東アジアの緊張と日本の内なる要因East Asian Tensions and Japan’s Internal Causes
Recently, the heightening of geopolitical tensions in East Asia and the consequential fluctuation of economic indicators are being loudly proclaimed. However, a thoughtful reader will realize that this is not solely due to external factors. The fact is that the governing systems of each country, strained by institutional fatigue, need to prolong their own lives, and so a dynamic is at work in which hardline postures are struck and the Taiwan issue is tied to the defense of vested interests. There is not the slightest need for each of us to be tossed about by such a dynamic.
If one adopts this perspective thoroughly, the view of the world changes drastically. However, a curious phenomenon emerges here. It is the fact that the selfish rampage of these policymakers is conflated with the collective will of the people, and the short-circuited identification of "Japan = the Japanese government" or "China = the Chinese government" has become far too common. This is a phenomenon in which state and individual appear to overlap, what we might call an "absence of the individual." We can ask: "Why are state and individual so naturally identified with each other?" There are deep-rooted civilizational factors lurking here that cannot be dismissed as simple political problems. That is precisely why one must not be misled by the immediate noise of today’s Japan-China relations or world affairs. The only rein capable of untangling this knotted thread is history.
Looking back, there is the fact that Japan has received an extremely deep and immeasurable influence from its neighbor, China, since ancient times. Contemporary governing systems are reluctant to speak of this, but in recent years it has begun to be shown that the roots of many people on the Japanese archipelago include genetic lineages from the East Asian continent. I have reached a similar conclusion through the process of my own fieldwork investigating the Jomon, Yayoi, and Kofun transition, three critical eras in ancient Japanese history. In other words, the massive fact that influence from China cannot be denied becomes a "wall" for policymakers; yet, simultaneously, the problem is: why, then, is Japan so completely different from China? I feel that this ambiguity is being conveniently utilized by policymakers and is wriggling at the root cause of the deterioration in Japan-China relations. My position converges on the point that there is absolutely no need for Japan and China to quarrel. The question is, "Who is this quarrel for?"
To begin with, to dismiss the obvious traces of Chinese origin carved into that historical and cultural stratum as mere "imitation" or "copying" is far too shallow; it must be called intellectual sloth. This is where I stand. Even now, the impression of "China = copy culture" is voiced in many parts of the world, and it is worth saying plainly that there is a large trap here.
Readers of an older generation may remember that before China’s international rise, Japan was also long ridiculed and disparaged by the West with the nuance of "Japan = copy culture." However, that label of "Japan can only imitate other countries" vanished before anyone noticed, and eventually, it came to be perceived affirmatively as "uniquely Japanese culture," presenting a situation where people around the world now consume it in massive quantities. The fact that the children of people who once stubbornly rejected Japanese anime, manga, and game culture as "not culture for adults" can now be seen daily walking happily with goods purchased in bulk at a Pokémon Center, teaches us just how dangerous fixed values can be.
Consider the legendary rock bands of the past that once shone brightly; everyone begins a legend by "imitating" and "copying" someone else. The difference from this individual dimension is that, in Japan's case, this was done at a national dimension, and China has done this at an even more colossal national dimension. In other words, just like the Japan of the past, I believe there is a very high possibility that China will enter a dimension where it sheds the globally held impression of being a "copy." At this time, the one thing I can say to readers from the perspective of Japanese history, which has had a long relationship with China, is the lesson Japan knows painfully well: "Do not underestimate China." Personally, if I look back at history from the perspective of civilization, China is the only one in the world that, while repeating the cycle of rise and fall, has risen from the ashes multiple times to connect its civilization to the present. By looking not at the China of today, but at China through the viewpoint of the great cycle of history and contemplating where they are heading, a completely different real image becomes visible. At this moment, unfortunately, existing linear thinking is shattered.
Of course, China’s domestic situation has become extremely unstable, and as an outlet for public dissatisfaction, a neighboring country cast as an enemy is convenient for its leadership, as is a forceful claim to Taiwan. On the other side, if China takes a hardline stance toward Japan, Japan’s leadership gains an excuse for its long-cherished defense tax increase, which is very convenient for maintaining the regime. In short, I see this as a relationship of complicity; just as Ukraine has become a battlefield as a sacrifice for the great powers of the US and Russia, there is a possibility that Taiwan could become a sacrifice in the exact same structure. In fact, having many friends in Taiwan, I have asked them several times, but no matter how I think about it, the young people of Taiwan have no intention of going to war with China, and economically Taiwan is too closely tied to China to survive by decoupling. In other words, we must think, "Who is wishing for a Taiwan war?" The question then points toward something that is not in East Asia.
