中國大陸自文革起歷經改革開放、中越戰爭、重要歷史決議案等重大轉變;同時日本的中國研究界內部也正進行世代交替的變化過程;加上兩岸公開史料，日中間學術交流、研究者相互長期在地研究等客觀情勢變化。日本中國研究因此開啟了約十年的轉型期，這個期間轉型並不朝向單一方向，而 是開始了各種多元的復甦。首先是在史觀上，在社會主義中國完全視為完全斷裂的「革命史觀」，轉變為強調連續性的「民國史觀」;第二是主體性與價值觀面向，擺脫完全依賴中共定義，建立日本「再評價」風潮;最後是方法論上，亞洲學、區域研究、政治決策途徑、社會經濟史等研究法繼之而起， 自此將中國視為民族主義國家而研究。日本利用將近十年的時間所創造出來的「模糊中國」，不僅建立了實證主義的再認識，也為亞洲學的復興奠定思想基礎。

Since the Cultural Revolution, Mainland China has experienced great transitions such as the Reform and the Open Period, the Sino-Vietnam War, and several historical political resolutions. Japan’s China Studies have also experienced several generational changes. Historical documents between Taiwan and China have been published. Scholarly exchanges between China and Japan have also increased, including the possibility of visiting scholars from one to the other. All these have contributed to the transition of Japan’s China Studies of nearly a decade. This type of transition is multi-dimensional; first, it changed the broken revolutionary perspective of the Socialist China to the continuous perspective of the Republic of China; second, it ridded of its complete reliance on the definition of the Chinese Communist Party and created a trend of the re-evaluation of Japan; the last is the emergence of Asian Studies, Regional Studies, Policy Making approaches, and Social Economic History. The transition changed the view of China to the studies of nation states. Japan not only used the concept of “blurred China” to establish the knowledge of positivism but also re-created the basis of Asian Studies.