Okakura Tenshin and Pan-asianism

"Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913) is a significant figure in Japan's modern intellectual history. His writings in both Japanese and English became part of a growing discourse that positioned Japan as the guardian and protector of Asia against the depredations, cultural as much as economic and political, of the West. At the outbreak of the Pacific War, the first line ('Asia is One') of his 1903 book, The Ideals of the East, was celebrated posthumously by the Japanese military as the most powerful expression of Japan's goal of political ascendancy in Asia."--Jacket.