuda's point was to institutionalise the Emperor. He supported the Emperor system by purging the Chinese components of Shinto records, thereby differentiating Japan from both China and the West."
"This method of differentiation led him to a series of iconoclastic attacks on any possible Chinese sources of Shinto, especially Taoism and Confucianism. By preserving the Emperor outside Shinto, Tsuda was able to provide the Japanese nation with a pure identity of its own."
Jun 6, 2018 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
There seems to be a pretty bad feedback loop between the Chinese, Korean and Japanese educational systems about historical narrative, particularly regarding things like atrocities.
The general Chinese and Korean historical narratives (these two are not the same, but they share general characteristics) are based off a victim narrative, wherein they were victims of imperialism and such.
