Asia (General)

… The growth of national feeling was the direct result of the reaction against Western aggression. It should be remembered — this is a point to which we shall revert — that the sense of exclusive nationalism is not very old either in Europe or in Asia. In Europe the conceptions of the Middle Ages did not include the ideas of individual nationality. Its growth synchronised with the period of European expansion, and it became the accepted creed of Europe only after the Napoleonic era. In Asia, while Japan because of its insular position developed a certain sense of nationality — limited it should be emphasised by a strong sense of feudalism — what existed in China was a feeling of imperial greatness, comparable to that of the Roman Empire, and what kept India alive was a tradition of continuity through Hinduism. The transformation of these feelings into a sense of nationhood was an essential aspect of Asian renaissance.