1. A brief overview of China
Confucianism in Japan and China The Japanese people had little civilization of their own until, during the fourth century AD, they began to have contact with the Chinese. From them, they borrowed a great deal of their culture, including their ideas of philosophy and their form of government. Although the Japanese government owed much to the ideas of the Chinese, the two cultures would go in very different directions over the next two centuries. The Chinese adherence to Confucianism eventually led them to stagnation and collapse, while the Japanese moved on to a new, more warlike mode of...