社会阶层的方式改变东亚非常不同,但有一件事,几乎每个国家都有经历过,这就是革命。在本文中,我将具体的三个国家为例,对革命带来的作用完全不同的变化,可以反映出角色的历史,文化以及社会和全球环境。
The ways of changing of social class in Eastern Asia is very different, but there is one thing that almost every country has experienced, that is revolution. In this , I will take three specific countries as examples, for the influence of revolution brings them total different changes, which can reflects the roles that history, culture as well as social and global environment plays.
1.China— change, but not completed
There is a proverb said by a famous emperor Li Shimin, called Taizong in Tang dynasty, that “Take copper as a mirror, people can dress up; Take history as a mirror, people would know the prosperity and depression; Take human themselves as a mirror, we would understand the right and wrong.” And I obviously admire the second phrase. There is no doubt that every change in this land has a close relationship with its long and colorful history, so does the change of social class.
When focusing on the change of social class, we have to mention the two events that happened in the late of 19th century, we called them Chinese mainland's western movement in 1861 and WuXu Reform of 1898. Before these two events, it has been nearly 3000 years since China became a feudal country. With feudalism, the structure of social class is like Emperor is always on the top, having all the rights; then is scholar, the third level is farmer, the forth is worker and the last is merchant. We will see from the above, although merchant has wealth, yet he did not have the social position. This switch form is too stable to change until the Second Opium War in 1860.
After the Second Opium War, the ruling level learned the power of western countries and they decided to make changes. In short, they want to develop economy and use their earned money to buy weapons from western countries to defend the regime. And in terms of culture, they also pointed out to learn the new knowledge from the western. From then on, that stable structure of social class began to change, for if these policies were carried out, it would need a lot of money, which lead the position of merchant to level up.
However, regardless of Chinese mainland's western movement or WuXu Reform in 1898 ended up in failure. Reasons of failure are complex. Generally speaking, there are two main ones: One is the rooted and profound feudal thoughts, which were regarded as old code. The other is arrogance. Only later on, especially in late Qing Dynasty, did the feudal rulers adopt a policy of seclusion, which hampered China's progress and its exchanges with the outside world.
In one word, the situation in China is that revolutions did change the social class but not completed. The structure began to change at that time, in the late 19 century. And then, step by step, it becomes to todays’ format.
2.Japan wholesale westernization
"Wholesale westernization" means copying everything of the western countries indiscriminately, which is one of the views of WuXu Reform. With a pity, this view wasn’t realized by the feudal rulers in China. Nevertheless, it was made into truth by one of our neighbors—Japan.
When mentioning famous revolution in Japan, the first one comes into our mind is obviously the Meiji Restoration, started from 1868. The Meiji Restoration was a chain of events that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were emperors of Japan before the Meiji Restoration, the restoration established the practical abilities and consolidated the political system under the Emperor of Japan.
The Restoration led to enormous changes in Japan's political and social structure. The period spanned from 1868 to 1912 and was responsible for the emergence of Japan as a modernized nation in the early twentieth century.
Why I said that Japan is the country which realized wholesale westernization, the reason is due to the influence of Meiji Restoration. This revolution had a large influence on every sort and condition of peoples’ life.
In Social and cultural aspect, the rulers promoted to study the Western culture and social habits, as well as to translate Western works. And they began to use the solar calendar instead of lunar calendar system.
In economic aspect, government brought about modern Western industrial technology and established a new land policy by abolishing the existing land policy, allowing land sales.
In education aspect, developing modern compulsory education and sending returned students to Britain, America, France and German to learn new technology.
In military aspect, we had to mention the reform of the military establishment, the ground force prepared with reference to the German Army training, the Navy to the British Navy; Furthermore, the Meiji government also owned arms industry; until the mid and late period of Meiji era, there was a sharp increase in the military budget, accounting for about 30% to 45 % of government funding. It was the signal of the implementation of militarism.
In terms of Justice System, the government established French Penal Code in 1882, entered into French& German hybrid civil law in 1898, entered into an American commercial law in 1899, which we all know, the justice system was almost the same as western system.
With those large changes in various sides of everyday life, the social class structure could not be stable anymore. Firstly, due to the wholesale westernization, Japanese Emperor 's position is slowly fading and finally becomes just a signal of the country; secondly, with the development of economy and changes happened to economic system, Japanese capitalism gradually goes toward modernization, leading the changes in social system. Merchants as well as scholars’ positions raised up, especially the returned students who came back from western developed countries (Britain, France and German). In conclusion, this revolution, Meiji restoration, is so successful that brings huge changes in Japanese society.
3. South Korea— product of hegemony of two big powers
If it is to be said that both the situations of China and Japan are the examples of history, then, the story of another Asian country—South Korea, seems to be a typical instance of global environment.
After the World War II, a Japanese colony on the Korean peninsula is divided into two parts, using 38 degrees north latitude line as the boundary. The Soviet Union, the United States , respectively , sent garrison to release the Japanese armed forces on the Korean peninsula and abolish Japan's colonial ruling.
As early as December 29, 1945, the US government announced Moscow Agreement signed by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union signed in foreign ministers' meeting. The agreement declared “Koreans have no autonomous capabilities" so that the Korean peninsula should be trusted by many countries. The Soviet Union supported Kim Il Sung in the north, while the United States supported Syngman Rhee in the south, both sides wanted to build their own forces and tended to form their own government in the Korean peninsula. It is unable to eliminate the contradictions and conflicts of interest between them.
Since the two countries continue to cultivate their own forces, Soviet-American Joint Committee is unable to reach an agreement on how to organize unified elections in Korean peninsula. In view of this, on September 17, 1947, the United States submitted the issues on the Korean Peninsula to the United Nations, saying that: The United Nations should establish the United Nations Interim Commission for the issues on Korean Peninsula. And this commission was responsible for observing, supervising the general election separately held in both south and north. So the entire nation went towards the road of Secession. Either the ideology or the legitimacy of their respective countries, the South and the North are unable to get peaceful dialogue to resolve the problem, which is the initial cause of the outbreak of the Korean War. After the Korean War, the nation has completely broken into two countries: North Korea and South Korea.
South Korea’s government was built by American but run by themselves. So it is a modern system that running by people who have very strong old mind. New and old ideas are challenging each other a lot in this nation. The country itself wants to develop, but it is hard to decide which is a better way, the traditional one or the modern one? What should be their country’s base, the agriculture or the industry?
The new leader Park Chung-hee made decisions in a short time.
In 1960s, the economy started to take off, mainly focus on low-end manufacturing and labor-intensive industries.
In 1970s, completing industrial system, and setting foot in petroleum, chemical, steel industry. Some large companies began to make significant inroads into the semiconductor.
In 1980s, economy of South Korea blooms. And until nowadays, South Korea is still a powerful competitor in terms of economy.
Generally speaking, revolution did influence on the process of development of the three countries. Regardless of success or failure, the revolution always brings some changes to the social class and other sides of the entire society. However, what we should pay attention to is not the changes themselves. The most important step is what we should do to adjust to these changes, furthermore, to take advantages of these changes and create a new prosperity in our own field.
Reference
1.H. Van Straelen, Yoshida Shoin, Forerunner of the Meiji Restoration: A Biographical Study (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1952).
2.David M. Earl, Emperor and Nation in Japan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), on Yoshida: "Attitude toward the Emperor/Nation", pp 161 – 192. Also pp. 82 – 105.
3.Quoted and translated in "The Old Tang Book Selected", Liu Xun, pp.35
4.Cumings, Bruce (2017). Korea's Place in the Sun : A Modern History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-32702-7.
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