ChinaandAND⤬THE JUNCTION
5 SHARED EVENTSJapan

Entangled histories

5 events in which either nation’s sourced chronicle names the other — including under earlier names of the same state. Each is the same record, with the same sources, as on its own chronicle; nothing here was written for this page.

ONE SPINE OF YEARS · TWO WALLS OF EVENTS · CHN LEFT · JPN RIGHT

1. 604 CE

   Prince Shotoku's Seventeen-Article Constitution

   As regent, Prince Shotoku promulgates a set of Confucian and Buddhist moral precepts for government and intensifies the adoption of Chinese institutions.

   Politics & Power · from the Japan chronicle · Yamato and Asuka: The Birth of the State · REFS 2 — Creating the Seventeen-Article Constitution, Asuka period

2. 645 CE

   The Taika Reform

   A court coup destroys Soga dominance and inaugurates reforms reorganizing land and administration along centralized Chinese lines, the basis of the ritsuryo state.

   Politics & Power · from the Japan chronicle · Yamato and Asuka: The Birth of the State · REFS 2 — Asuka period, Japan

3. 710 CE

   Capital established at Nara

   The court founds Japan's first permanent capital, Heijo-kyo (Nara), modeled on the Tang Chinese capital, beginning the Nara period.

   Politics & Power · from the Japan chronicle · Nara and Heian: The Classical Age · REFS 2 — Nara period, Japan

4. 1937 CE

   Second Sino-Japanese War and the Nanjing Massacre

   Japan's full-scale invasion from July 1937 brings catastrophic violence, including the December 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which Japanese forces murdered many tens of thousands of civilians and prisoners and committed mass rape.

   War & Rupture · from the China chronicle · The Fall of the Empire: Republic, Warlords, and War · REFS 2 — Second Sino-Japanese War, China

5. 1946 CE

   Chinese Civil War resumes; Communist victory

   After Japan's surrender, full-scale civil war between Nationalists and Communists resumes, ending in 1949 with Communist victory and the retreat of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government to Taiwan.

   War & Rupture · from the China chronicle · The Fall of the Empire: Republic, Warlords, and War · REFS 1 — China