近代日本將「亞細亞」想像為一個共同體 (imagined community)，在政治、經濟、文化、知識等面向加以呈現，寄託日本自我定位的國族敘事，型塑國家的外交政策與戰略目標。「亞細亞」一度是象徵停滯、落後的符碼，但在1980年代後，隨著日本經濟崛起與區域主義 (regionalism) 勃興，帶有文化意涵的「東亞」轉而成為日本烘托自身優越感的地標，本文即試圖透過對近代日本亞洲論述的梳理和考察，揭示此類話語所反映的認同政治。本文假定，日本對「東亞」的想像空間源自於三重結構，即對抗中華霸權與西方帝國主義的文明論述；以中華帝國為中心、涵括其周邊地區的「前近代」(pre-modern) 朝貢體制與華夷秩序；以及反思西方近代性的知識建構，重建東亞近代性的對話空間。這三重結構轉喻下的日本，呈現三種存在樣態 (mode of being)，即抵抗 (resistance)、鑲嵌 (embeddedness) 與再現 (representation)，三者在不同條件下各有凸顯，但揭示的問題意識 (problematic) 如一，即「東亞」作為對應於「歐洲」或「西方」的「建構的實在」(constructed reality)，擁有與歐洲或西方不同的特質，成為日本據以證成其獨特發展的基底、書寫自我認同的對象，反映知識社群面對他者時的集體焦慮，「東亞」因而在不同時期呈現不同樣態，被賦予不同的政治任務，其間變化必須從「東亞」相對於日本近代化的情境來理解。刻畫西方近代性的「亞細亞」空間與「近代」時間，在知識上予以構連 (articulation) 後，「共同體」的型塑成為日本在東方與西方、自我與他者、區域與全球之間依違擺盪的認同地標，抵抗的意義旨於再現自我，鑲嵌的異化證成抵抗的合法性，而再現最終又回歸鑲嵌的論域。本文的設計重點在於揭示一種研究途徑，透過不同立場的經典閱讀，探討東亞近代性構圖中涉及政治地理學的基本問題，闡述日本的亞洲想像之所以以「共同體」為念，並非地理概念的「亞洲中心主義」(Asia-centrism)，而是日本近代化進程中「東方之故鄉」式的情感體現與文明政治，延伸的軸線則是建構歷史主體的自覺意識，既是彰顯國族敘事的辯證命題，也是自我定位的知識建構。 / Modern Japan regards "Ajia" as an imagined community, and exhibits in the political, economic, cultural and epistemic aspects, commits Japan's nationalist narrative of self-orientation accordingly, and shapes her foreign policy and strategic objectives . In modern Japan, "Ajia" was once a negative term by indicating stagnant, laggard, but in the 1980s, as Japan's economy has been developing rapidly and regionalism gaining popularity, the "East Asia" (Tōa) instead became the symbol of heightening her superiority with its cultural implications, this dissertation is trying to reveal the identity politics reflected by such Asianism discourses. This dissertation assumes that Japan's "East Asia" imagination derived from the following triplet structure that is civilization discourse of resisting the hegemony of Chinese and Western imperialism; "pre-modern" Sino-Barbarian (Hua-Yi) tributary system; and reflection to Western modernity knowledge construction, reconstructing the East Asian modernity for dialogue space. Under the triplet structure, there were three kinds of mode of being in modern Japan: resistance, embeddedness and representation, each had been highlighted under different conditions, but the problematic manifested as one, that is the "East Asia" was a "constructed reality" corresponded to the "Europe" or "the West" with different characteristics, constituted the perceptive understructure of Japan's unique development road, and illustrated in self-identity writing context, underlined the collective anxiety of her knowledge community when faced with "the others". As a result, "East Asia" implied its different significances at different stages, and been given different political tasks, during which the change must be understood from the "East Asia" relative to Japan’s context of modernization. After articulation of knowledge, the spatial "Ajia" and temporal "Kindai" which depicted the Eurocentric modernity, converged on Japan’s "community" imagination that swung between the East and West, self and the others, regional and global identity landmarks. The implication of resistance aimed at self-representation, as alienated embeddedness justified the legitimacy of resistance, and representation returned to the field of embeddedness discourse eventually.