Throughout China’s long history, the country has had to deal with numerous repeated attacks from those they call barbarians. For the most part, these barbarians have come from the North, and this has created a duality between the North and South of China. This duality can be clearly seen in the historiography of China, and it is a cornerstone of Shiratori’s argument about the evolution of Confucianism in China and Japan, and how, because of this dualism and conflict, the Confucian beliefs of China were inferior to those of Japan, thus justifying Japanese superiority, at least in terms of Confucius history as it applies to the ideal of toyo. This post will discuss this North-South duality that Shiratori discusses, first by discussing his viewpoint on China’s Confucian growth, then Japan’s, all of which will be from Shiratori’s perspective.
First, we must discuss Shiratori’s perspective of Confucian growth in China throughout the country’s history. Shiratori describes that, as a result of the constant attacks from the North (discussed above) the Chinese needed to do something to better live as a society.((Tanaka, Steven, Japan’s Orient: Rendering the past as history, 1993, p.116)) They turned to Confucianism as a system of values that might provide social cohesion.1 However, it was this very belief that led to their corruption. Shiratori claims that, as the values of Confucianism became more and more institutionalized in China, then the Confucian ideals lost their substance and value, instead becoming a prop used by the nation.2 Because of this, the nation and its Confucian ideals were unable to progress, a failure to change that Shiratori uses to justify the “decline of China”. ((Ibid, p.116)
Shiratori contrasts this with the evolution of Confucianism in Japan. Due to Japan being an island, it did not have to deal with constant barbarian encounters like the Chinese did. ((Ibid, p.116) This was the nail that separated Japan and China and said nail that allowed for the nation of Japan to grow. Shiratori describes this growth as progressive in nature, as it allowed for the acceptance of ideas and objects from other cultures. ((Ibid, p.116) Shiratori claims that it is this ideal that allowed for the separation of Japanese Confucianism and Chinese Confucianism, which was central to his own ideas about the superiority of Japan. ((Ibid, p.116)
In conclusion, Shiratori’s analysis of Confucianism for China and Japan centers on the idea that, despite the similarities between the two, they operated quite differently. The main cause for this difference was the North-South dualism in China, caused by numerous barbarian invasions, which corrupted their Confucian ideals and caused them to stagnate, while Japan did not have this issue, and thus was progressive.