Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Battle Of Wills: Examining The Religious Factor In Hizbullah's 2006 Ground Engagements With Israel, Arwa Salah Mahmoud

Archived Theses and Dissertations

[abstract not provided]

Challenging The International Criminal Court Over Al-Bashir, Emma Gilligan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

As of late November 2008, we are still awaiting the decision of the U.N. Security Council with regard to the request for the arrest of Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide put forward by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in July. With former Presidents Charles Taylor of Liberia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia as the only two heads of state formally indicted by the ICC since its inception in 2002, the question remains whether the U.N. Security Council will allow this controversial indictment of al-Bashir by Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo or invoke Article 16 …

Alex De Waal's Shuttle Diplomacy, Sarah Stanlick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

This month’s discussion piece, “The Activist,” is a critical look at one of the most renowned scholars of the turmoil in Sudan. Alex de Waal, a man with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the different factions, aspects, and issues surrounding the conflicts in Sudan, is profiled under a careful eye. De Waal, a competent critic—as McDonell notes who “takes pride in his competence, and he does not hesitate to criticize activists he deems inexpert”— has built a career on a meticulously researched understanding of the conflict. He honed that reputation through careful action, critical thinking, and a critical voice for …

International Terrorism:Role ,Responsibility And Operation Of Media Channles, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

"Terrorism" is a term that cannot be given a stable defintion. Or rather, it can, but to do so forstalls any attempt to examine the major feature of its relation to television in the contemporary world. As the central public arena for organising ways of picturing and talking about social and political life, TV plays a pivotal role in the contest between competing defintions, accounts and explanations of terrorism. Which term is used in any particular context is inextricably tied to judgemements about the legitimacy of the action in question and of the political system against which it is directed. …

Web Portals To Taiwan’S Past

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One of the blessings of the Internet Age is the availability of valuable information about the past, in this case Taiwanese history. This post introduces a few English and Chinese websites that I have found most interesting/useful. The list is hardly meant to be exhaustive, and people should feel free to recommend other sites that would benefit all those interested in this topic.

1. The Gerald Warner Taiwan Image Collection — Put together by Paul Barclay at Lafayette College, this website contains 340 photographs and postcards gathered by Warner from 1937 to 1941 during and after his tenure as U.S. …

I Know It’S Only Rock’N’Roll (But They Don’T Like It)—The Sequel…, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

My next posts were all supposed to deal with my recent trip to China, but news about the long-awaited Guns’n’Roses release, “Chinese Democracy,” stirring up controversy in China is something that I can’t resist weighing in on. I won’t go into details about whether or how it has actually been banned in Beijing, as you can find out about that other places, including here and here. And I don’t need to fill you in on the China-related content of the album (a work I hasten to admit I haven’t heard yet), as that is covered thoroughly in an excellent Huffington …

China In 2008: Pre-Orders Now Available

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The weekend after Thanksgiving is the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, but if you’d like to avoid the crush at the malls, China in 2008 now has its own webpage, where you can order a copy for all those hard-to-gift friends (especially if they don’t mind it arriving in March–the release date for the book…).

In Case You Missed It: Post-Mao China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last year, the Association for Asian Studies inaugurated a new series of booklets under their “Resources for Teaching About Asia” branch called “Key Issues in Asian Studies.” The first two booklets in the series were published in 2007: Political Rights in Post-Mao China by Merle Goldman and Gender, Sexuality, and Body Politics in Modern Asia by Michael Peletz. (Those interested in applying to write a “Key Issues” booklet should see the AAS’s author guidelines.)

Goldman’s book on political rights in contemporary China canvases the factions that dominated political discussions in the post-Mao era, and is key reading for those who …

Thanksgiving In China…?

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Despite calls several years ago for a Chinese Thanksgiving Day, Thanksgiving hasn’t caught on in China as Christmas has. And with good reason–the holiday hasn’t brought much to China other than (last year) Paris Hilton.

But tomorrow begins the Christmas shopping season (a holiday that has caught on in some places in China–if largely for its commercial meanings), and this new holiday may have more dire implications in China this year. Analysts are predicting slow Christmas sales in the U.S., which may mean a slow season for Chinese manufacturers as well.

In Case You Missed It: Three Faces Of Chinese Power, Eric Setzekorn

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

David Lampton, a distinguished professor of international relations at SAIS, knows this is a great time to publish a book on Chinese power. As a new administration, which he may play a role in, attempts to craft a balanced and articulate China policy, his newest effort, The Three Faces of Chinese Power; Might, Money and Minds, will be influential and widely read. The book is a comprehensive and largely successful attempt to grasp the motivation, intent and challenges for Chinese international relations as China becomes a global leader and East Asia the center of world economic, political and military power. …

The Problem Of China: A Revisitation, Peter Zarrow

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Even though Dewey and Tagore have gotten more attention lately in scholarly works on Chinese education and ruminations of Chinese interactions with other countries, we at China Beat remain equally interested in the third famous foreign philosopher who gave a high profile set of lectures to audiences in Beijing and other cities during the aftermath of World War I: Bertrand Russell.