And China, with its one-party dictatorship, has a supreme strength. It is the ability to pour resources centrally under the strong system of the Communist Party into the technology and knowledge it has ambitiously accumulated rapidly, even while being ridiculed for imitating other countries. And I believe the greatest reason why assessments of China so often go badly astray is that people look only at the form of modern China. Here a strong philosophy of Chinese origin, still not widely understood, comes into view. That is Confucianism. Confucianism has exerted strong influence over China, Korea, and Japan, which are often called the "Confucian sphere," and all three have been shaped by it at a very deep level. In other words, China’s greatest strength lies in the magnificent potential to mount the technology and knowledge accumulated through imitation of other countries onto the OS called Confucianism, which has continued since ancient China, and to present culture one after another from here on.
On the other hand, no matter how much overwhelming mass of culture was transmitted from China to Japan, Japan did not apply pure, one-hundred-percent Chinese culture to itself and nurture it as "the same as China." It is precisely here that the core of Japan's survival strategy lies, the singular survival algorithm of the base system called Japan.
Looking back at history, China’s massive culture can be arranged as an "information compression technology" in kanji (Chinese characters), the ritsuryo (律令) legal and administrative system as a governance mechanism, and "Confucianism" (or Buddhism) as a spiritual OS. When these flowed in, how did people in Japan handle them? I chose the word "tuning" here on purpose to suggest that it was neither mere passive adaptation nor uncritical acceptance. When analyzing this phenomenon from the perspective of the distinctive capacity for cultural remixing shown over the course of history, the concept of tuning emerges as the most appropriate functional expression. And the code running through this tuning is survival strategy. I reject the conventional, shallow view that "the Japanese are good at mixing foreign cultures," and consider instead that they tune foreign cultures into the form best suited to themselves for the sake of survival. This is the latent strength of this place.
When the culture of the Japanese archipelago takes a foreign element into its own OS (its basic thought), it chews it thoroughly, filters out impurities, and rewrites the source code into a form suited to its own climate and bodily sense. Even in world history, it stands out as a place with an extremely refined mechanism of tuning. To put it in a more Japanese way, it is a mechanism that takes the dry, robust logic of the continent, "ferments" it to match the humid climate of Japan, and transforms it into a completely different, high-function nutrient. This conversion process is the true essence of Japanese culture, but the reason this can be done is that the purpose of "for the sake of survival" lies at the root.
Among these colossal influences from China, the greatest source that acted most deeply on the framework of thinking and the design of social systems, creating the context of Japanese history, is Confucianism. Particularly in the Edo period, the role played by Confucianism was decisive, and one can understand how immense the effect of Confucianism is. The fact that the Edo Shogunate by the Tokugawa Shogun family could be maintained for about 300 years was because of Confucianism, and I feel the spiritual strength of Confucianism anew.
And just as many Japanese in the Edo period were impressed by Confucianism, I myself, in tracing back history, felt a very sharp system thinking in the philosophy of Confucius that went beyond mere moral laws, and was deeply impressed. Confucius, a rare sage who survived the chaotic turbulent times of the late Spring and Autumn period of ancient China, when the existing order collapsed. Eventually, when his wisdom crossed the sea and entered the completely different soil of Japan, what happened there? It was the very process in which the tough seed of thought left by Confucius transformed into "something Japanese" within the Japanese climate and mental structure, and was absorbed. Only through this process did foreign thought become our flesh and blood for the first time and begin to function as a unique culture. That is precisely why thought is an OS.
In the modern age, understanding, reinterpreting, or redefining Confucianism becomes a very important basis for us to survive the turbulent era. Generally, teachings of Confucianism are often thought of as outdated feudal morals or moldy sermons about respecting elders, and tend to be set aside by many, but that is a gross misunderstanding. Certainly, it is a fact that such aspects exist, and rather historically it is natural that those points were emphasized from the perspective of governance philosophy for policymakers. However, the opportunity for this perspective to be thorough was very much due to the emergence of Zhu Xi when hegemony shifted from the Northern Song to the Southern Song. But in reality, Zhu Xi excessively interpreted Confucianism conveniently for regime philosophy, and the reaction against that appeared as Wang Yangming, a Ming scholar revered by Japanese predecessors who possessed a strong will to create the future, including myself.
Essentially, inexhaustible wisdom is buried in Confucianism. Until now, Asian religions and philosophies such as Buddhism have been accepted around the world to some extent, but that has largely meant the traditions of the Indian region, and the deep wisdom of East Asia is still not well known. While Buddhist lineages have been evaluated as a "brain maintenance function" in contexts like Mindfulness and Zen, the fact that the true value of Confucianism has not been installed at all seems like a colossal loss. In the first place, Confucianism is not a religion like Buddhism, nor is it something to be learned, nor even material for judgment. It is an actual practice (pratique) for surviving chaotic reality, backed by extremely deep wisdom beginning with Confucius who survived an era of upheaval, and an interface for connecting society and the self.
