Asian Studies Commons^™

Taking The Bull By The Horns: Gender Analysis In A Cattle Project In Indonesia, Febrina Prameswari

Sustainability and Social Justice

Women play a crucial role in agriculture, especially in cattle farming. However, gender inequality in livestock production remains a critical issue, as women usually have less engagement with livestock production, less control over finances, and less access to markets. The IndoBeef program in Indonesia was one of the first livestock projects to incorporate gender-specific activities in its implementation. The project used women-only focus groups, utilizing the Women’s Empowerment in Livestock Index (WELI) combined with farm production data to address women’s needs in the cattle industry. I conducted a gender analysis of one of IndoBeef’s subsidiary projects, CropCow. The project did …

The Influence Of The Thirty-Six Stratagems On Chinese Strategy In The Diaoyu Islands, Brent Schuliger

Senior Honors Theses

The Diaoyu Islands are a small, uninhabited archipelago in the East China Sea which has begun increasing in strategic significance due to its advantageous location near Taiwan and along the First Island Chain. The islands are currently under Japanese administration, but the People’s Republic of China considers them historically Chinese and contests Japan’s claim to the islands. A careful examination of China’s actions in challenging Japan’s rule over the Diaoyus reveals the influence of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, a tome of ancient Chinese military wisdom which provides a framework onto which China’s current strategy corresponds. This thesis examines the historical …

Explaining Democratization In South Korea: Comparing Movements In The 1980s, Isaiah Nielsen

Honors Capstone Projects

This paper seeks to analyze the reasons for democratization movements in the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the late 1970s/early 1980s and mid to late 1980s leading to different political outcomes and democratization success. The analysis will dive into the history and politics leading up to the 1980s, and the context of political movements historically, but will focus on the 1980s. It will trace the context of the early democracy movement leading to the Gwangju Uprising in 1980. Then, it will seek to understand the revitalized democratization movement that came to a head in 1987 in Seoul leading to the …

The Switch: Why Do Panama And Nicaragua Now Recognize China Over Taiwan?, Roxanne I. Rogers

Modern Languages, Philosophy and Classics Theses

Panama and Nicaragua have both recently changed their recognition of statehood from Taiwan, formally known as the Republic of China, to China, formally known as the People’s Republic of China. Panama and Nicaragua are only a part of a larger global community that is turning away from Taiwan and towards China, as China grows as an economic, political, and military superpower. However, with a majority of Taiwan’s remaining allies calling Latin America and the Caribbean home, these switches in recognition act as an omen for Taiwanese sovereignty. Overall, Panama and Nicaragua changed their recognition due to China’s political and economic …

In Search Of Unicorns: An Analysis Of Japan's Startup Ecosystem, Kaito Komoriya

CMC Senior Theses

While Japan previously dominated global consumer markets in innovative electronic products, the economy has failed to live up to this performance since the burst of the asset price bubble in 1992 and the subsequent lost decades. In the modern economy, startup companies have become synonymous with innovation. Most of these companies have emerged from Silicon Valley, as well as other startup hubs around the globe. However, critics have criticized Japan for the limited number of notable startup companies from the country.

My thesis seeks to answer the two following questions: First, what is the current state of Japan’s startup ecosystem? …

A Harbour In The Country, A City In The Sea: Infrastructural Conduits, Territorial Inversions And The Slippages Of Sovereignty In Sino-Sri Lankan Development Narratives, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper adopts infrastructure as a lens through which new understandings of the inter-relationships between territory and sovereignty can be advanced. It argues that inverting the terrestrial assumption of territory can lead to “slippages” of sovereignty in which territorial sovereignty is indirectly claimed through the assertion of governance rights. For the purposes of this paper, I explore these inversions through the reclaiming of land from the ocean, and the removal of land by the ocean. Drawing on ethnographic research exploring the effects of China-backed infrastructure megaprojects in Sri Lanka, these territorial inversions are explored, respectively, through the Port City Colombo …

China Rising, 2000-2010, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

North Korea's Policy Toward The United States: Rappochement To Confrontational Diplomacy In The 1970s And The 1990s, Seongryeol Kim

Dissertations - ALL

This research project challenges the common belief that North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and their related delivery systems in the 1990s was a fundamental shift in its foreign policy objectives toward the United States. It argues instead that North Korea has continued to pursue the rapprochement policy announced by Kim Il Sung in the early 1970s. Its findings demonstrate that the shift from rapprochement in the 1970s to provocation in the 1990s was a tactical rather than a strategic change in North Korea's foreign policy. The U.S.'s indifference to the acute security anxieties caused by exogenous factors associated with …

Undersea Cables: The Ultimate Geopolitical Chokepoint, Bert Chapman

FORCES Initiative: Strategy, Security, and Social Systems

This work provides historical and contemporary overviews of this critical geopolitical problem, describes the policy actors addressing this in the U.S. and selected other countries, and provides maps and information on many undersea cable work routes. These cables are chokepoints with one dictionary defining chokepoints as “a strategic narrow route providing passage through or to another region."

