At the dawn of the 1930s a new empowered and liberated image of the female was taking root in popular culture in the West. This 'modern woman' archetype was also penetrating into Eastern cultures, however, challenging the Chinese and Japanese historical norm of the woman as homemaker, servant or geisha. Through a focus on the writings of the Western women who engaged with the Far East, and the Eastern writers and personalities who reacted to this new global gender communication by forming their own separate identities, Katrina Gulliver reveals the complex redefining of the self taking place in a crucial time of political and economic upheaval. Including an analysis of the work of Nobel Prize laureate Pearl S. Buck, The Modern Woman in China and Japan is an important contribution to gender studies and will appeal to historians and scholars of China and East Asia as well as to those studying Asian and American literature.

A Financial Times “Summer Books” Selection “Will become required reading.” —Times Literary Supplement “Elegantly written...with a confidence that comes from decades of deep research on the topic, illustrating how influence and power have waxed and waned between the two countries.” —Rana Mitter, Financial Times China and Japan have cultural and political connections that stretch back fifteen hundred years, but today their relationship is strained. China’s military buildup deeply worries Japan, while Japan’s brutal occupation of China in World War II remains an open wound. In recent years both countries have insisted that the other side must openly address the flashpoints of the past before relations can improve. Boldly tackling the most contentious chapters in this long and tangled relationship, Ezra Vogel uses the tools of a master historian to examine key turning points in Sino–Japanese history. Gracefully pivoting from past to present, he argues that for the sake of a stable world order, these two Asian giants must reset their relationship. “A sweeping, often fascinating, account...Impressively researched and smoothly written.” —Japan Times “Vogel uses the powerful lens of the past to frame contemporary Chinese–Japanese relations...[He] suggests that over the centuries—across both the imperial and the modern eras—friction has always dominated their relations.” —Sheila A. Smith, Foreign Affairs

China today is never out of the news: from human rights controversies and the continued legacy of Tiananmen Square, to global coverage of the Beijing Olympics, and the Chinese 'economic miracle'. It seems a country of contradictions: a peasant society with some of the world's most futuristic cities, heir to an ancient civilization that is still trying to find a modern identity. This Very Short Introduction offers the reader with no previous knowledge of China a variety of ways to understand the world's most populous nation, giving a short, integrated picture of modern Chinese society, culture, economy, politics and art. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

In Parting the Mists, Aida Yuen Wong makes a convincing argument that the forging of a national tradition in modern China was frequently pursued in association with rather than in rejection of Japan. The focus of her book is on Japan’s integral role in the invention of "national-style painting," or guohua, in early-twentieth-century China. Guohua, referring to brush paintings on traditional formats, is often misconstrued as a residual conservatism from the dynastic age that barricaded itself within classical traditions. Wong places this art form at the forefront of cross-cultural exchange. Notable proponents of guohua (e.g., Chen Hengke, Jin Cheng, Fu Baoshi, and Gao Jianfu) are discussed in connection with Japan, where they discovered stylistic and ideological paradigms consonant with the empowering of "Asian/Oriental" cultural practices against the backdrop of encroaching westernization. Not just a "window on the West," Japan stood as an informant of China modernism in its own right. The first book in English devoted to Sino-Japanese dialogues in modern art, Parting the Mists explores the sensitive phenomenon of Japanism in the practice and theory of Chinese painting. Wong carries out a methodologically agile study that sheds light on multiple spheres: stylistic and iconographic innovations, history writing, art theory, patronage and the market, geopolitics, the creation of artists’ societies, and exhibitions. Without avoiding the dark history of Japanese imperialism, she provides a nuanced reading of Chinese views about Japan and the two countries’ convergent, and often colliding, courses of nationalism.

3 From Asian financial crisis to Jiang Zemin's visit to Japan -- 4 Development of multilateral diplomacy and increase of frictions -- 6 Japan-China relations at the start of the twenty-first century: the rocky path to a strategic mutually beneficial relationship -- 1 From start of the Koizumi administration to start of the Hu Jintao administration -- 2 Yasukuni visit problem and anti-Japanese protests -- 3 Formation, development, and limits of strategic mutually beneficial relations -- 4 Japan-China GDP trading places and Senkaku Islands -- 7 The current state of Japan-China relations: navigating a fragile relationship -- 1 Start of new administrations and stagnation of Japan-China relations -- 2 Political bargaining over Japan-China summit at Beijing APEC -- 3 Japan-China relations 70 years after the war's end -- Guide to further reading in English -- Chronology of key events -- Index -- Index of names

Demonstrates the close relation between Japan’s changing international status and the thought process behind this by focusing on the public discussion on China and China politics during the interwar years 1895-1904. Winner of the JaDe Prize 2010 awarded by the German Foundation for the Promotion of Japanese-German Culture and Science Relations

To many Chinese, the rise and expansion of Japanese power during the years between the two Sino-Japanese wars (1895–1945) presented a paradox: With its successful modernization, Japan became a model to be emulated; yet as the country’s imperial ambitions on the continent grew, it posed an ever-increasing threat. Drawing on an extraordinary array of source materials, Lu Yan shows that this attraction to and apprehension of Japan prompted the Chinese to engage in a variety of long-term relationships with the Japanese. Re-understanding Japan examines transnational and transcultural interactions between China and Japan during those five dramatic and tragic decades at the intimate level of personal lives and behavior. At the center of Lu’s inquiry are four diverse yet significant case studies: military strategist Jiang Baili, literary critic and essayist Zhou Zuoren, Guomindang leader Dai Jitao, and romantic poet turned Communist Guo Moruo. In their public and private lives, these influential Chinese formed lasting ties with Japan and the Japanese. While their writings reached the Chinese public through the print mass media and served to enhance popular understanding of Japan and its culture, their activities in political, cultural, and diplomatic affairs paralleledsignificant turns in Sino-Japanese relations. Based on archival documents, personal memoirs, correspondence, interviews, and contemporary literary works, Re-understanding Japan delineates diverse approaches in Chinese efforts to engage Japan in China’s modern reforms.

Far from being a negligible aspect of contemporary identity, racialised senses of belonging have often been the very foundation of national, identity in East Asia in the twentieth century. As this volume shows, the construction of symbolic boundaries between racial categories has undergone many transformations in China and Japan, but the attempt to rationalise and rank real and imagined differences between population groups remains wide-spread. In an era of economic globalisation and political depolarisation, racial discrimination has increased in East Asia, affecting the human rights of marginalised groups and collective perceptions of the world order. The historical background and contemporary implications of these potentially explosive issues are addressed.

Clear and engaging, this is the definitive history of China, one of the most important political, economic, and cultural players in the modern world. 8-page color photo insert.

The modern histories of China and Japan are inexorably intertwined. Their relationship is perhaps most obvious in the fields of political, economic, and military history, but it is no less true in cultural and art history. Yet the traffic in artistic practices and practitioners between China and Japan remains an understudied field. In this volume, an international group of scholars investigates Japan’s impact on Chinese art from the mid-nineteenth century through the 1930s. Individual essays address a range of perspectives, including the work of individual Chinese and Japanese painters, calligraphers, and sculptors, as well as artistic associations, international exhibitions, the collotype production or artwork, and the emergence of a modern canon.