Confucianism at War

1931–1945

Shaun O'Dwyer, Shaun O’Dwyer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781040267059
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Chinese History

This is the first book-length study of wartime Confucianism in any language, providing new insights into key developments in Confucian thought and ideology in East Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.

In standard scholarship on the ideologies driving nation-building and imperialism during the era of Japanese expansionism that began in 1931, Confucianism is rarely referenced and relegated to the background. This volume brings together the work of scholars who argue for a revision of this standard view. It includes studies of Japanese, Chinese, colonial Manchurian, and Korean intellectuals and reformers who contributed to expansionist, collaborationist, or nationalist ideology-building during the war. Contrary to the assumption that Confucianism was an anachronism rendered irrelevant by the Westernizing political reforms and revolutions of the early twentieth century, the chapters in this book show that Confucianism remained a potent and also contested cultural resource for promoting national cohesion, war mobilization and expansionism in East Asia between the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the end of World War II in 1945.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of Asian studies, nationalism studies, postcolonial studies, religious studies, and philosophy. In particular, it is essential reading for those interested in nationalism and modern Confucian thought in East Asia.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: Confucianism at War 1931–1945: A Background Discussion
• 1 On the Contextual Turn of Mencius’s “Kingly Way” in Wartime Japan (1931–1945)
• 2 The Invention and Creation of the “Way”: The Shibunkai’s Discourse on the Kingly Way and Imperial Way after the Establishment of Manchukuo
• 3 Confucianism and Pan-Asianism in Modern Japan
• 4 Confucianism and Wartime State-Building in China: The Case of Filial Piety
• 5 The Shibunkai’s Confucian Diplomacy and the Flight of Kong Decheng
• 6 The Genealogy of Imperial Way Confucianism between Daitō Bunka Gakuin and the Shibunkai
• 7 Reconstructing the Nation: A Critique of Confucianism in Lee Gwang-su’s Political Thought
• 8 Gendered Independence and Submission: Wang Fengyi’s Moral Philosophy of Education and Manchukuo
• 9 Collaboration and Confucianism in Manchukuo, and in China under the Wang Jingwei Regime
• 10 A Grand Tour under the Empire’s Eye: Colonial Landscapes and Assimilation in Shionoya On’s Taiwan Travelogue
• 11 The Contradictions of Confucian Personalism: Yasuoka Masahiro and the Japanese Invasion of Asia (1931–1945)
• 12 Yamato Nadeshiko’s Loyalty to the State: Confucian Rhetoric for Japanese Women in Wartime (1937–1945)
• 13 From the Path of the Superior Person to Control of the Masses: The Revolution in the Rectification of Names and the Debate about Takada Shinji’s Rectification of Names
• 14 Confucianism, Nationalism, and Nihonjinron in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Climate
• Index