严绍璗 北京大学，香港大学，国际中国文化研究学会
Yan, Shaodang, Peking University; The University of Hong Kong; International Study Association of Chinese Culture
原文Original
我对国际中国学研究的再思考
我国学术界对中国文化所具有的世界历史性意义的认识愈来愈深化，学术界愈来愈多的人士意识到，中国文化作为世界人类的共同的精神财富，作为世界文明的重大存在，在世界文明互动的历史进程中，对它的认知和研究，事实上具有世界性。我国人文学者不仅在自身的学术研究中在不同的层面上已经能够自觉地运用这一极为丰厚的国际学术资源，而且以我们自身的智慧对广泛的国际研究做出了积极的回应。或许可以说，这是自上世纪70年代中期以来的30余年间，中国人文科学的学术观念的最重要的转变，也是最重大的提升的标志之一。它在一个广泛又深刻的层面上显示了我国经典人文学术正在走向世界学术之林。
本次会议上以我个人对于“国际中国文化研究”考察与思考，想就四个层面的体会向各位请教。
本学科需要研讨的第一个问题，我以为则是我们究竟应该使用什么样的学术概念来规范“国际中国文化研究”？从上世纪70年代中期我国全面“复兴”以来，这一学科的发展成果丰厚，但是学术界在汉语文化中如何定义这一学科，在范畴与概念的表述上，并不一致。
我个人一直主张对于近代世界文化中的“中国文化研究”采用“中国学”的 范畴表述。我的《日本中国学家》（1980年）、《日本中国学史》（1991年）和《日本中国学史稿》（2009年）一直使用“中国学”的概念。华东师大刊出《海外中国学史研究丛书》与《海外中国学评论》，朱正惠、何培忠、刘东诸位先生，在他们各自的学术中也都把这一学术定义为“中国学”。但是，目前我国大学中凡是涉及这一学术研究的机构与课程，几乎都以“汉学”命名，相应的学术会议与新闻媒体也大多数采用“汉学”的名称，涉及的受众面相当广泛。
学术概念表述的差异，意味着我们对这一学科本质的理解与把握还存在着相当大的分歧从而表现出我们在学术史的层次上还存在许多争议和不够清晰的层面，从而在与国际学术界的对话中，事实上就存在着不同学术概念的差异和讹误。
学术概念的建立与研究内核的确认，来源于学术史事实本身。我不可能在这里表述我的完整的理解。但我希望必须说明的是，学术史上关于“国际中国文化研究”所表述的学术内涵，它具有历史进程的时间性特征，由此而决定了研究的内含的价值观念具有不同的趋向性，研究的内容具有能动的增容性特征。“国际中国文化研究”在世界不同国家与在同一国家的不同历史阶段中，其存在与表现的状态并不是恒定和凝固的，它们处在能动的多形态的变异之中。确立这一学术的研究概念与范畴，应该充分意识到这种能动性所表现的价值内涵。
例如，欧洲主要国家和东亚各国，在近代文明建立之前，他们意念中的“中国文化”就是“华夏”以“儒学”为核心的“汉文化”，几乎构成研究的基本的、甚至是唯一的对象内容。在一个相当长的时间中——例如在18世纪欧洲思想革命时代之前 与革命中的欧洲学界，以及在19世纪中期之前的日本学界、他们对中国“汉文化”研究所呈现的最经典的特征，就是研究的主流话语不仅把“汉文化”作为“客体”研究对象，而且不管是有意识的，还是无意识的，他们还把以“汉文化”为代表的中国文化作为自身“主体”意识形态的相关材料而变异到自我的“主体”之中。我以为，具有这样的基本文化特征的“国际中国文化研究”，可以界定为“汉学”，对它的就是“汉学研究”。
在欧洲，随着启蒙运动的推进，欧洲汉学中把对中国文化的研究，从构筑自我意识形态的材料中“剥离”的趋势愈益明显。从孟德斯鸠(Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat)、卢梭(Jean Jacques Rousseau)到亚当·斯密(Adam Smith)和德国古典哲学家们，可以说一直到卡尔马克思，对这些研究家而言，以“汉民族文化”为代表的“中国文化”它只是或主要是作为世界文化的一个类型而存在，即只是作为研究的“客体”而存在，逐渐创立了近代文化中的“国别文化研究”，在这一群类的研究中，同时并存的还有像“印度学”、“埃及学”、乃至“日本学”等等。研究者并不把自己的研究对象作为意识形态的材料吸收，而是在学理上作为认识与理解世界文化的一种学术，并进而利用这样的学术来构建自己本身学术的文化话语。与此同时，由于“大航海时代”的推进、“文化人类学”的萌生与发展，以及“欧洲殖民主义”的扩张，欧洲对中国的认识和研究开始从单一的“汉族”与“汉文化”扩展为多元状态，在多种“探险”、“考古”与“殖民”的推动下，在对“中国”的研究中出现了例如对“蒙古”、“满洲”、“藏族”等等的研究，表现为研究内容增容性多元化，明显地表现出研究价值取向的混融性转移。这一学术势态始发于18世纪的欧洲，日本在19世纪中后期也开始呈现了这样的趋势。 面对国际中国文化研究状态这种近代性变异，我以为继续使用“汉学”的范畴，显然已经不能容纳这样的“近代”学术内涵，并且会产生而且事实上也已经产生了学术的以及超越学术的误解与歧义。在这样的学术状态下，我以为使用“中国学”的概念与范畴应该说是很合适的 而且是必要的。我们应该确立“中国学”的概念与范畴，把它作为世界近代文化中“国际中国文化研究”的 核心与统摄。“汉学”是它的历史承传，而诸如现在进行的“蒙古学”、“满洲学”、“西藏学”、“西域学”、“西夏学”乃至“渤海学”等等的研究，都是它的“分支层面”即“中国学”的“二级学科”。
