ABSTRACT

In this chapter, Iwo Amelung looks at processes of appropriation – a key term in this volume – which he exemplifies by examining an emerging welfare sector in both Japan and China, as well the establishment of a legal framework for the protection of cultural heritage. Both Japanese and Chinese actors have appropriated global concepts of welfare to assert their international position while simultaneously linking these concepts to their respective country’s rich tradition of charity and philanthropy. While the appropriation of the concept of cultural heritage has been closely related to the emergence of a modern nation state in both Japan and China, the terminologies and institutions have developed along different trajectories in the two countries. The Chinese laws for the protection of cultural heritage can, in particular, be interpreted as resistant appropriation. Early on, these laws aimed to fend off foreign spoliation of Chinese cultural artefacts, which, over time, increasingly came to be considered indispensable for the emergence of a national identity – an idea which was itself appropriated from the West.