최후의 초극전, 혹은 중국적 근대의 그림자 - 미조구치 유조(溝口雄三)의 중국사상사 연구와 동아시아론 -

Abstract

This article summarizes the career and major achievements of Yuzo Mizoguchi, a prominent researcher of the history of Chinese thought in Japan, and considers its contemporary meaning. Mijoguchi rejected the existing discussion of understanding China according to the Western perspective or the situation of Japan and tried to devise a way to recognize China by being inherent in China. In particular, he emphasized “Chinese modernity” while rejecting the attitude of seeing China’s modernity as lagging behind or surpassing Western Europe. Taking up the philosopher Li Zhuo-Wu in the mid-17th century, he studied Chinese thought that did not base Western Europe on it, and criticized the existing arguments that regard the Opium War and the May Fourth Movement as the starting point of modern China. In that sense, Mizoguchi developed an argument similar to the “overcoming modern theory” in the past, and it can be said that he prepared for the “last overcoming war” in the process of China’s emergence as a global power since the 80s. In the process of establishing this logic, Mizoguchi criticized Yoshimi Takeuchi’s “Asia as a method”, but failed to realize that Takeuchi assumed Mao Zedong and his Chinese revolution to be the substance of history. Mizoguchi’s interpretation of Takeuchi had a certain influence on the later popular theory of East Asia. Instead of the hopes and possibilities contained in the revolution, Mizoguchi created a logic that dilutes them in the long-term flow of history, and eventually formed a discourse supporting real China through the concept of “China’s shock.”