第二个层面需要研讨的问题是，中国研究者究竟应该怎样来为“国际中国学”学术价值定位。
我们常常喜欢把“国际中国学”的价值定位在“他山之石，可以攻玉”，把它视为这是“中国学术研究”在域外的延伸，这当然是不错的。但我们如果仅仅只是这样的认识，那我们就会失略了对“中国学”作为一门“跨文化”学科的“文化语境”的把握；如果对它生成的“文化语境”未能有足够的认知，未能对这一学术表述的内涵进行相应的精神史特征的解析，那我们就可能对“国际中国学”作为一门具有世界性意义的“学术的本体”就不可能作出有效的的理解和把握。由此而使我们的研究在这一学术的阐释和表述中，有时就难免显得薄弱、片面、甚至出现虚拟的幻影。
我们以20世纪“日本中国学”为例稍稍作一点阐述。
日本中国学”它首先是“日本近代文化”构成中的一个层面，是日本在近代国民国家形成和发展中构筑起的“国民文化”的一种表述形态，它首先是“日本文化”的一个类型。
比如，我们经常使用的传统的所谓“东京学派”概念，其实它的内部存在着对“中国文化”很不相同的阐述表现，而我们尚未有对它们的差异性的真正的本质进行思想史的研讨。从19世纪80年代一直到战后，从第一代主持东京大学“中国哲学讲座”的井上哲次郎开始，经过服部宇之吉，到宇野哲人等等，构成了“日本中国学”中关于儒学阐述的最具有社会影响的体系。
19世纪90年初期，井上哲次郎最先把儒学所主张的“孝，悌，忠，信”阐释为极具现代性价值的“爱国主义”，从而使明治天皇颁发的《教育敕语》能够获得最广泛的“受众面”。20世纪20年代到40年代，服部宇之吉创导“儒学原教旨主义”，即主张对儒学应该“在新时代注入新的生命”，树立“孔子教在新时代的权威”并强调“孔子的真精神只存在于日本”。上世纪50年代宇野哲人则又重点阐发“孔子教”的核心便在于“确立伦理上的‘大义名分’的权威主义”。
但几乎在相同的历史时期中，“东京大学”出身的白鸟库吉等人举起“尧舜禹三代抹煞论”，扩展为对中国上古文献的全面的怀疑，继而有津田左右吉以《周易》、《论语》《左传》、《老子》四部巨著的研究为核心，以激进批判主义的形态试图把数千年来作为东亚文明的主体，特别是在两千年间滋养了日本文明的中华文化一笔勾倒。
我们在运用这些学术资源的时候，往往只选取自己需要的一些片段性的结论，没有注意到造成他们对于中国文化这样和那样表述的基本的“文化语境”，即他们是为适应日本近代国家的“国民精神”建设的需要而提供了一种学术性产品。他们对于中国文化的阐述，与中国文化本体的“本源性”意义并不相处在同一层面中，他们只是依据他们的需要来阐发中国文化。或许甚至可以翻过来说，中国文化在相应性的层面中只是他们阐发在自己生存的“文化语境”中形成的某种潜在性意识的学术性材料。这些潜在性的意识，才是“日本中国学”内蕴的基本价值观念。两种看似对立的观念，都具有极为深刻的同时代“日本文化语境”的本质特征。一般而言,其中的“儒学主义”，是以特定的“亚西亚主义”为其发生的“文化语境”的；而作为对立面的急进批判主义，则是以特定的“脱亚入欧论”为其“文化语境”的。无论是“亚西亚主义”还是“脱亚入欧论”，130余年来一直到现在，它们是构成日本近代社会主流话语的最基本的意识形态层面。两个几乎完全对立的“中国学”学派，在总体上却出源于同一“文化语境”的两个侧翼，这或许是意想不到的。
第三层面的问题是，在我们审视和接纳“日本中国学”的学术成果的过程中，我们应该把“日本”对中国文化研究，放置在相关的世界性文化视野中考察。
世界近代进程的一个显着特征，便是“文化的世界性网络”的形成，“国际中国文化研究”本身就是一门世界性的学科，我们只有在我们只有在理解 它与世界文化的关系中，在逐步把握各国中国学之间的相互的精神渗透的过程中，才能更加准确与清晰地把握对象国“中国学”的本质特征，才能更加确切地把握这一份资源的价值。
“日本中国学”体系中某些主要观念与方法论的形成，不仅取决于日本本土文化语境，而且也是他们接受欧美文化，特别是欧洲文化而变异的结果。
例如，我们体察到一个可以思考的线索，“日本中国学”中东京大学倡导“儒家主义”的主要学者，几乎都在德国学习和研究过，他们几乎都热衷于德国俾斯麦 （Otto Furst Von Bismarck, Schenhausen）、斯坦因（Lorenz von Stein）、盖乃斯德（Heinrich Rudolf Hartmann, Friedrich Geneist）等等的“普鲁士国家集权主义学说”。而白鸟库吉的“尧舜禹抹煞论”则与他接受法国哲学家皮埃尔·拉菲特 （Pierre Lafitte）关于“人类文化进程三阶段”的理论也密切相关。
我相信在国际中国学研究中，把握各国研究的世界性文化联络，不仅对研究日本中国学具有意义，而且在总体的国际中国文化研究中也必然具有积极的价值意义。
