Arai Hakuseki
Arai Hakuseki was a Confucian scholar and influential shogunal advisor of the Genroku period (late 17th to early 18th centuries).
He was particularly influential in effecting a shift in shogunate attitudes and policies regarding foreign relations, articulating the conceptual meaning and discursive value for the shogunate's legitimacy of conceptualizing foreign relations with Joseon Dynasty Korea and the Ryûkyû Kingdom in terms of a tributary relationship patterned after the Sinocentric worldview.
Among other reforms he advised implementing were the reversal of a 1695 debasement of the currency, ...
Hakuseki made a point to meet with ambassadors or representatives from foreign countries on a number of occasions, including meeting with Jesuit Giovanni Battista Sidotti in 1708, with ambassadors from Ryûkyû in 1710, and with envoys from Korea in 1711.
Selected Works
- Sairan igen 采覧異言 (1713)
- Seiyô kibun 西洋記聞 (1715)
- Nantôshi 南島志 (1719)
- Ezo shi 蝦夷史 ("History of Ezo", 1720)
