[1] In 1996, historian Shinya Ida used forensic linguistic methods to analyze "Datsu-A Ron" and concluded the writer was likely either Yoshio Takahashi or Fukuzawa.
[2] The article first declares that the "wind of westernization" is blowing through the region and that countries can either accommodate it and "taste the fruit of civilization" or be left without a choice in their own destiny.
In this way, the author sees Japan during the Meiji Restoration as spiritually "leaving Asia," since its two closest neighbors, China and Korea, do not appear to be embracing such reformation.
Nevertheless, the assistance provided to radical Koreans during this era was generally not intended to lead to complete independence for the peninsula, but rather sought to expand Japanese influence in Korea even further.
At the time of the war, foot binding was still a common practice in China, opium usage was widespread, and the Qing government was failing to fend off exploitative foreign incursions.
In 2004, Yo Hirayama researched the intellectual legacy of the article, and concluded that was effectively forgotten from its publication in 1885 until the 1950s, when it started to be cited as an example of Japanese militarism during the Meiji period.
[1] During the 1950s and 1960s, it was cited in a number of books and articles:[1] It was also republished in full in Takeuchi (August 1963), Gendai-Nihon Shiso Taikei (現代日本思想大系, "The survey of current Japanese ideas") and Masafumi Tomita, Shun-ichi Tsuchihashi ed.