Asian Studies Commons^™

“Unwavering Public Support” Not Quite So Easy To Find These Days, Duncan Hewitt

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

It was just like old times—in many of China’s major newspapers, a prominently displayed half-page story headlined: “Officials and citizens all across the country express unwavering support for central party leadership’s decision.” It followed hot on the heels of the previous day’s People’s Daily headline: “Resolutely support the party’s correct decision,” which appeared on many front pages. In the wake of the stunning news that Bo Xilai, one of China’s most prominent politicians, had been suspended from the ruling Politburo, and his wife arrested on suspicion of being involved in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, the Chinese Communist …

Book Review: The Gender Of Memory, Nicole Elizabeth Barnes

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Gail Hershatter and her Shaanxi-native research collaborator Gao Xiaoxian (of the Shaanxi Provincial Women’s Federation) spent ten years interviewing 72 women and a few men in rural Shaanxi province in northwest China. The Gender of Memory, Hershatter’s sole-authored product of this joint effort, fills a crucial gap in historiography of the 1950s, providing the first personal stories of land reform, the 1950 Marriage Law, collectivization, and the Great Leap Forward. Moreover, through incisive gender analysis, Hershatter illustrates how gender determined not only how Chinese women and men lived their lives, but also how they remember them. Whereas male interviewees …

A Q&A; With Janet Chen, Author Of Guilty Of Indigence, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Every society sees and treats its poorest members differently. The distinctive way that Victorian Britain dealt with poverty is a central theme in many novels by Charles Dickens, the prolific author whose books are getting even more attention as the bicentennial of his birth is being marked. For those more interested in India’s present than England’s past, the book of the moment on this theme seems to be Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, which is earning enthusiastic advance reviews and is due out soon (coincidentally or not on February 7, Dickens’ …

Book Review: Phoenix: The Life Of Norman Bethune, David Webster

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Millions of Chinese have memorized Mao Zedong’s 1939 lines “In Memory of Norman Bethune,” written soon after the Canadian surgeon’s death amidst the war against Japan. As a result, Bethune remains the best-known Canadian in China, still outstripping comedian Dashan (Mark Rowswell).

“Comrade Bethune’s spirit, his utter devotion to others without any thought of self, was shown in his great sense of responsibility in his work and his great warm-heartedness towards all comrades and the people,” Mao wrote, extolling Bethune’s “spirit of absolute selflessness.” If Bethune was pure selflessness and internationalist heroism after coming to China, it was only after …

Ai In Mumbai, Reshma Patil

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Chinese artist offered a firm handshake and his business card. The Indian curator hesitated for a split second. They were, after all, standing in a men’s loo in Gwangju, South Korea. The curator returned to Mumbai, a financial powerhouse that several Chinese artists in the study group at Gwangju had never heard of. “What is Mumbai?” they asked him. The artist, who happened to know where Mumbai lies, returned to his studio in Beijing. He and the curator communicated via email for over a year. There were long silent gaps, until one day this year, the curator received a …

A Flourishing Profession: Reflections On A Career In Asian Studies, Charlotte Furth

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

At the March annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, held in Toronto, the association recognized Charlotte Furth with the AAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies. Furth is Professor Emerita of history at the University of Southern California and has written and edited five books, including A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960-1665 (UC Press, 1999). Below is an expanded version of remarks that Furth gave at the AAS award ceremony, in which she reflects on the changes to Asian Studies that have taken place since she entered the field in 1959, particularly regarding the …

Review Of Daniel Mockli's "Strategic Trends 2012: Key Developments In Global Affairs, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This review essay describes and analyzes the content of this annual compilation of international affairs essays published by the Zurich-based Center for Strategic Studies.

The Politics Of Human Development In India And China: It Pays To Invest In Women And Children, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores the attainments of China and India on measures of basic human development as ingredients of a long-term economic development strategy. It proposes that major differences in ideology and state capacity explain in part why India has fallen behind China. The analysis suggests that these relatively hidden political factors play an important role in transforming and advancing human development not only within India and China but also in other developing and emerging economies. The findings also support the notion that public investments in the capabilities of women and children have significant social and economic payoffs in both the …

Singapore: Transitioning To A "New Normal" In A Post-Lee Kuan Yew Era, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Politics in Singapore is generally marked by incremental change. When Singapore eventually becomes a two-party or multi-party democracy, the 2011 general election is likely to be regarded as the starting point of the epochal political transition. It was a boisterous year politically where political excitement and consciousness went up several notches due to the 7 May general elections and the 27 August presidential elections, both of which produced keenly contested hustings and outcomes. The aftermath of the general elections also saw the retirement of former Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong from the Cabinet.

Tweets And Votes: A Study Of The 2011 Singapore General Election, Marko M. Skoric, Nathaniel D. Poor, Palakorn Achananuparp, Ee Peng Lim, Jing Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study focuses on the uses of Twitter during the elections, examining whether the messages posted online are reflective of the climate of public opinion. Using Twitter data obtained during the official campaign period of the 2011 Singapore General Election, we test the predictive power of tweets in forecasting the election results. In line with some previous studies, we find that during the elections the Twitter sphere represents a rich source of data for gauging public opinion and that the frequency of tweets mentioning names of political parties, political candidates and contested constituencies could be used to make predictions about …

Violence Against Women In Pakistan, Amina Bath

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Ancient Chinese Power, Modern Chinese Thought, Linsay Cunningham-Cross, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power is the latest publication to come from Yan Xuetong's ongoing research project that explores the interstate political philosophy of China's pre-Qin era. This book is interesting on many levels, and has already drawn attention from public intellectuals and scholars in the West. This essay thus first will examine the scholarly issue of how Yan and his colleagues are employing pre-Qin thought to make philosophical and political arguments about how China will rise. It will consider the relation of the ‘kingly way’ (wang 王) and the ‘hegemonic way’ (ba 霸) to critically analyze Yan's argument …