We thought about him when running our series on Jonathan Spence’s Reith Lectures, since Russell gave the inaugural ones sixty years before that. And we think of him when perusing the sections of Chinese bookstores devoted to philosophical matters …

2008 Awards

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We are healthily skeptical about the newsworthiness of award recipients — prizes don’t, after all, always go to the right people. But a well-bequeathed award can draw attention to an intriguing book or piece of writing that one might have otherwise missed.

In an attempt at a premature 2008 awards wrap-up, here are a few that you might have overlooked.

1. There was consternation from the Chinese state in August and September over the mention that activist Hu Jia might be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While he didn’t win the Nobel, he was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the …

Recommendation: "Garden Of Contentment"

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

If you haven’t already stumbled across Fuchsia Dunlop’s piece in last week’s New Yorker on a Hangzhou restaurant that uses only local food, it’s worth a read. Dunlop, author of two Chinese cookbooks and the recently-published memoirShark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, describes her trip to visit Dai Jianjun, owner of the Dragon Well Manor, which serves a prix fixe menu to diners (starting at about 300 yuan) “prepared with local ingredients according to the theories of Chinese medicine and the solar terms of the old agricultural calendar.” Here’s a short excerpt:

Dai’s main worry is that traditional farming and cooking …

Peng Mulan In China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As part of our continuing follow-up on “China Beatniks in Beijing,” we wanted to share with you a couple links to articles on the talk Kenneth Pomeranz (彭慕兰) gave at Qinghua University, here and here (both in Chinese). Pomeranz’s talk for the Beijing Forum was at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, the site of Nixon and Mao’s meeting as well as the former home of Jiang Qing. Here are few pictures:

Playing Politics With Cats And Dogs, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As regular readers of this blog already know, I recently crossed the Pacific to take part in the Beijing Forum, a fascinating if sometimes hard to figure out event that was valuable in part simply because of how many different countries were represented by at least one presenter. How often, after all, does an American academic find himself or herself in a room where there is an exchange of opinions going on between a scholar based in Moscow and a scholar based in Cairo, or hears an administrator from a university in Nairobi respond to comments his counterparts from Sri …

China Hax!1!

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Chinese hackers may (we should stress, may) have struck again. Just two weeks after Newsweek reported (in the juicy campaign expose published in last week’s issue) that last summer both the Obama and McCain campaign computers were infiltrated by hackers who copied documents on policy issues (speculated to be either Chinese or Russian), yesterday Fox News announced that the Pentagon was banning the use of external computing hardware after a worm was found to bespreading through its computing network.

There do not seem to be any online reports linking the new regulation specifically to Chinese hackers, but Fox News anchors …

Protest In China: Further Readings

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With protest in the news, here are some places to turn for accessible academic readings that help place unrest into perspective. One thing worth noting in the list is that while some touch upon, none specifically focuses on Tiananmen per se. The events of 1989 are important; we’ve put up material related to them before; we doubtless will again, especially as the twentieth anniversary of the June 4th Massacre approaches. Still, sometimes the shadow of the 1989 protests can make it harder to discern the meaning of current events, especially when the outbursts don’t take the form of student-led demonstrations. …

Catch That Pepsi Spirit

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This interview was conducted over email between Kelly Hammond and Micki McCoy in parallel with McCoy’s article in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art(forthcoming January/February 2009) on the depiction of ethnic minorities in propaganda posters in the People’s Republic of China made prior to the Opening and Reform. The posters can be seen as historical predecessors for contemporary official depictions of ethnic diversity such as that seen at the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremonies. Yet this imagery is distinct from current commercial visualizations of ethnicity and nationality in the PRC, as described in the interview below regarding Hammond’s participation in a …

A Reader: Protests And Public Relations

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This morning the Los Angeles Times reported on a riot in Gansu that was touched off over disagreements on city planning issues. The report comes on the heels of an uptick in news in the last week on local protests in China. It is unclear if this increased coverage represents an actual increase in local protests (based on reports from the Chinese government in recent years, there are hundreds of local protests each week in China) or if the economic crisis has simply increased the relevance of these protests.

But much of the coverage we’ve been reading has been less …

G. William Skinner, Daniel Little

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

G. William Skinner was one of the most innovative social scientists to have turned his attention to China in the past thirty years. Bill passed away on October 25, 2008, but his influence on how we think about China will survive him for a long, long time. (See this list of Skinner’s publications to get an impression of the depth and scope of his contributions.) Bill was a generous and open scholar, and many scholars working in the field today owe him a permanent debt of gratitude for his advice and support in the past several decades. (See this Chinese …

Murder Most Foul

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Both the Guangxu Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi died one hundred years ago this week (November 14 and November 15, respectively), and some of our favorite news sites and blogs have been commemorating the anniversaries, made more newsworthy by the recent revelations that Guangxu was (as has long been suspected) poisoned. Here’s a short reading guide for whodunnit (the debate continues) and further reflections:

1. NPR’s Louisa Lim on the latest theories of Guangxu’s death:

“Guangxu died just 22 hours before the 74-year-old Empress Dowager Cixi. Imperial medical records indicated that Guangxu’s death was due to natural causes. But even …

China Beatniks In Beijing: Ii

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Yong Chen, UCI history professor and China Beat contributor, was one of several of our regular contributors to attend the Beijing Forum, an international meeting of scholars to discuss vital issues facing the world. This year’s theme for the conference was “The Harmony of Civilizations and Prosperity for All” (“文明的和谐与共同繁荣”) and aimed at promoting the development of the social sciences and humanities in the Asia-Pacific region.

