On the Comparisons of India and China in the Works of Kang Youwei and Zhang Taiyan

One of the more remarkable but unobserved occurrences invariably effaced by area studies is the obvious fact that the peoples of the world outside of Euro-America have been forced to live lives comparatively by virtue of experiencing some form of colonization or subjection enforced by the specter of imperialism. This experience of living comparatively inevitably disclosed the instrumentalizing force of classificatory strategies promoted by the imperial dominant that invariably hierarchized relationships everywhere colonialism and imperialism spread. The Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro, recognizing in the consequences of this assault in the 1930s the formation of a "double life," developed a theory of "layering" (jûsôsei, 重層性) that supposedly characterized Japan's history since the time of origins to explain why Japanese were compelled to live comparatively – life in double time – as a condition of their modern transformation.