ABSTRACT
Due to the increasing scale of integration in our times, there is a strong desire to get to grips with the unsettling impact of globalisation on the one hand and the resurgence of nationalism and ethnicity on the other. The Japanese case in its historical perspective constitutes in many ways a precursor to the rapid and extensive transformation we are undergoing today in so many parts of the world. Ever since the Meiji Restoration many Japanese have continuously expressed a strong desire for their country to become a fully fledged and ‘civilised’ member of world society. In doing so they soon found themselves faced by the problem of how to position Japan vis-à-vis such entities as ‘Asia’, ‘the West’ and ‘the world’. Sharon Nolte has designated the tension between nationalism and internationalism that emanated in the process as ‘a problem of intense concern’ and ‘one of the central themes of modern Japanese thought’.1 And, indeed, when one takes a sweeping look at the history of modern Japan one cannot but notice how successive generations of intellectuals have been continuously struggling to create an integrated conception of how a politically and/or culturally autonomous Japan might relate to a pluralistic and interactive world.