第四层面的问题是，在“日本中国学”研究中，我以为研究者还应该非常重视作为“研究”的“原典文本”问题。
在当代多种传播媒介手段出现之前，世界文明史上“文化的传递”主要是依靠“人种的迁徙”、“物质的流动”与“文献典籍的转播”，其中，文献典籍无疑是“文化”沟通的主要载体，它们构成“国际中国文化研究”的“源材料”即“基本材料”。国际上对中国文化研究的优秀学者，几乎都是在本行内的中国文献学专家。“国际中国学”研究的实践经验提示，无论就国别而言 还是以研究者个人的表述而言，从本质上考察，他们学术都是在接受中国文化而营造的自我学术氛围中形成的的，因而，在追根索源的意义上说，探讨他们学术形成的轨迹，就应该十分重视研究相关“文本”的传递和呈现的多种文化形态。
我个人的体会是，“中国学”研究者要非常重视我国文化典籍在对象国各个层面中流布的轨迹与形态。在文明史的总体进程中，中国文献典籍在世界的流布，构成中国文化在世界传播的多重形态，其影响所及，有时超越我们研究者的想象。我们现在迫切需要的是尽力厘清中国文献典籍在各国文化中的“流布事实”与发生的多形态的“文化变异”。
在先辈诸位学者的提示鼓励之下，我个人曾经以20余年的时间，进行“汉籍在日本的调查与研讨”，钩沉日本藏汉籍善本10800余种，编着成3卷本《日藏汉籍善本书录》，国内外学界认为基本上把握了1500余年间汉籍文献在日本的流转与它参透入日本文化的状态。特别是日本学者称这是为“研究日本文化的二轮车上安装上了一个轮子。”日本文部科学省直属文化机构为此举行了“特别纪念”；我国教育部也高度评价这一研究报告，授予此书“人文学术研究优秀成果一等奖”，表明了对于人文学术研究中原典文献的高度重视。
我们关于中国典籍在越南的流布，已经有清华大学学者提供了较为详细的报告，关于中国典籍在韩国的流布，已有南京大学的学者以“集刊”的 形式发表了不少研究。遗憾的是我国国际中国学研究者，对于中国典籍在欧美世界与其它地区的流布，尚缺少具有整体性的调查与研究。
使人感到很高兴的是，中国国家教育部2008年设立了“20世纪中国经典文献在世界”的“国家级”研究项目，已经由北京外国语大学承担。这一项目的完成将有可能为国际中国学研究提供20世纪100年间，中国经典文献在世界30余种语言文字国家和地区中的流布状态，从而，进一步推动我国国际中国学的发展。
我在此还要特别呼吁，国际中国学研究者应该与图书馆学家、传统的目录学家联合起来，摒除学术的门户之见，以“跨文化”的国际视域，推进这一基础性的学术建设。
本次学术研讨会，为我们对这一学科的阐释提供了广阔的空间。在我们这一次设定的主题中，以我们所取得的成果和积累的经验，以及曾经面临的教训，如果能够在相对广泛的学术层面中以理性的精神审视我们的学术业绩，反思我们的学术观念，调整我们的学术视角，规范我们的学术方法，只要研究者放出眼光，凝聚自己的智慧，保持学术的操守，惟学术自重，我们是一定能够在对“国际中国学”的研究中创造出属于我们自己学术的广阔天地来的。
译文Translation
My Thoughts about International China Studies and Research
The Chinese academic world has an ever deeper understanding of the universal historical meaning of Chinese cultures. More and more people are aware that Chinese cultures are a part of the common spiritual wealth of mankind, it is a substantial unit within the cultures of the world, and in the historical process of the mutual interaction of the world civilizations, the knowledge and research about Chinese cultures has universality. The Chinese scholars dealing with the humanities have not only been able to use the extremely rich resources of international scholarship within their own studies and research, they have also used their wisdom to give a response to the extended international studies. Maybe we can say that within the period of more than three decades since the 1970s one of the main hallmarks of progress was that the concept of scholarship within the Chinese humanities has undergone a very important transformation. This shows on a deep and wide level that the Chinese classical humanity studies are in the process of being integrated in the great forest of world scholarship.
