The invention and creation of the "Way": The Shibunkai's Discourse on the Kingly Wau and Imperial Way after the Establishment of Manchukuo

Confucianism uses the concept of “Dao” to express the sublime and sacred, with Confucius’ basic stance being “to transmit without creating.” Later Confucians also revealed the original meaning of the classics based on an internal mechanism of mutual verification within the texts. The Shibunkai, a modern Japanese Confucian organization, prided itself on being the “authentic heir” to Confucian teaching. This chapter points out that, contrary to merely “transmitting,” the Shibunkai also conceptually “invented” and “created.” Initially, they “invented tradition” by creating the concept of the Kingly Way to rationalize Japan’s establishment of Manchuria; subsequently, they “created tradition,” elaborating the concept of the Imperial Way through which Japan’s militarist expansionism could be legitimized. This chapter will examine the political developments that indirectly led the Japanese Confucianists to abandon the universally applicable Kingly Way in favor of a distinctly Japanese Imperial Way with no intelligible basis in the Confucian classics, as a way to emphasize the uniqueness and necessity of the Emperor’s wartime leadership.