Traditional And Modern Coupling

Shanghai is a unique city both in modern China and in the Sino-Japanese relationship. The immigration from other provinces of China and abroad jointly made Shanghai a internationalized metropolis, in which the Japanese residents in Shanghai is a distinctive group, either of all the Japanese residents in China, or of all foreign residents in Shanghai. A Japanese community took shape during late 19th century and early 20th century, and expanded rapidly into the biggest foreigner community of Shanghai. Many scholars paid much attention to the Japanese Residents'Association of Shanghai and the Japanese Street Federation of Shanghai, two major social organizations among Shanghai Japanese residents. We don't know much about many other residents'organizations however because of resource limitations. The Japanese residents in Shanghai formed varieties of groups not only for protecting private interests, but also helping their nation to build the colonial empire in China. To study these organizations and the Japanese community in Shanghai likes observing the structure of Japanese society through a magnifying glass.This dissertation narrates the memory of how Japanese residents'social organization formed, developed and acted in modern Shanghai, trying to disclose the multiple and covert ways through which Japan built its colonial empire in China, thereby construing the inner dialectic logic and character of modern Japan history. The whole dissertation falls into three parts of preface, chapters and conclusion. The preface introduces the purpose and significance of this subject, the situation of study home and abroad and the structure of the whole dissertation.Chapter one examines the transition of idea and practice of foreign policy in modern Japan in the rising of colonialism globally. Japan was forced to open the gateway to western countries and lost much sovereignty as the other Asian kingdoms, but since it modernized and westernized rapidly since the Meiji Reformation, it applied the western gun-boat policy and colonialism on neighboring countries to build an empire of itself.Chapter two analyzes the "Shanghai Consciousness" of Japanese. If Shanghai was place where the Japanese elites experienced a "modern Western" life before the Meiji Reformation, the chaotic space of Shanghai tempted large number of ordinary Japanese people. An upsurge of historical consciousness among Shanghai Japanese in the early 1940s was simply the swelling of self-awareness, and they still identify Shanghai as their native town, which are both another kind of "Orientalism"Chapter three to chapter seven deal with the forming, evolution and swelling of Japanese community in Shanghai during middle 19th century and middle 20th century in the background of changing Sino-Japanese relation. The establishment, transition and conformity of all kinds of Japanese residents'organization in Shanghai and their structure and function are also discussed.Chapter eight elaborates on how the relation between Shanghai Japanese community and the International Settlement in Shanghai changed with the rise of Japan's power in the world.The conclusion part traced back to the origin of the distinctiveness of Japanese among the Shanghai foreigners, pointing out that the relative occlusion of Japanese community in Shanghai, the strictness of their organizing and strong political hue of their status all origin in the collective-patriarchalism tradition of Japan society. The "longitudinal" structure of traditional patriarchal Japanese society made modern Japan rise abruptly, while it is also through this longitudinal structure that Fascism spread rapidly before World Warâ…¡, which made Japan end in total failure. Japan absorbed alien civilization several times in history, but this traditional social structure never altered, even during its modernization process. Whether or not Japan could sublate this existing tradition is the key to changing its tragic fate in modern time.