Book introduction

　Chinese is supposed to be a foreign language to Japanese people, but due to the complicated Sino-Japanese relations in modern times, and due to the nature of its notation using Chinese characters, the otherness of the language has always been ambiguous and complex. What kind of China did modern Japan imagine and perceive through the Chinese language? And how to describe the history of its reception of the Chinese language? I examined the discourses and actions of educators and learners who pursued Chinese as a cultured foreign language via the popular media such as radio and publications, and the implications of these discourses for the Japanese perception of China as well as cultural exchange between Japan and China.