At this conference I want to present some personal observations and considerations concerning “international studies on Chinese cultures”, and I divide these observations into four dimensions, hoping to enter a dialogue with the experts here. I think it there is a question of which academic concept we should finally use to approach the “international studies concerning Chinese cultures”? Since the middle period of the 1970s our country experienced an overall “recovery”, and the study results of this discipline became very rich, but how the academic world within the Han-Chinese speaking cultures defines this discipline, its extension and concept, this is a question that has not received a unified answer.
I personally always say that for the “Chinese cultures research” of the modern world we should use the category of “China studies” (“Zhongguo xue”). My books Japanese China Studies Experts (1980), A History of China Studies in Japan (1991), and An Outline of a History of China Studies in Japan (2009) have all used the concept “China studies” (“Zhongguo xue”). The publications “Series of Overseas China Studies” and “Review of Overseas China Studies” by the Huadong Normal University, and also experts like Zhu Zhenghui, He Peizhong, Liu Dongzhu have used the expression “China studies” (Zhongguo xue). However, presently most of the academic institutions and courses have used “sinology” (“hanxue”) when dealing with these studies, and the academic conferences and news media have also mostly used the term “hanxue” (sinology), and they reached a very wide readership.
The differences of terminology imply that we have many different opinions about the understanding of the essence of this discipline, and on the level of academic history there are also many differences and elements that are not yet clarified. Thus in the dialogue with international academic circles there are in fact many differences and misunderstandings as to the academic concepts.
