Eastern Spirit, Western Instrument

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, modern state‐makers in East Asia invented a series of catchphrases that combined elements of “Eastern spirit” and “Western instrument” to cope with internal disorder from below and external threats from the industrializing West. The shared elements of binary slogans boil down to the quest for rapid industrialization and internationalization in the terms set by their East Asian practitioners through sustained militarization of both state and society in the increasingly adversarial contact with Westerners. Eventually, these efforts to fit new methods into old thought patterns became untenable in China and Korea due to the growing disadvantageous international conditions of the times. By contrast, Japan carefully exploited the binary concept to its advantage.