RUSSIA, JAPAN, CHINA AND THE RESISTANCE TO MODERNITY EURASIANISM AND PAN-ASIANISM REVISITED

THORSTEN BOTZ-BORNSTEIN

ABSTRACT

In the 1920s, Russian Eurasianists as well as some Japanese philosophers try to
organize a cultural stronghold able to serve as an orientation mark to “second
rate” nations. The result is an autonomous intellectual tradition that leaves behind
the dichotomy of particularism and universalism. Also in China, the interest
in Asian cultural geography led Chinese intellectuals to an awareness of global
space that they had to put in relation with the historical space of China. However,
criticism of modernization in Japan and Russia, instead of questioning the idea
of modernization as such, tends to deal with the quality of modernization. The
article examines the consequences that these movements might have for the
contemporary situation.