Medicine, Religion, and Imperialism: Japanese Women Doctors in China (1900–1945)

The establishment of modern medical systems in Meiji Japan opened new pathways for women to enter the medical profession, even as their authority remained constrained by prevailing gender norms. While most of these women doctors practised within Japan, some pursued medical work in China, engaging in transnational practices that have received little scholarly attention. This article examines these activities through the lens of gendered medical diplomacy, in which medical care, humanitarian service, and moral authority functioned as gendered modes of imperial engagement. Through the careers of Maejima Keiko (who arrived in Hangzhou in 1901) and Ikenaga Hideko (who worked in Beijing during the 1930s and 1940s), it traces how this form of diplomacy evolved across distinct imperial contexts. Maejima’s practice, which was conducted through Buddhist networks during a period of relatively informal Japanese expansion, highlights an early phase of Sino–Japanese medical exchange involving women doctors. Ikenaga’s later work, which was shaped by Christian missionary networks and wartime institutions, reveals how women’s medical authority operated within more explicitly imperial structures. Together, these cases show how transnational medical practice loosened gender constraints on women’s professional and personal lives while remaining deeply embedded in imperial power relations in modern East Asia.