ABSTRACT
To be sure, Japanese Buddhist leaders of all sects had established Buddhist "missions" in China, some as early as 1876. 1 The Japanese government lent its support to these efforts; for, as a pan-Asian religion, Buddhism was seen as a useful tool in promoting the unity of East Asian peoples under Japanese hegemony. In addition, from the Meiji period onwards, leading Japanese Buddhists maintained that Buddhism in China and the rest of Asia was backward, passive, and indifferent to social needs while Japanese Mahayana Buddhism was activist, socially engaged, and scientific - the world's only "true Buddhism."2
