This article discusses the connection between Zhuxi School of Neo- Confucianism and the emergence in early modern Japan. The author insists that the so-called ”modernity of Japan” was made possible by the legacy of Chinese learning or Kangaku. It was on the basis of Kangaku that a modern state with Japanese characteristics emerged. The ”Japanese characteristics” is designated in this paper to re-examine the form and content of modern Japan who had dominated East Asian World in the twentieth century.