It is anti-progressive (non-popular) since the work gives preference for a specific set of ideologies at the expense of and exclusion of others. Where time, resources, finances, and even legitimacy is in limited supply, power needs to be monopolized.

Meiji Japan (pre-1900) represents one aspect of Japanese nation-building (into an Imperial power): An open form that welcomed and nurtured new ideas to the exclusion of the old in the rush to industrialize. Imperial Japan (post-1900) represented another aspect of Japanese nation-building: A closed form that excluded any new idea, especially that which might hamper the work of the military/politico elites in the rush to match the old imperalism of the West.

Marx always eluded me. But it seems to me that the mechanisms of control that such nation-builders employ are readily traded in the free open market of ideas. It’s understandable that the Japanese elites would adapt the Prussian model of nation building to their group oriented society, then expand the repertoire for the sake of the Empire. The Imperial Japanese used the tools of nation-building to coerce the population into an Imperial program and was able to extract significant sacrifices (up to the point of jumping off the cliffs or exploding a handgrenade over their stomach in the face of approaching US forces) and silence any form of descent.

In the post Imperial age, the new nations of former colonies will have been astute students if they resort to the mechanisms of control of their former masters in a rush to legitimate and consolidate their own powers.

In addition, nation-building has always been a part of advanced civilizations. In the industrial age, it became more urgent considering the scale of financial and labor organization required to effective modernize. Once again, Meiji Japan channeled valuable (and limited) financial resources to buy itself into the industrial age. Likewise the military juntas of South Korea required the tools of nation-building to solidify their control on power vis DPRK, legitimate their power, and channel limited finances to targeted industrial sectors.

Of note, we can see about the same type of nation-building often using the same mechanisms (ideological training, thought politice, brutal suppression of differing ideas or groups, etc.) in fascist and communist countries: Nazi Germany, Stalinist USSR, and Maoist PRC.