The establishment of academic concepts and the confirmation of the contents of study must come from the facts of academic history itself. I am unable here to present a wholistic understanding of this, but I want to say that the academic history concerning “international studies on Chinese cultures” has shown academic contents that are temporary changing within the process of history, and thus the value judgment of different contents has had different tendencies at different times. The contents have the possibility of extension and openness. “International studies on Chinese cultures” have been different in different nations, and they have been different in different stages of history, and thus the existence and the expressions of this discipline has not been an unchangeable, fixed reality, it is existing as a polyvalent potential that is constantly changing. If we want to establish a research concept and category of this discipline, we should be aware of the value contents of which this potential expresses.
For example, before modern civilization was established, the main countries of Europe and East Asia had in their minds that “Chinese cultures” would be the “Han-cultures” (Han wenhua) of China (Hua xia) with Confucianism (Ru xue) at its core, and this concept determined the basic or even the only object of research. For a quite long time – for example before and during the intellectual revolution of the 18th century in Europe, and for the Japanese academia before 1850 – the research of these scholars shows the following typical feature: they did not only take “Han cultures” as a study “object”, but even consciously or without intention presented the “Han cultures” representing Chinese cultures as something that had to do with their own “subjective” ideology and thus let it enter their own “subjectivity”. I would say that “international studies on Chinese cultures” which show this basic cultural feature should be called “sinology” (Hanxue), as in distinction to “sinological research” (Hanxue yanjiu).
Together with the progress of the enlightenment in Europe, the studies of European sinology concerning Chinese cultures showed the ever more visible tendency to “extricate” themselves from the material that helped to construct ideology. From Montesquieu, Rousseau, Adam Smith and the German classical philosophers until Karl Marx, these studies which represented “Chinese cultures” through “the cultures of the Han people” only or mainly were studies concerning one type of the cultures of the world, and so they became an “object” of research. Thus gradually the “national culture research” of the modern culture was established, and in this group there were also “Indology”, “Egyptology” and “Japanology” etc. The researchers did not absorb the objects of their research as a kind of ideological material, they only took it as a kind of academic knowledge which helped to scientifically understand the cultures of the world, and they used these studies to establish the cultural discourse of their own scholarship. At the same time, because of “the age of the great navigators”, “cultural anthropology” started to develop, and “European colonialism” expanded, and the European understanding of China began to shift from one “Han people” and “Han culture” towards a pluralist understanding. Through the stimulation of many “expeditions”, “excavations” and “colonizing” efforts, there appeared many new studies concerning “China”, such as “Mongolian studies”, “Manchu studies”, “Tibetology” etc. This was an expression of an increasing pluriformity of the potential of the contents of the studies, and this clearly showed that the value judgment of the research had changed. This kind of scholarly attitude had started in 18th century Europe, and Japan also underwent this shift in the second half of the 19th century. Faced with this modern change in the “international studies on Chinese cultures”, I think that it is impossible to include these “modern” academic contents, if we still use the word “Hanxue” (Han studies). To use the word “Hanxue” would produce misunderstandings, and these misunderstandings and disagreements within the academic sphere and beyond have already occurred. In this academic situation I would think that to use the concept and category “China studies” (Zhongguo xue) is very suitable and in fact is necessary.
We should establish the concept and category of “China studies” as the core and comprehensive expression for “international studies on Chinese cultures” within the modern world culture. “Sinology” (Hanxue) is its historical tradition, and the different research efforts of “Mongolian studies”, “Manchu studies”, “Tibetology”, “West China studies”, “Xixia studies”, “Bohai studies” etc., are all “branch disciplines” of it, they are the “second level disciplines” of “China studies”.
What we need to discuss is how Chinese researchers should ascertain the academic value of “international China studies”.
We often like to perceive the value of “international China studies” as “a stone from another mountain which helps to correct shortcomings”, we see it as the periphery and extension of “Chinese academic studies”, which is of course not bad. But if we would limit ourselves to this understanding, we would miss the understanding of the “cultural context” of “China studies” as an “inter-cultural” discipline. If we have no good understanding of the “cultural context” in which it emerged, if we cannot make a sufficient analysis of the intellectual history of this kind of academic expression, then we will not be ubla to efficiently understand and grasp the “essence of the scholarship” of these “international China studies” as a discipline with global meaning. Therefore our research has been rather poor, one-sided and even occasionally fictitious within the interpretation and expression of this discipline.
