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National Thoght and Empire - Tsuda Sokichi's Writings on China and Asia in the 1930s-
Journal of Humanities
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Sokichi Tsuda is one of the representative historians of Japan in the 20thcentury whose view is interpreted quite differently between Korea and Japan. The Korean history circles say Sokichi Tsuda distorted the ancient history ofKorea with his “colonial view of history” as he had proposed that Mimana (任那; rènnà; or imna in Korean) was a Japanese colony on the Korean peninsulathat existed from the 3rd to the 6th century. The Japanese counterparts,however, have a favorable opinion that Tsuda confronted with the Emperorsystem of Japan and took a critical view of the Asia-Pacific War through hisobjective and scientific description of history. This study is aimed at chasingTsuda’s basic view of civilization and history based on his writings byovercoming the dichotomy with regard to Tsuda and the Tsuda school ofhistory (津田史學): “a historian with a colonial view of history” vs. “anintellect of resistance.” This paper intends to closely examine Tsuda’s theory ofChina and of the non-existence of the East he maintained in the 1930s and tofind out that the national thoughts of Japan as an individual civilization - whichTsuda ultimately tried to establish - was fully based on his view of history based on which he took an affirmative view of imperialism of Japan that hadcolonized Asian nations and invaded China.
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