CHINA AND JAPAN: Facing History.

• Date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Pearson, Mark

CHINA AND JAPAN: Facing History Author: Ezra J. Vogel Published by: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, 2019, 536pp, US$24.95.

China and Japan: Facing History is the last book by the renowned US scholar of East Asia Ezra Vogel, who died in 2020 aged 90. In a career spanning six decades, Vogel wrote extensively on Japan, China and Korea. His signature work Japan as Number One (1978) explained Japan's phenomenal post-war economic success to a Western audience, and became a bestseller in Japan too. His biography of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China's economic rise, has also been widely acclaimed, including in China.

China and Japan: Facing History is a survey of the two countries' relationship from its origins 1500 years ago to the present day, covering the gamut of political, economic and cultural links. Vogel begins by describing the cultural heritage Japan absorbed from China in the first millennium AD, such as the use of the Chinese writing system and Buddhism, which created a foundation for their future interaction. He adeptly captures the counterpoints in the relationship across...