Let us take a short example from the “Japanese China studies” of the 20th century. First, the “Japanese China studies” are a product of “modern Japanese culture”, they are an expression of the “national culture” of Japan in the period of her modern national formation and development. First of all, these “Japanese China studies” are a form and expression of “Japanese culture”.
For example, we have traditionally been using the concept of “School of Tokyo”, but in fact this school has some very different descriptions of “Chinese cultures”, and we have not yet undertaken enough research on the intellectual history of Japan so as to understand the real differences. From the 1880s until after the war, from the first generation of “lectures on Chinese philosophy” by Inoue Tetsujiro at Tokyo University, then to Hattori Unokichi and to Uno Tetsuto etc., this tradition produced the most influential interpretation of Confucianism within “Japanese China studies” which also had impact on Japanese society.
During the early 1890s Inoue Tetsujiro was the first to interpret the “xiao, ti, zhong, xin” of Confucianism as a highly modern “patriotism” (aiguo zhuyi), and thus he could secure a broad readership for the “edict on education” promulgated by the Meiji Emperor. From the 1920s to the 1940s, Hattori Unokichi promoted for the first time “Confucianist fundamentalism”, he thought one should “imbue Confucianism with new life in a new era” and promoted the establishment of “the authority of the Confucian religion in the new era”, emphasizing that “the true spirit of Confucius is only alive in Japan”. In the 1950s Uno Tetsuto again interpreted the core of “Confucian religion” as “establishment of the authoritarianism of ethical ‘clarification of the great meaning’”.
However, during almost the same period the Japanese scholar Kuratori Shiratori Kurakichi and other scholars who came from the “School of Tokyo” raised the motto “wipe out Yao, Shun, Yu and the three dynasties”. In a further step they started to be suspicious of all classical Chinese documents, and Tsuda Soukichi in a huge effort carried out studies on the Zhouyu, Lunyu, Zuozhuan, and Laozi with the method of radical criticism in order to show that these scriptures were null and void, even if they had formed the core of the civilization of East Asia, and especially of the Chinese culture which had nourished the Japanese Culture for the last 2000 years.
When we use these academic sources, we often select some passages or conclusions which we need, and we do not pay attention to the basic “cultural context” which caused these scholars to interpret Chinese culture in this or that way, - namely the need to establish a “national spirit” of Japan as a modern country. Their description of Chinese culture and the original “essence” of Chinese culture did not meet on the same level, they only interpreted Chinese culture according to their needs. We even can say on the other hand that on a relative level the Chinese culture was only the academic material they used to develop a hidden consciousness of their own “cultural context”. This hidden consciousness is the basic value concept of “Japanese China studies”. These two concepts seem to bee contradictory, but both have the clear features of the essence of the “cultural context of Japan”. In general, this “Confucianism” is based on the “cultural context” of “Asianism”, and its counterpart, radical criticism, is based on the “cultural context” of “escaping from Asia, entering Europe”. Whether it is “Asianism” or the theory of “escaping from Asia, entering Europe”, both theories have constructed the ideological level of the main topic of the public discourse of Japan during the past 130 years. These two almost totally contradictory schools of “China studies” have originated from two wings of the same “cultural context”, even if this may by hard to imagine.
In the process of our reviewing and accepting the scholarly results of “Japanese China studies”, we should place the studies of “Japan” concerning China within the wider horizon of related global culture studies.
One obvious feature of the modern progress of the world is the formation of a “global internet of culture”. The “international studies on Chinese cultures” are in themselves an international discipline, we can only understand them in the context of world cultures, and we should observe the process of how the different China studies of different nations interpenetrate each other, only then we can more precisely and more clearly grasp the essence of “China studies”, and only then we can distinguish more clearly the value of these resources.
Some important concepts and the emergence of the methods of “Japanese China studies” was not based on the native cultural context of Japan, but they were the results of their acceptance of the European and American cultures, especially of the European cultures.
