Crossings and Connections: East Asia and the World, c1800-1945

The international conference on "Crossings and Connections: East Asia and the World, c1800-1945" is an accompanying program of the General Assembly of the International Committee of Historical Sciences (ICHS) hosted by the Japanese National Committee of the ICHS and the Japanese Historical Council.

This conference aims to explore various aspects of the historical processes of global or transregional crossings and connections in East Asia between the beginning of the 19th century and the mid-20th century, thereby discussing diversity and heterogeneity in its processes. Global migration, distribution of commodities, and political and cultural exchanges have expanded dramatically since the 19th century. East Asia was also one of the regions that became an important theatre of these crossings and connections. East Asian countries did not simply accept or respond to the influence of expanding European powers. In this region, multiple political forms existed side by side: China experienced a political transformation from an imperial system to a republic by revolution under the unequal treaty system; Japan became a colonial empire by acquiring Taiwan and Korea through the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars; and most parts of Southeast Asia, except Thailand, were colonized by Britain, France, the Netherlands, and finally the U.S. At the same time, various actors actively joined these global crossings and connections and promoted political, economic, and cultural transformations in this region. New "diversity" in East Asia was moulded not due to unilateral convergence but as a multidirectional process, which included cultural translation and appropriation in local contexts.

These multidirectional crossings and connections over Eurasia, intra-Asia, and the Pacific Rim recreated diversity and heterogeneity, and while heavily affected by the Cold War system, various political, economic, and cultural influences remained in this region. At this conference, we would like to provide an occasion to discuss the diversity of historical pasts by focusing on specific cases of crossings and connections in Modern East Asia, using the accompanying program of the General Assembly of the ICHS in Tokyo.

This conference is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19KK0336, 23K00864, and 24K04178.