Paper short abstract:

The Meiji period saw Japan increasingly conflict with China over the Korean Peninsula leading to the Sino-Japanese War. Building on existing scholarship this paper traces the treatment of both Chinese and Korean themes in youth-oriented publications such as Shōnen Zasshi, and Shō Kokumin.

Paper long abstract:

Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, relations with Japan’s most proximate neighbours, China and Korea, deteriorated increasingly over time. Initially Japan presented itself to the Qing and Korean courts as an Empire in its own right, which was rejected as it flew in the face of the orthodox view of the political hierarchy of East Asia. Relations with China became increasingly fractious as Japan engaged in military adventurism with the Taiwan Expedition of 1874, formalised annexation of the Ryukyu’s in 1879 and then conflicted with China over securing influence on the Korean Peninsula. Despite a relative calm that emerged in the wake of Japan’s involvement in the unsuccessful Kapsin coup d’état in 1884, when the Japanese became embroiled following the Donghak Rebellion in June of 1894 it led to full out conflict in the Sino-Japanese War.

As Donald Keene outlined in the preamble of his influential essay “The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and its Cultural Effects in Japan”, the Japanese continued right up to the outbreak of the war to maintain profound respect for Chinese classical culture - what changed was the perception of the Chinese as custodians of that tradition. As he covers at considerable length, there was a stark transition in the manner that the Chinese were depicted, whether it be in jingoistic newspaper reports, popular dramatic performances or nishikie depictions during the course of the war.

Although Keene was very thorough in his coverage of how the aforementioned media characterised the Chinese during the war, there remains space to engage with a genre of magazine publication that as yet has had limited academic attention. In both the lead up to the war and during the conflict itself, magazines aimed at youth were a significant vehicle for codifying the new conception of the East Asian order shaping the perceptions for future generations. With a particular focus on Shōnen Zasshi, Eisai Shinshi, Shōnen Sekai and Shō Kokumin, this paper traces the treatment of both Chinese and Korean themes over that period, with a particular emphasis on how Korea comes to be re-styled as the object of Japan’s ‘civilizing’ mission.