In discussing the problem of modernity that is shared among the peoples
of East Asia, let us not forget that the leading intellectuals, such as
Fukuzawa Yukichi of Japan, Lu Xun of China and Yi Gwangsu of
Korea, addressed the problem of modernity in relation to Confucianism
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Northeast Asia,
modernity was once conceived of as a departure from Confucianism, as a
project of liberating oneself from the rules of conduct, the regimes of
truth and the normalization of welfare, associated with the Learning of
Confucianism (), no matter how diversified and conflicting
comprehension of the term "Confucianism" was.1 In the climate of what
one might call "intellectual modernization" - the same climate extends
today in some respects - Confucianism symbolized a slack assemblage of
governing institutions, the regulatory systems of commodity circulation,
disciplinary regimens
