National essentialism (国粋主義 or 国粋保存主義),[1][2] inJapanese pronunciation asKokusui Shugi orKokusui Hozon Shugi[3] is one of the terms used to describeJapanese nationalism. Terms similar tokokusui shugi includekokka shugi (国家主義;lit. 'state nationalism') andminzoku shugi (民族主義;lit. 'ethnic nationalism').Kokusui shugi is also viewed as aproto-fascism.[4]
Kokusui shugi emphasizes the uniqueness of Japanese culture and tradition againstEuropeanisationism (欧化主義) and pursuesconservatism;Nihon shugi (日本主義;lit. 'Japanese consciousness or Japanism') is used in a similar sense.[5]
Kokusui shugi was based onSonnō jōi, which emerged before the end of theEdo Shogunate. After theMeiji Restoration, it appeared as a reaction to the Europeanization policy pursued by theEmpire of Japan government; at that time, the Japan's government was promoting Japan's modernization through the active introduction of Western culture.[5]
The term "Kokusui shugi" appears in the Japanese newspaper 『日本人』, which was founded in 1888 inSeikyōsha [ja], whereShiga Shigetaka andMiyake Setsurei belonged; they opposed the Japanese government's Europeanization policy at the time.[5]
Unlike the earlykokusui shugi, in the middle of theMeiji era, thekokusui shugi ideology embraces Europeanization while preserving the traditional culture and lifestyle of Japan in order to develop Japanese civilization independently.[5]
Kokusui shugi served as a right-wing principle of action in favor of traditions or the state system and opposed thesocialist mass movement; from the events of Manchuria in the earlyShōwa era to theSecond Sino-Japanese War, it also transformed into theultra-nationalist ideology of theHistorical Vision of Imperial Japan [ja].[5]
As such, theKokusui shugi ideology is consistent in that it is akokutai theory that insists on the permanence of theTennō-central system, which has never been cut off from bloodline, while changing with the times.[5]
kokusui shugi or kokusui hozon shugi (ultranationalism), which criticized the Meiji government's Westernization policy
The character of Kokusui shugi may in English terminology best be described as proto-Fascism.
After World War I contacts betwwen right-wing movements in Japan, with their ideology based on Japanese Kokusui shugi 国粋主義 (Ultra nationalism or extreme patriotism), and those two societies developed.