And this system of thinking connecting from Confucius becomes a tough weapon for modern people to break through the sense of entrapment they face. Its essence is summarized in a famous passage in the Analects where Confucius is said to have looked back on his own life.
"At fifteen, I set my heart on learning." (吾十有五而志于学)
"At thirty, I stood firm." (三十而立)
"At forty, I had no doubts." (四十而不惑)
"At fifty, I knew the Mandate of Heaven." (五十而知天命)
"At sixty, my ear was attuned." (六十而耳順)
"At seventy, I could follow my heart's desire without overstepping the line." (七十而従心所欲、不踰矩)
To grasp this series of processes as merely "goals for each age" is an interpretation far too linear and boring. If we read this as a modern survival strategy, Confucius is presenting here a roadmap for implementing and updating wisdom over a life. In other words, I feel that Confucius is strongly asserting the message: "Do not stop in the same place." The following is my unique interpretation.
First, "At fifteen, I set my heart on learning" is the phase of resolving to learn to build one's own thought (OS). Next, "At thirty, I stood firm" refers to an experimental state where a system based on unique hypotheses (doubts) is temporarily completed and begins to operate autonomously while keeping a distance from systems of others, society, and the world. However, the pivot of this turning point is "making the resolution to live one's own life." At this time, sharp readers will realize that Confucius does not view life linearly, and furthermore, that the vector reverses. The fulcrum where this vector crosses and becomes non-linear is actually "At fifty, I knew the Mandate of Heaven" (tenmei, 天命). To paraphrase in a modern style, it is like saying that "At fifteen...," "At thirty...," and "At forty..." exist in order to know "tenmei" at fifty and live according to it.
Contrary to what many people feel, the logic of Confucianism is actually not esoteric. What Confucius is saying is simple and clear: a proposition that everyone should know their tenmei and live to fulfill it. However, if this logic is installed in people, policymakers cannot maintain a unified governance system. Therefore, the thoughts of Confucius and Mencius were decorated in the process of passing through ages, and hardened into self-serving logic contaminated by interpretations convenient for the policymakers of the times. But as mentioned before, "Japan = Japanese Government" does not exist. We, each individual, are not born and do not die for the sake of maintaining a regime or system. To fulfill the "tenmei"—the only thing everyone is born with, and which is the supreme individuation—is our original way of life. Confucius's proposition converges here.
That is why one goes through "At fifteen..." to "At thirty..." and finally arrives at "At forty, I had no doubts." Directly translated, it means doubts disappear, but in short, it is the realization of a state where one is not bewildered or tossed about by "other things" such as other people, society, the government, or the world at all, and invests all time into resources that one ought to do oneself. In other words, regarding the universal religious question "Why does doubt arise?" which also underlies Buddhism, Confucius grasps it in a spiral shape from knowing tenmei as the non-linear fulcrum, and has already provided an answer. In terms of system thinking, it means that debugging has been completed, processing speed and judgment precision have maximized, and thereby, one is in a state where one can output the optimal solution immediately without being misled by noise. Moreover, since that optimal solution is intuition based on wisdom and experience, it holds the potential to open up the future significantly.
The reason why the masses of modern people engage in meditation daily is to avoid being misled by noise, but actually, before that, the "process" to reach there is missing for most people. That is why it ends up merely being consumed as fashion or a trend, unable to reach true introspection, and despite meditating, we have a state where masses of people are "straying." As an aside, in Japanese, meditation and straying are written with different characters (瞑想 and 迷走) but are read the same way, meiso. One sound carries both meanings.
Through such processes, one reaches "At fifty, I knew the Mandate of Heaven." At a glance, it might seem like the linear (upward sloping) thinking code of modern people, but as stated just now, such a thinking code is not Confucius. Actually, it was Zhu Xi who rewrote it into this thinking code and held the most immense influence. Therefore, Confucianism reinterpreted by Zhu Xi has extremely good compatibility with the governance principles of modern society. That is proven by the Tokugawa Shogunate, which applied Zhu Xi's school to governance principles in Japan. The reason why a certain number of techno-libertarians in the US today idealize and praise China’s governance method is that, although they likely do not see it, they sense that the code rewritten as Zhu Xi’s Confucianism is flowing firmly at the source as China’s cultural capital. They view that as a Utopia.
