From the Standpoint of Cultural Transmission and Inheritance, the Chinese Must Learn from the Japanese

Without the Japanese, even if China's May Fourth Movement had occurred, it probably would not have taken its present form. No matter how much entanglement there is between the Chinese and the Japanese, this point of history cannot be denied. And this is just one example of the reversal in Sino-Japanese cultural transmission that began in the late Qing.

For roughly a thousand years, the Japanese were nothing but elementary students before the Chinese. But everything changed in a legendary shipwreck. When the great Mongol armada became shark food, the Japanese suddenly felt they had earned the capital for fantasy: "The entire Eurasian continent lay beneath the Mongol iron heel, yet the Japanese survived thanks to a maritime disaster -- could we truly be the chosen ones?" Watching the celestial empire they once worshipped being trampled by barbarians time and again, the Japanese went from dumplings to darlings.

In the second half of the 19th century, when the Chinese discovered in Japan the Yogacara Buddhist texts that had been transmitted during the Tang Dynasty but lost in China, the Chinese were finally shocked to find that after the barbarization by the Yuan and Qing, those Chinese cultural treasures thought to have been lost forever had been so well preserved in the hands of the "dwarf pirates." Here it must be mentioned that after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, both Korea and Japan only nominally acknowledged the Qing while internally still regarding the Ming as the legitimate continuation of Chinese civilization. One must understand that for over a thousand years, Korea, Japan, and the countries of Southeast Asia all regarded China as the celestial empire and their suzerain state. This is the truth of history.

Later, everything changed. When the Japanese discovered that the Western terminology they had coined became the new vernacular vocabulary of the celestial empire, they again felt the same sensation as when the Mongol armada fed the sharks. History has consistently proven that to conquer the Japanese, one can only do so through culture -- just as they prostrated themselves before the cultural radiance of the great Tang. If even culture cannot command the Japanese's respect, on what basis would you demand their respect?

Culture is always paramount. America's most powerful weapon is not nuclear weapons but McDonald's and Hollywood. When the Chinese once again make the Japanese come across the seas as the Tang Dynasty envoys once did, China will be truly powerful again. Now, regardless of whether everyone is comfortable hearing this, it still must be said: from the standpoint of cultural transmission and inheritance, the Chinese must learn from the Japanese.