“The Asia-Ford Foundation Event” was one of the most important debate on China studies in Japan. Triggered by US Ford Foundation’s large amount of research grant, the event created heated discussion over academic ethics and “subjectivity of research” in Japan’s academic community, and made academic community divided over China’s Cultural Revolution. The main issues included researcher’s social responsibility, Asian/African/Latin American development approach, and critiques on area studies in the US. This paper attempts to explain how Japanese academic community accepts “western(especially American)research methods” and three aspects will be addressed, which include “scientific principle” in Epistemology, “area study” in methodology, and “Western model” in modernizing process.