However, regrettably, the essence is not in Zhu Xi. In Japan Zhu Xi’s Confucianism is called shushigaku (on the Chinese side, it is called "Cheng-Zhu School" and Zhu Xi is not treated alone; this is because Zhu Xi’s influence was most immense in Japan), but Zhu Xi has doubts. Since doubt did not vanish from the person himself and he did not reach the point of knowing tenmei, Zhu Xi shallowly converted the "tenmei" he could not understand into devoting oneself to the regime, transforming the system structure into one where people fall into even deeper doubt. In other words, the regime philosophy by Shushigaku codes doubt. The reason I constantly assert that there is much to learn from the rise and fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate lies here. It was Wang Yangming who fiercely rebelled against this Zhu Xi-style system. Wang Yangming strongly criticized the point that the Zhu Xi-style system realized the "self-domestication" of people, and proposed withdrawal from the system to people through actual practice (pratique). If you visit current Japan, it is obvious at a glance, but there has likely never been a time when people were pressed so hard toward "self-domestication" by a Zhu Xi-style system as now. Please remember that a Wang Yangming-style reaction will begin in Japan from now on.
Thus, when one reaches "At fifty, I knew the Mandate of Heaven," the process itself of establishing the self up to this point vanishes, and one acquires the realization of what role one should play within a larger external environment. This external environment does not mean just the country, society, or the world; rather, I consider it to be "place". And upon thoroughly knowing what only oneself can do, one contributes thoroughly to the Place. At this time, the one who has already known tenmei has passed through "At fifteen...," "At thirty...," and "At forty...," so it is not devotion or submission for system maintenance where the self is lost in the Zhu Xi sense, but fulfilling the mission as non-dependence and non-submission with the creativity to design everything from the interior of the self. The true meaning of "cultivate oneself, set the household in order, govern the state, and bring peace to the world" (shushin saika chikoku heitenka, 修身斉家治国平天下) touched upon in a previous article should become visible as having important meaning here.
Thus, one reaches "At sixty, my ear was attuned," acquiring the tolerance to accept all words of others and unexpected situations smoothly and immediately, rather than rejecting them as errors. And finally, one reaches the stage of "At seventy, I could follow my heart's desire without overstepping the line." This points to a state where one's own desires and social rules (constraints) are completely synchronized, reaching the domain of full automation where one continues to choose the optimal solution without consciousness. Furthermore, caution is needed; desire here is completely different from the desire we assume. In other words, it is intuition springing from deep introspection and experience.
What I want to emphasize most here is the perspective of life design. Modern people still cannot shake the archaic habit of grasping life and growth as an upward-sloping linear graph. We remain trapped in the obsession with linear development, where time flows in a straight line from past to future, and results appear in proportion to effort. However, such thinking itself is already a relic of ancient times, nothing more than an archaeological product. Today, millennials and Gen Z in developed countries are questioning the system built on this old thinking and driving important shifts against it, but can they reconsider Confucius as a nonlinear spiral?
The process Confucius presents is a proposal of a complex process like a spiral structure where one destroys and reconstructs the once-completed system many times according to changes in age and environment, and while conducting experiments of making it vanish moment by moment, updates it to a higher dimension. A nonlinear system that ascends while going back and forth lies at the core of his thinking.
Life design premised on linear growth is an overly vulnerable program in the modern uncertain environment, and is the risk itself that threatens future survival. This is because, in a world that has already reached extreme instability, the rigidity peculiar to linear models invites a fatal error where the entire system collapses with just a single stumble.
Personally, I am convinced that the understanding of this nonlinearity contained in Confucius's thought can become the most robust survival strategy in an unpredictable era. Japanese people possess an archive of vast wisdom and experience of having continuously "tuned" this high-level abstract concept of Chinese origin as the ethics of bushido and of merchants, and bringing it into daily life, as concrete actual practice (pratique).
We should re-implement this ancient wisdom in the modern context right now. Considering the geopolitical context or cultural affinity, readers around the world should be able to install this thought far more smoothly by receiving it as something chewed and "tuned" after passing through the filter of Japan once, rather than receiving it directly from the original China. In other words, moving forward, I foresee a future where Confucianism as a usable function—though not of Japanese origin, but uniquely sublimated in Japan—spreads to the world via Japanese people, just like Zen did in the past. What is important is not to follow the tracks of consumption as aesthetics that Zen fell into. We must demonstrate the possibility of it being implemented in diverse forms as a thoroughly "usable tool" for modern people to be released from the spell of linear thinking and to design a richer and tougher life.
You have a tenmei unique to you. There should be no life more boring than dying without knowing it, or without fulfilling it. Confucius's words have already shown the answer to the endlessly circling question of why humans are human. And I am convinced that this is the basic principle of survival strategy that all of humanity, who must live in the inevitable era where 99% will be replaced by AI, must understand as quickly as possible.