The Discussion of Asia and Our Predicament = The Discussion of Asia and Our Predicament

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Last summer (1999), during my stay in Japan, I heard that in volume 8 of the Reader, the editors published an article by the Korean scholar Baik Youngseo concerning the topic of East Asia. Perhaps because of my geographical location, I had a strange feeling of being both close and distant. When I returned home, I read the article and that feeling of being close and distant welled up in my heart again. I once spent quite a bit of time studying the historical trajectory of modern Japanese discussions of Asia, but I felt quite removed from works related to Korean thought. I am extremely eager to know whether today, when globalization has become an apriori theme, the neighboring countries that make up East Asia can deal with some of the blind spots of our thinking. This is especially important since the term Glorious East Asian Circle made the Japanese relation to the complex goals of pan-Asianism an unavoidable historical theme of inquiry in the three countries of East Asia. Moreover, we can see the first sideeffect of obscuring the resources of pan-Asianism for Chinese intellectuals and Chinese society in the Chinese people`s superficial attitude toward the Second World War. Apart from emotional entanglements, we must admit that the surprising ignorance about Japanese and Korean intellectual history makes it impossible for us to become clear about the complexities of the history of the Second World War. Getting close to East Asian history is more difficult than getting close to European or American history. This is perhaps the origin of my complex feelings upon reading Baik`s essay.