When conducting historical research on East Asia, the concept of kyousei with memories can readily connect the pre- and post-war periods along a single timeline. The history of the Japanese empire did not end just because of its defeat in the war. In fact, it should be acknowledged that the basic structure of post-war East Asia was determined by Japanese colonial rule before the war. It is necessary, simultaneously, to recognize the post-war period in East Asia as arising from a shared understanding that involved fierce war in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Okinawa and was linked to the occupation of the USA. In other words, East Asia transitioned from being under Japanese colonialism before the war to being under the hegemony of the USA after it, which maintained a structural continuity between the Japanese Empire and the escalation of the Cold War. In other words, any attempt to foresee the future of Asia from the time of the Japanese colonial rule to the post-war period, including the civil wars and dictatorships, implies efforts to transcend the USA. An intellectual act is required to obtain the right to live in peace in the historical context.

Considering the perspective of Nishikawa Nagaoʼs postcolonial critique, my political analysis of colonialismʼs cultural history investigates its contemporary effects in connecting the past and the politics of the present. The catchphrase employed here is East Asia as an intellectual experiment. It is an attempt to drastically alter the archipelagic view that plots time and space on a Cartesian coordinate system, with the traditional and the modern as the vertical axis and the East and the West as the horizontal axis.