This article examines how regional order was conceptualized and practiced in modern and contemporary East Asia from the perspectives of the ‘universal’ and the ‘particular’. By employing these perspectives, I aim to offer a synoptic overview of the tectonic shifts that took place in East Asia’s regional order in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Part 1 deals with East Asia in the early modern era through until the latter half of the nineteenth century, while Part 2 examines East Asia in the twentieth century.In the early modern era, China, as the arbiter of the ‘universal’ in the East Asian context, provided the countries in its periphery with a diverse range of ‘international public goods’. These included a logographic system for written communication （hanzi漢字）, a value system （Confucianism）, a legal system （ritsuryō-sei律令制） and even access to the Buddhist canon through translation. It was through the provision, consumption and appropriation of these public goods that the East Asian world functioned. However, different modalities of consumption and appropriation occurred from country to country. Chosǒn Korea and Vietnam, for example, imbibed these public goods so as to partake in the universality that China represented. Meanwhile, Japan appropriated these public goods so as to position itself as unique, particular and independent from China and its universality.In the latter half of the nineteenth century however, a new global universalism presented itself in East Asia; that of Western modernity. Meiji Japan actively embraced this new universalism and sought to use it as a means to establish itself as the dominant hegemonic force in East Asia. China, on the other hand, attempted to maintain its long-standing hegemonic status through continued adherence to the traditional logic of tributary/investiture relations. In a world where Western modernity had come to establish itself as the new global universalism, China’s continued embrace of the traditional logic of tributary/investiture relations rendered its position as ‘particular’.The struggle for hegemony in East Asia between Japan and China was eventually decided by Japan’s victory in the Sino-Japanese War. Although this victory ushered in a new age in which Japan became the dominant power in East Asia, the traditional logic of East Asia and Chinese universality continued to hold a powerful sway upon the region and, eventually, would engender a Japanese response.本稿は、近現代東アジアにおける地域秩序をめぐる構想とその施策を、普遍と特殊という観点から整理することによって、この地域の構造変動を概観するものである。（上）は考察の前提として前近代と19世紀後半について、次号掲載予定の（下）は20世紀について論じる。前近代の東アジアでは、中国が普遍の立場から、漢字・儒教・律令制・漢訳仏教など国際公共財を提供することによって、東アジア世界が成立していた。その周辺では、中国文化を受容することで普遍に参加したり（朝鮮・ベトナム）、自己を特殊に位置づけることで中国からの自立を模索したりする動きがあった（日本）。19世紀半ば以降、西洋由来の近代世界の論理がグローバルな普遍として東アジアに及んでくると、明治日本は西洋由来の普遍に接続することで、東アジアの主導権を獲得しようとした。逆に中国は、伝統的な冊封・朝貢の論理によって主導権を維持しようとしたので、むしろグローバルなレベルでは特殊の位置に立つことになった。日本と中国による主導権争いは日清戦争に帰結し、東アジアにおける日本の主導権が確立した。しかし、特殊に陥った東アジアの伝統は依然としてこの地域において影響力が残り、日本はそれへの対応も迫られた。