壬辰戰爭的失敗和清朝的統一意味著日本在軍事層面扭轉中日落差行動的破滅,但明清鼎革給江戶日本帶來了"華夷變態"的直接反映,為日本在文化層面扭轉中日落差提供了契機。然而,中日之間懸殊的文化落差畢竟是日本難以逾越的鴻溝。于是,以古學派為主的江戶學者認為,朱子學把佛老思想引入儒學的嚴重后果是中國在文化上的"由華變夷"。江戶學者通過對《大學》和《中庸》的新詮,將其去"中國脈絡化"而建"日本脈絡化",其重點不再闡述"格物窮理"、"天道性命"、"人心道心",而著重論述"人倫日用之道",并以政治而非道德為中心,"倫理意識"逐漸讓位于"政治事功",進而在文化層面上實現日本的"脫夷入華",為日本文化的中心主義提供學理支撐,初步完成了近世日本"自文化中心主義"的建構,對其歷史進程產生了重要影響。

The failure of the Japanese invasion of Korea in the 1590s and China’s unification under the Qing dynasty signified the collapse of the movement to close the gap between China and Japan by military means.However,dynastic change from the Ming to the Qing was directly reflected in Edo Japan’s kaihentai(changeover of Chinese and barbarians),which provided Japan with the chance to close the gap in cultural terms.Even so,the cultural gulf between China and Japan was one that Japan found hard to bridge.The above developments gave Japanese scholars of Ancient Learning,in particular,the idea that Zhu Xi’s introduction into Confucianism of Buddhist and Taoist thought had had the serious consequence of converting orthodox Chinese culture into barbarian culture.In reinterpreting The Great Learningand Doctrine of the Mean,Edo scholars deleted the Chinese pedigree of these works and established a Japanese one.They no longer emphasized gewu qiongli(investigation of things and fathoming of principles),tiandao xingming(the Way of Heaven and human affairs),and renxin daoxin(the human mind and the moral mind),but instead stressed the way of ethics in everyday life.Focusing on politics rather than morality and replacing moral consciousness with political achievement,they enabled Japanese culture to shed"barbarism"and enter the Sinosphere,offered Japanese ethnocentrism principled support,and perfected the initial development of modern Japan’s ethnocentrism,with significant consequences for the course of the country’s historical progress.