For example, the main scholars of the School of Tokyo within the “Japanese China studies” who advocated “Confucianism” (Rujia zhuyi) were almost all scholars who had been educated in Germany, and almost all of them were enthusiastic about the “theories of Prussian national totalitarianism” of Bismarck, Lorenz von Stein, Geneist and others. On the other hand the theory of “wiping out Yao, Shun, Yu” by Shiratori Kurakichi had to do with the fact that he had accepted the theory of the French scholar Pierre Lafitte concerning the “three stages of the progress of mankind”.
I believe that within the international China studies the understanding of these international cultural connections between the different research countries will not only be meaningful in the case of Japanes China studies, but they will also have a positive value meaning within the general international studies of the Chinese cultures.
As to the research of the “Japanese China studies”, I think that the researchers should pay much intention to the “research” of the “original texts”.
Before the many media of the modern world came into existence, the “transmission of culture” in the world history of civilizations was mainly dependent on the “migration of peoples”, the “flow of matter” and the “spread of documents and classical texts”. Among these the “classical texts” are doubtless the main carrier of the communication of “cultures”, they constitute the “original material” and “basic material” of the “international studies of Chinese cultures”. Almost all outstanding international scholars in the field of sinology are professional experts of Chinese textual research. The practical experience of the “international China studies” shows that beyond national or individual differences most scholars have in their academic efforts accepted the Chinese cultures and so built up their own academic environment, thus it is very important to study the transmission of the “texts” and the different forms of cultures, if we want to understand the formative process of their scholarship.
My personal experience is that the researchers in the field of “China studies” want to pay much attention to the vestiges and forms of the spread of the texts of our Chinese cultures in the different levels of the object countries. In the whole process of the history of civilizations, the spread of the texts of the Chinese cultures in the world has constructed many forms of the spread of the Chinese cultures in the world, and its influence sometimes exceeds the imagination of us scholars. What we urgently need today is to clarify the “spreading event” and the manifold “cultural changes” of the texts of the Chinese cultures within the cultures of all the countries.
Following the advices and encouragements of the older scholars, I myself have worked on the “research project on Chinese books in Japan” for more than 20 years, and I found more that 10800 Chinese books in Japan, which I edited in a three-volume “Bibliography of Han-Chinese books in Japan”, and scholars in China and outside acknowledge that this basically comprises the more than 1500 years in which Han-Chinese texts have been spread in Japan and have penetrated the Japanese culture. Especially Japanese scholars have said that this amounts to “adding a third wheel to the two-wheeled efforts of studying Japanese culture”. A cultural organization directly under the Japanese education ministry organized a special “commemoration” for this event, and our Chinese ministry of education has also paid much attention to this study report. They granted the “first class reward for humanity studies contributions”, which shows that they also highly respect the textual research within the humanities.
As to the spread of Chinese texts in Vietnam, we have the detailed report of one scholar from Tsinghua University, and about the spread of Chinese texts in Korea, we have one scholar from Nanjing University who published many studies in the form of “collections”. It is a pity that among our scholars who explore the international China studies there is nobody who could provide a comprehensive research on the spread of Chinese texts in Europe and America and other areas.
A delightful fact is that the Ministry of Education of China has started a “national study project” in 2008 entitled “The Chinese classical texts in the world of the 20th century”. This project has been started by the Foreign Languages University of Beijing. This project will possibly provide insight about the spread of Chinese classical texts as they spread in the world during the 20th century and were translated into more than 30 languages, this will move ahead the development of the international China studies carried out by our Chinese scholars.
In this moment I also want to appeal especially that the international China studies researchers should keep close contact to the librarians and experts of traditional librarian science, they should get rid of the walls that separate the disciplines from each other and should have a “trans-cultural” international horizon, so that they can establish this academic basis.
This academic conference provides ample space for an interpretation of this discipline. As for our given topic, and based on the study results we have achieved and on the many experiences we have gathered, and on the lessons we have learned, I believe that we can in the face of “international China studies” create our own scholarly discipline, if we review our scholarly results on a broader academic level and with a spirit of rationality, if we reflect on our academic concepts, if we bring order into our academic outlook, if we standardize our academic methods, if the scholars have a vision and combine their wisdom, if they keep scholarly standards and have self-respect.