Author(s)

Boyang Zhang ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Chonnam National University, Gwangju, 61186, Korea

Corresponding Author

Boyang Zhang

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the "repoliticization of Confucianism" to explore the mechanisms through which Confucian thought was transformed in the construction of the modern Japanese state. It argues that under the pretext of "moral education", Confucianism was reconstructed and embedded as a political ideological system. From the late Tokugawa period to the early Meiji era, Confucianism evolved from an ethical framework centered on individual self-cultivation into a moral pillar of national ideology. Its repoliticization was not only a revival of thought but also the product of the joint shaping by political power structures and the educational system. This study posits that moral education served as the institutional channel for Confucian repoliticization, while the "baptism" of political thought represented its ultimate modern transformation. Far from declining, Confucianism in modern Japan was reconstructed as a core resource of political thought. This phenomenon reflects the intellectual logic of a "morally grounded state" in modern Japan and offers a new perspective for understanding the modern fate of Confucianism in East Asia.

KEYWORDS

Repoliticization of Confucianism; Imperial Rescript on Education; National Polity Consciousness

CITE THIS PAPER

Boyang Zhang. Repoliticization of Confucianism in Early Meiji Japan: Moral Education and the Construction of Imperial Sovereignty Consciousness. Journal of Sociology and Ethnology (2026). Vol. 8, No. 2, 118-124. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/jsoce.2026.080216.

REFERENCES

[1] Fujiwara Yasutoshi. Educational Philosophy and Educational Policy during the Meiji Restoration. Journal of Education. 1981: 15.
[2] Anzai Toshizo. "Practical Learning" Thought of Fukuzawa Yukichi and Politics. Journal of Political Thought. 2014: 14.
[3] Wang Shouhua, Bian Chongdao. Course in the History of Japanese Philosophy. Jinan: Shandong University Press. 1989.
[4] Yonehara Ken. The Birth of Modern Kokutai Theory, Journal of Political Thought. 2008(8): 282-307.
[5] Sean O'Dwyer (author), Nakazato Kei (translator). Confucianism and War in Modern Japan. Studies in Languages and Cultures. 2023: 51.

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