China Containment In East Asia: Preventative Or Provocative?, Rachel Solsman

Senior Honors Theses

Since the end of World War II, the United States has developed and maintained its strategic alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan, and has worked to contain China through bolstering its deterrence strategy. However, after a century of humiliation, China is modernizing its military capabilities, improving in trade, and increasing political cohesion to become a regional hegemon. In light of these changes to the international order, the United States must re-evaluate its East Asian alliances and its current military and economic deterrence strategy against China. This paper will discuss the history of these alliances, the rise of …

The Pandemic As Political Opportunity: Jokowi’S Indonesia In The Time Of Covid-19, Charlotte Setijadi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In mid-2021, the Delta strain of the Covid-19 virus caused a second wave of transmissions and deaths in Indonesia at a scale much greater than what was seen in 2020. In this paper, I examine what the Indonesian government’s handling of the Covid crisis in 2021 reveals about the priorities of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), as well as his political agenda and attitude towards the country’s democracy, as he strives to cement his legacy. I argue that, while devastating, the Covid-19 pandemic has given Jokowi the opportunity to push through long-planned economic and political reforms. Furthermore, I contend that, under …

Space And Defense – Volume Twelve – Number Two – Summer 2021, Space And Defense Journal

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Decree Power In Parliamentary Systems: Theory And Evidence From India, Madhav Shrihari Aney, Shubhankar Dam

Research Collection School Of Economics

Decree powers are common to presidential systems; they are rarely found in parliamentary ones. We analyze decree powers in one such rare setting: India. We show that bicameral minority governments in India systematically use ordinances to circumvent parliament and prosecute their legislative agendas. They promulgate more ordinances, enact less legislation, and often repromulgate lapsed ordinances. These patterns suggest that, with bicameral minority governments, the locus of lawmaking shifts to the executive branch. While both majority and minority governments invoke ordinances, the latter do so systematically to get around their parliamentary deficit. In the hands of minority governments, then, the mechanism …

Barking Without Biting: Understanding Chinese Media Campaigns During Foreign Policy Disputes, Frances Yaping Wang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What motivates Chinese media campaigns during foreign policy disputes and how are they carried out? “Influence campaigns” are often recognized as highly pertinent to international security, yet they remain understudied. This paper develops and tests a theory that explains these media campaigns as strategic actions to align domestic public opinion when it deviates from the state’s preferred foreign policy, exploiting the media’s mobilization or pacification effect. These divergent media effects correspond to two types of media campaigns respectively – the mobilization campaigns and the pacification campaigns. The pacification campaigns are particularly important because they indicate that hawkish rhetoric may counterintuitively …

Why 9/11 Matters To Singapore, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan discussed why 9/11 matters to Singapore. He opined that when it comes to countering the terrorist threat, civil society has an important role to play in strengthening inter-faith engagement and understanding.

When Running For Office Runs In The Family: Horizontal Dynasties, Policy And Development In The Philippines, Dean C. Dulay, Laurence Go

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Political dynasties exist in practically every variant of democracy, but take different forms in different places. Yet the types of dynastic structures have remained unexplored. We argue that horizontal dynasties—multiple members from the same political family holding different political offices concurrently— affect policymaking by replacing potential political rivals, who may oppose an incumbent’s policy choices, with a member of the family. But in developing countries, the policy change that accrues from dynastic status may not lead to higher levels of economic development. We test this argument’s implications in the Philippines. Employing a close elections regression discontinuity design on a sample …

First Among Equals: The First Place Effect And Political Promotion In Multi-Member Plurality Elections, Dean C. Dulay, Laurence Go

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We study the impact of rank-based decision-making in a multi-member plurality electoral system by examining the decisions of Philippine legislative councilors to run for and win higher office. By focusing on multi-member plurality elections, we identify the effect of rank amongst politicians that hold the same office and received a similar number of votes. To identify the causal effect of rank, we conduct a close-elections RD at the village, municipality, and province levels. Our main result is the first place effect: incumbent first placers are 5–9% (1–4%) more likely to run (win) in future elections than incumbent second placers. …

Beyond The Great Power Competition Narrative: Exploring Labor Politics And Resistance Behind Ai Innovation In China, Yujia He, Hong Shen

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Chinese-Invested Smart City Development In Southeast Asia - How Resilient Are Urban Megaprojects In The Age Of Covid-19?, Yujia He, Angela Tritto

Diplomacy and International Commerce Reports

Smart cities are emerging as major engines for deploying intelligent systems to enhance urban development and contribute to the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG). In developing economies facing rapid urbanization and technological change, new cities are being built with smart technologies and ideals, complete with business districts and residential, retail, entertainment, medical, education facilities to entice businesses and talents to relocate. Governments tout the potential of such “greenfield” smart cities for innovation and sustainability. Yet such urban megaprojects are often extremely expensive, prompting governments to partner with private players such as property developers, investors, and tech firms to …

One Year On Since Ge2020: Thinking Afresh For The Post-Covid Era, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan opined that even as political competition in Singapore sharpens, a deeper understanding and broader consensus must develop on critical issues. He believes that remaking Singapore to be a fairer, more just, and compassionate society in a post-Covid world is a key responsibility for Parliament.

