This posting was not prepared for responding to the above subject. 
But the issues are related.

On behalf of active historians who have been working on 19th century 
Japanese economic thought for many years, I would like to call your 
attention to the following half-day conference on the history of 
Japanese economic thought in the 19-20th century.

Kwansei Gakuin University workshop (March 2, 2009):
Session in the History of Economic Thought
Theme: "Politic Economical Thought" and the Development of Political 
Economy as a Discipline in Japan: Civilization, Enlightenment, and 
Modernization
Organizer: Takutoshi Inoue (Kwansei Gakuin University)
Chair: Mikio Nishioka (Doshisha University)
Presenters:
--Jun Miyata (Kanto Gakuin University)
  "A View in Politic Economical Thought of Toshiaki Honda (1743-1820)"
--Shigeta Minamimori (Kwansei Gakuin University)
  "Takahira Kanda (1830-1898) on Political Economy and his Enlightenment"
--Atsushi Nishi (Mie University)
  "Hideo Aoyama (1910-1992) on Ethics for Modernization and his 
Socio-economic Thought"
Discussion: "Politic Economical Thought" and Political Economy from Japan


These scholars are worried that the Call for Papers for the 
Conference on Dissemination of Economic Ideas jointly organized by 
the Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought (JSHET) and 
the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET), 
which was posted by Tony Brewer in April 2008, may cause a 
misunderstanding of the history of Japanese economic thought.
http://eh.net/pipermail/hes/2008-April/008461.html

Tony's posting said, "[I]n the past Japan was first and foremost an 
importer of ideas coming from the West and especially Europe and its 
Western offshoots...".

Yet in the Tokugawa era (1603-1867), problems common to West and East 
seem to have generated some similar economic answers in spite that 
there were marked differences between Western and Japanese approaches 
to economic problems.  Japan had formed political economy as a 
discipline to cope with the first rapid modernization and 
industrialization starting with their Meiji Restoration in 
1867.  Many Japanese scholars read Chinese Classical as well (as 
Japanese) writings since the Tokugawa era while the Meiji government 
established the bureau of translation.
The Japanese scholars and officials assimilated and transformed 
various foreign ideas and then enriched their own political economy.

Moreover, 97 per cent of JSHET members are mainly working on the 
history of Western economic thought while only 3 per cent are 
specialized in the history of Japanese economic thought. Therefore, 
Japan has the Society for the History of Japanese Economic Thought 
(SHJET), independently of JSHET.  Some of the themes which were 
selected in the Call for Papers of the ESHET-JSHET conference fall 
into the research themes for SHJET members, not for JSHET members. 
SHJET members did not pay attention to the ESHET-JSHET conference but 
some of them began to be concerned about the spread of 
misunderstanding of the history of Japanese economic thought due to 
the biased theme settings.  Many scholars have been interested in 
continuity and discontinuity before and after the Meiji Restoration 
in the history of Japanese economic thought.  The participants in the 
Kwansei Gakuin workshop are not members of either HES or ESHET but 
they promised that they would publish their accumulated research 
results in English in due course.

I could forward your message to the organizers of this workshop if 
you have any interest.

Aiko Ikeo