Students who had returned from China formed an important element in a clique at the Yamato court which seized power through a carefully engineered coup in 645. From that time on the Yamato state was definitely committed to a policy of trying to create in Japan a small replica of China, a miniature T’ang in the forested islands on the eastern fringes of the civilized world.
With the glory of China before their eyes, it was little wonder that the Japanese made this attempt. Other petty states in Korea, Manchuria, and on the southwestern borders of China, dazzled by the grandeur and might of T’ang, were making the same attempt. Truly amazing, however, were the zeal and energy with which the Japanese approached the problem, displaying an enthusiasm for learning which promised great things for their remote and backward land.
Under the influence of Chinese ideas, the Japanese for the first time conceived the idea of the Yamato state as an empire, and at that, an empire on an equal footing with China. Prince Shotoku even dared to phrase a letter to the Chinese emperor as coming from the Emperor of the Rising Sun to the Emperor of the Setting Sun. With the new imperial concept, the ruler of the Yamato state for the first time assumed the dignity and majesty of an emperor. The priest-chief of the clan became in theory all-powerful, an absolute monarch in the Chinese tradition. But he did not lose his original role as high priest. He retained a dual position. Even today the Japanese emperor is in theory the Shinto high priest of ancient Yamato tradition, and at