The Personality Profile And Leadership Style Of China’S President Xi Jinping, Aubrey Immelman, Yunyiyi Chen

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality and leadership style of China’s president, Xi Jinping, from the conceptual perspective of personologist Theodore Millon.

Psychodiagnostically relevant data about Xi were collected from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with DSM-III-R, DSM-IV, and DSM-5.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Xi’s primary …

One Year On Since Ge2020: Thinking Afresh For The Post-Covid Era, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this commentary, the author opined that even as political competition in Singapore sharpens, a deeper understanding and broader consensus must develop on critical issues. He believes that remaking Singapore to be a fairer, more just, and compassionate society in a post-Covid world is a key responsibility for Parliament.

Space And Defense – Volume Twelve – Number One – Winter 2021, Space And Defense Journal

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

The Compressed Modernity Of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage In Taiwan: Digital Activism, Human Rights Discourse, And Intertwined Sexual, Political And National Identities, Jyun-Jie Yang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to officially legalize same-sex marriage. Remarkably, the Taiwanese queer movement achieved the goal of marriage equality in only 30 years, with the first tongzhi (同志) activist group organized in 1990. Compared to Euro-American social movements, Taiwanese tongzhi activism has experienced a “compressed modernity” (Chang, 1999, 2010a, 2010b), which accelerates cultural and social transformations. Although Taiwanese academia has been significantly influenced by queer studies as a form of western knowledge production, local scholars and activists created a new interpretation from “queer” to “tongzhi.” Entangled with complex political identifications in post-martial-law Taiwan, …

The Ccp At 100: Can It Lead China To Be The Wave Of The Future?, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The author discussed about the foremost geopolitical challenge China is facing as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) marks its centenary on July 1. He pointed out that bilateral ties between US and China are patently lacking in trust, but believes both can find convergence and achieve mutual respect if determined efforts are channelled towards policies, institutions, norms, and cooperation that seek to incrementally enhance security and cooperation for both countries even as they robustly engage each other on the issues.

Circuits Broken, Remade, And Newly Forged: Tracing Southeast Asia's Foreign Relations After The Vietnam War, Wen-Qing Ngoei

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article (2021) in Diplomatic History's pandemic feature examines how the principles and consequences of Singapore's "circuit breaker" policy offers a conceptual framework for studying the history of Southeast Asia's foreign relations in the 1970s to 1990s. With this approach, the essay considers how a study of Southeast Asia's culture-makers (artists, writers, dramatists), their works and transnational circuits, may open a productive inquiry into a diverse array of regionalisms that compete and complement ASEAN.

Demanding Images: Democracy, Mediation, And The Image-Event In Indonesia By Karen Strassler, Colm A. Fox

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Karen Strassler takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride through Indonesia’s turbulent democratic developments of recent years—including stages of disappointment, fear, and tragedy, but also periods of joy, hilarity, and hope. To set the scene, the book opens with a photo-essay montage of full-colour images

Knowing China, Losing China: Discourse And Power In U.S.-China Relations, Shankara Narayanan

University Scholar Projects

The U.S. government’s 2017 National Security Strategy claimed, “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”[1] Three years later, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the U.S. foreign policy community’s discursive shift towards Realist competition with China, with officials from the past three presidential administrations coming to view China as a threat to democratic governance and America’s security posture in Asia. The discourse underpinning the U.S.-China relationship, however, remains understudied. During key moments in the relationship, U.S. policymakers’ Realist intellectual frameworks failed to account for Chinese nationalism, suggesting a problem embedded within …

Knowing China, Losing China: Discourse And Power In U.S.-China Relations, Shankara Narayanan

Honors Scholar Theses

The U.S. government’s 2017 National Security Strategy claimed, “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”[1] Three years later, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the U.S. foreign policy community’s discursive shift towards Realist competition with China, with officials from the past three presidential administrations coming to view China as a threat to democratic governance and America’s security posture in Asia. The discourse underpinning the U.S.-China relationship, however, remains understudied. During key moments in the relationship, U.S. policymakers’ Realist intellectual frameworks failed to account for Chinese nationalism, suggesting a problem embedded within …

Exploring The Global Rise Of Ethnoreligious Nationalism: A Case Study Of Vox In Spain And The Bharatiya Janata Party In India, Swetha Manivannan

Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes reasons behind the current global growth of ethnoreligious nationalist parties through a cross-regional analysis of the Vox party in Spain and the Bharatiya Janata Party in India. It also looks at the shift in party domination as secularism has fallen in an era of globalization with the end of “Spanish Exceptionalism” and decline in the Indian National Congress. It utilizes the theory of constructivism to present how this current wave of identity-focused ethnoreligious nationalism is a socio-political construct where those from the majority ethno-religious identity feel the perception of threat by minority populations and multiculturalism and seek …