This paper aims to expound how the concept of “empire” was translated, received, and transmitted throughout China and the literary Chinese sphere from the perspective of intellectual history across languages and contexts. First, I discuss how the meanings of imperium and other related concept groups, which share a relationship with “empire” in European languages, were adopted, evolved, and developed; subsequently I explore the matter of what the term “diguo” (empire) originally meant within classical Chinese. I then survey how the term “teikoku” (empire) was used by Japanese scholars with a background in Dutch learning as the literal translation of “keijzerryk,” or empire, in Japan, which shares a classical Chinese tradition with China, and how it was transformed by Japanese scholars of Confucianism and of “kokugaku” (national learning) to create a particular meaning of “teikoku” within the contexts of Japanese culture. Secondly, with regards to the processes of drafting the Constitution of the Empire of Japan and of China’s study of the Japanese constitutional system during the late Qing dynasty, I investigate and compare how the concept of “empire” was received and employed in both Meiji Japan and late Qing China. In this way, this paper shows that the concept and system of “empire” served as a kind of medium for Japan to establish itself as a constitutional monarchy, which had originated from Western countries. It was precisely this form of “empire” that was imitated by the Qing government and Chinese intellectuals, facilitating the spread of the conception throughout China. However, despite these parallels between the Qing Empire and the Empire of Japan, I also stress the importance of acknowledging the distinct histories carried by each empire, thereby influencing their imagined “empires.” Therefore, this paper advocates that when discussing how Western political concepts were adopted by countries within the East Asian, we should not only focus on the significance of the shared contexts of literary Chinese as a medium, but also devote more attention to differences in the historical and linguistic contexts of the respective societies and countries.
empire; literary Chinese sphere; translation; the Bakumatsu period; late Qing China
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