The politics of imagining Asia: a genealogical analysis

Following the recent trends of globalization and regionalization, the idea of Asia has been revived in political, economic, and cultural fields. This essay examines some of the various uses of this idea in modern East Asian and especially Chinese history. The essay consists of four parts. Part One discusses the derivativeness of the idea of Asia, that is, how this idea developed from modern European history, especially the nineteenth-century European narrative of 'World History,' and it points out how the early modern Japanese 'theory of shedding Asia' derived from this narrative. Part Two studies the relationship between the idea of Asia and two forms of populism against the background of the Chinese and Russian revolutions - one, exemplified by Russian Narodism, attempted to use Asian particularity to challenge modern capitalism; the other, represented by Sun Yat-sen, attempted to construct a nation-state according to a socialist revolutionary program, and to develop agricultural capitalism under the particular social conditions of Asia. Part Three considers the differences and tensions between the 'Great Asia-ism' of Chinese revolutionaries such as Sun and the Japanese idea of East Asia (Toyo),and it discusses the need to overcome the categories of nation-state and international relations in order to understand the question of Asia. Part Four discusses the need to go beyond early modern maritime-centered accounts, nationalist frameworks, and Eurocentrism in re-examining the question of Asia through historical research by focusing on the particular legacies of Asia and Toyo (such as the tributary system) and the problems of 'early modernity.'