The term "Zhina" ¤ä¨º has a long history in Japan.
Its ups and downs
reflect the climate of Sino-Japanese relations.
The term was first coined by the Japanese Buddhists to mean China
without any defamatory connotation. For instance, Kukai (774-835),
the founder of the Shingon Sect of Buddhism, used the term to refer
to China alternately with such dignified terms as Hantu º~¤g
or Tang
ð. During the late Qing dynasty in the 1890's, some Chinese
reformers and revolutionary leaders continued to call China by that
name, since they did not want to use the term "Qingguo" ²M°ê,
which
had a connotation of a Manchu colony. The reformer Liang Qichao
±ç±Ò¶W used Zhina Shaonian ¤ä¨º¤Ö¦~
(Young China) as his pen-name.
The revolutionary leader Huang Xin ¶À¿³ published
a magazine entitled
¤G¤Q¥@¬ö¤§¤ä¨º
(China in the Twentieth Century) by using that term
for China..
The first defamatory use of the term may be found in the book, The
Strategy to Unify the World ¦t¤º²V¦P¯µµ¦
(1823), by the
nationalistic scholar, Sato Nobuhiro (1769-1850). In this book,
Zhina was not merely a geographical term. It also specifically
refered to a weak China, which would eventually be annexed by Japan.
The popular use of Zhina as a defamatory term came immediately after
the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. The headlines usually
contained such phrases as "Japan won, while Zhina was defeated." Most
Chinese students in Japan did not like this defamatory name for their
country. The Japanese continued to use it to indicate the Japanese
superiority complex despite the Chinese protest throughout the post
Sino-Japanese war decades until the Japanese defeat in 1945.
In fact, it was the Delegation of the Republic of China in the
occupation force in Japan which issued an order to the Japanese
Foreign Ministry to stop using the defamatory term Zhina in June
1946. Immediately, the Japanese Foreign Ministry isssued orders to
the press, publishing houses, universities, and vocational schools
that the Japanese should reframe from using that term. According
to
various surveys, the use of the term Zhina was fast dimminishing
its
use in Japan during the post World War II decades. For further
information, please consult the discourse on the History of Chinese
Students in Japan ¤¤°ê¯d¾Ç¥Í¥v½Í¸Ü
(Tokyo: Daiichi Shobo, 1981), pp.
367-418.
