‘Westernisation’ and ‘Tradition’

Successive generations of Japanese intellectuals had different views on Japan’s relations with other countries. To some, the USA and western European countries were at the highest point of civilisation, to which Japan aspired. Fukuzawa Yukichi, a leading Meiji intellectual, expressed this by saying that Japan must ‘expel Asia’. He meant that Japan must shed its ‘Asian’ characteristics and become part of the West.

Fukuzawa Yukichi ( - ) Born in an impoverished samurai family, he studied in Nagasaki and Osaka learning Dutch and Western sciences and, later, English. In , he went as a translator for the first Japanese embassy to the USA. This provided material for a book on the West, written not in the classical but in the spoken style that became extremely popular. He established a school that is today the Keio University.

He was one of the core members of the Meirokusha, a society to promote Western learning.