First question: is it true to say that (at least Joseon) Korean meritocracy was focused on its scholars (as seen in the literati purges), while Japan’s meritocracy was focused on its samurai class?
What era are you talking about? The "samurai class" evolved over time. And there was nothing inherently meritocratic about it, unless you consider a cut-throat battle royale between major samurai clans to be a fair contest. It wasn't, though. Some clans had considerably more power, influence, and wealth as a result of their inherited position, while others had to scrabble for any scrap they could get.
>>18258860Chinese invented meritocratic government during Song.Japan built its state apparatus on top of Sui-Tang system, hence never even entertained the idea of a meritocratically selected leadership class.
>>18258889To add onto this, the Japanese went through a long period of imitating the Chinese style of government, specifically until the 12th century AD. This was before the samurai ruled the country, and Japan was controlled by the imperial court which styled itself after imperial China at the time, which was not particularly meritocratic. What changed in the 12th century is the Sinophile imperial court was usurped by brutish samurai thugs.The samurai were much, much less enamored with Chinese culture than the imperial aristocrats. While initially high-ranking samurai did try to integrate themselves with the imperial bureaucracy, adopting their Chinese style names and such, the subtle political intrigues of the court were not to their liking. Eventually these political cloak and dagger conflicts moved to an arena the samurai were more comfortable with: open warfare. And that was pretty much the end of Japan actively copying Chinese culture for a while. The samurai eschewed the imperial capital and its Chinese culture (at least for a while anyway, they would eventually return), preferring to rule from their own capital with a military style government called the bakufu ("tent government") which in English we typically refer to as the Shogunate.If the imperial capital was founded on less meritocratic Chinese customs, the shogunate was far less so. Warriors might value strength and feats of war, but hierarchy among the samurai was very much determined by birth, not by merit.