While in Beijing, Yong Chen gave a talk on “Chinese-Americans and the American Government.” A report about this talk has been posted (in Chinese) by Yong’s former Beijing University classmate, Yang Yusheng, at the …

Wild Strawberries

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The past week has witnessed the appearance of the Wild Strawberries Student Movement (野草莓學運; see website), formed in the aftermath of state attempts to curtail peaceful expressions of free speech during the visit of ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin 陳雲林. These actions prompted over 200 students to launch a sit-inoutside the Executive Yuan, and after being evicted from their original location the students transferred the sit-in to Liberty Plaza (自由廣場). They have received petitions of support from over 500 university professors, while other sit-ins have been staged throughout the island.

At this point in time, the movement’s goals include: 1) Apologies …

Coming Distractions: Two Kinds Of Time, Robert A. Kapp

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The first big crush of incipient China specialists after World War II marched into America’s graduate schools in the early and mid-1960s, particularly after the enactment of the National Defense Education Act made large amounts of federal money available for “Foreign Area Studies” and “Critical Language Studies.”

I was one of the marchers. Having finished college, with virtually no exposure to anything Asian, in the spring of 1964, I began six long years of graduate study that fall. The new life began at 8 a.m. on, I think, September 22, in my first language class: Chinese I. It was a …

China Annals: Elizabeth Perry

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Elizabeth Perry of Harvard University is the outgoing president of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) and the author of many books. She has also edited and co-edited nine books (one with China Beat’s Jeff Wasserstrom) which address issues of workers’ rights, popular protest, revolution, and reform. Last April, she delivered the presidential address at the Annual Meeting of the AAS in Atlanta, Georgia. In this address, which will appear in print in the November issue of theJournal of Asian Studies, she focused on the non-violent worker strike at the Anyuan coal mines in the early 1920s, and called for …

Shanghai Expo: A Preview

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We imagine that some of you are now emerging from your post-Olympic stupor and feeling capable of turning attention to the next Chinese mega-event: the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Here are a few places to check out to get up on Shanghai’s preparation for the Expo:

1. Start off with the official site, where you can meet mascot Haibao (the little blue guy with the Tintin hair to the right), watch promo videos, and find lists of participating countries and organizations.

2. The organizing group for the world Expos (the equivalent to the International Olympic Committee) is the Bureau International des …

China In 2008: Cover Art

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One of the themes in our forthcoming book, China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance, is how the year 2008 came to symbolize more than just the hosting of the Olympics in China. “2008” came to mean China’s emergence on the world stage with the respect and admiration of people around the globe. When we saw this picture, taken by Shanghai-based photographer Iain Harral, it seemed to represent that fervent hope–so fervent that it was, in this case, literally written on the body. We’re grateful to Iain for allowing us to use this photo on the cover of our …

State Of Siege

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The past few days in Taiwan have been marked by a mixture of joy and trepidation: joy at Obama’s unprecedented electoral triumph and what it means for the achievement of justice and racial harmony (dare we hope that one day a Hakka or Aborigine may become President of Taiwan?), but also trepidation over the state of Taiwan’s democratic system. Violent street protests accompanying the visit of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin 陳雲林 have shocked and dismayed the nation, prompting the normally mild-mannered President Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九 to pound the podium in rage while issuing …

Ashes Of Time Redux, Matthew David Johnson

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Six years before Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo long cang hu, 2000), Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai was a pioneer in the genre of stylish, star-loaded, and festival-ready wuxia filmmaking. His Ashes of Time (Dung che sai duk / Dong xie xi du, 1994) reinterpreted martial arts fiction for a generation more accustomed to motion pictures and television serials than novels, at a time when Hong Kong’s economy was riding a crest of growth triggered by the opening of adjacent Guangdong to direct investment. Ashes represented a major investment for its producers, with a reputed budget of HK$40 million. Despite …

China Beatniks In Beijing

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A group of China Beat contributors will be in Beijing this weekend for the Beijing Forum and other events. Jeff Wasserstrom, Ken Pomeranz, Susan Brownell, and Yong Chen will all be speaking at the Forum, which is an annual event that brings together scholars from around the world.

In addition, Jeff Wasserstrom will be making a presentation to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China on “Tales of Two Cities: Public Participation in Urban Politics in Beijing and Shanghai” at 10 a.m. on Monday, November 10. Admission for non-members is 50 RMB. More details are available here (look on the right-hand …