明治維新之後，日本為了建設近代國民國家，創建了（東京）帝國大學，旨在培養既精通西洋語言又掌握西洋技術的急需人才。後來，人們意識到，沒有競爭的大學勢必走向衰退。於是，明治30 年，日本政府又創建了另一所大學——京都帝國大學（1893）。在歷經日清、日俄戰爭之後，日本開始考慮追趕歐美列強並向世界衝擊。從領土擴張到「亞洲盟主意識」，甚至在知識學術領域也謀求走到前面。京都帝國大學的中國學恰好體現了這一點，它忠實地經歷了日本近代化事業的完整過程：切斷江戶以來的日本漢學傳統，將中國古典完全轉化為外國文化，導入尚未廣為人知的中國的最新學術——清朝考證學，並在此基礎上進一步吸收歐洲中國學的方法論，不斷開拓新的研究領域，並結出了豐碩果實。

After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 the Japanese government establishedthe Imperial University in Tokyo with the purpose of fostering superior humanresources mastering Western languages, science and technology, in order to build amodern nation state. In 1897, The Japanese government established KyotoImperial University on the grounds that a university having no rival wouldinevitably decline. After the Japanese-Sino War and the Japanese-Russo War, theJapanese government which began aiming for global expansion to counter theworld powers, struggled for dominance in the academic world with a sense ofbeing the leader of Asia and as a sign of territorial ambition. Sinology at KyotoImperial University embodying the desire of the Japanese government, veryfaithfully pursued this Japanese modernization project. Based on the current studyof old Chinese documents in the Ching dynasty which had not been fullyintroduced to Japan at the time, it provided research in unexplored fields using themethodology of European Sinology.