China had long enjoyed a privileged place in the world view of Japan's political, military and religious elites. That place changed during the early modern Tokugawa (1600-1867) period, owing to several factors: the fall of the Ming dynasty; the prohibition on Japanese traveling abroad; the initial embrace and subsequent rejection of contact with Europe; and the rise to prominence of Neo- Confucianism and related discourses. During the long eighteenth century, China receded in prominence within Japan's worldview, becoming just one of several "others", a change which both facilitated and accompanied the emergence of a new collective Japanese identity.