Being Blacklisted By China, And What Can Be Learned From It, James A. Milward

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Bloomberg, and more recently The Washington Post, have run stories about the visa problems of scholars who contributed to Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland, a volume edited by Frederick Starr and published by M.E. Sharpe in 2004. The Bloomberg piece was exhaustively reported; the reporters who wrote it, Dan Golden and Oliver Staley, conducted interviews with Chinese as well as western participants in the episode, and all in all did a good job with a complicated story. Inevitably, however, the Bloomberg piece creates some misconceptions, and these are as likely to be reinforced as cleared up in news reports that build …

A Road To Smarter Infrastructure In Asia, Curtis S. Chin, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

China's infrastructure building program used to be the envy of the world, and in some respects it still is. Yet economists, investors and now China's own citizens are worried about diminishing returns, while incidents such as last month's Wenzhou high-speed rail crash raise questions about the durability of China's investments.

Social Trust In Contemporary Rural China: Its Sources And Impacts On Public Goods Provision, Narisong Huhe

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Social trust, as an essential element of political culture, is assumed to strongly affect the effectiveness of political institution. However, such studies in non-democratic settings are scarce, and even scarcer in the Chinese context. This dissertation, using data drawn from an original survey in rural China, examines the extent, sociopolitical origins, and political consequences of social trust in China. The results suggest that China has a unique pattern of social trust owing to its dual Confucian and Communist heritages. While trusts in relatives, neighbors, kinsman, and other villagers (i.e., particularized trust) are extensive, trust in strangers (generalized trust) is scarce. …

Geopolitics: A Guide To The Issues, Bert Chapman

Libraries Research Publications

Provides overview of how geography influences international relations and international politics including climate change, energy security, international economics, and international security.  Introduces key figures in geopolitics development as a discipline such as Alfred Thayer Mahan and Halford Mackinder, covers the geopolitical interests of individuals countries, describes disciplinary divisions within geopolitics, details international geopolitical crisis areas and provides maps of some of these areas, emphasizes geopolitics information resources, and stresses the critical importance of geography in studying international politics and security.

The Implications Of Water Insecurity For Fragile And Failing States: The Case Of Pakistan, Jennifer Norins

Graduate Masters Theses

As we become more firmly established in the 21st century, the international system faces a number of increasingly more difficult challenges that pose threats to global security and human progress. Among these challenges, water scarcity and failing states have each received prominent attention in both the academic and policy realms. Water serves a number of critical purposes for human survival and socio-economic activity. The threat of water scarcity is becoming increasingly salient and the capacity of states to ensure water security, and other securities which water security supports, is being tested. Fragile and failing states also occupy significant space in …

Impact Of Sanctions And Isolation Measurement With North Korea, Burma/Myanmar, Iran And Zimbabwe As Case Studies, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The present study explores how the introduction of targeted sanctions has transformed the practice of international organisations, looking at the examples of North Korea, Burma/Myanmar, Iran and Zimbabwe.

Although the ultimate effectiveness of the individual sanctions measures can hardly be ascertained, not least due to their co-existence with unilateral sanctions proactively enforced by the US, the analysis demonstrates that the character of sanctions measures, and the changing nature of the international system, has put the use of sanctions and isolation measures in different terms than was the case just a couple of decades ago.

While it is beyond the scope …

Key Issues That Have Not Been Addressed, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The last nine days of hustings period have provided for a most engaging electoral campaign in recent memory. There seems to be a nascent but growing political consciousness and Singaporeans are not shy to express their political inclinations and loyalties.

New Cabinet Will Have Its Work Cut Out, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Eugene Tan, asst professor of law at SMU writes a commentary about how the PAP Government will have to renew trust with the people.

China And The New Asia: Policy Recommendations, Tasha N. Haug

Senior Honors Theses

The People’s Republic of China is an indispensable political and economic force in Asia. With the majority of the United States’ foreign economic interests invested in the Asia-Pacific region, the leading role that China is taking is a major concern. The Asia-Pacific region is strategically important to the US. How US policy makers craft foreign policy toward Asia has a direct impact on US involvement in the region. Unless the US becomes more invested in Asia, develops a comprehensive understanding of China’s role in the region, and proactively pursue strategic relationships, US influence in Asian affairs will become a thing …

Asian Americans And Politics: Voting Behavior And Political Involvement, Elizabeth Hoene

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Voting behavior and political involvement are two commonly studied topics among political scientists today, most commonly involving Caucasian, African, and Hispanic Americans. However, there have been relatively few studies done on Asian American and Asian immigrant voting behavior and their political involvement. What causes Asian Americans and Asian immigrants to vote the way they do? How involved are they in American politics and why? These are questions that I am aiming to answer through the studying of the Pilot National Asian American Political Survey 2000- 2001 from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Socioeconomic factors such as income, …

Rising Asian Powers And Changing Global Governance, Ann Florini

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

International Relations (IR) scholarship is directly in the path of two simultaneous tidal waves. The first is the rise of China and India in the traditional IR terms of military and economic power. The second is the expanding nature of what IR scholarship needs to address, as global integration transforms the nature of the issues to be addressed and numerous trends expand the number and types of relevant actors. Neither theory nor practice is yet coping well with the profound implications of these fundamental changes. Investigating what kind of a world order might emerge from these two simultaneous tsunamis will …

When Religion Trumps Ethnicity: A Regional Election Case Study From Indonesia, Edward Aspinall, Sebastian Carl Dettman, Eve Warburton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The authors analyse the 2010 mayoral election in the city of Medan, North Sumatra. Medan is an ethnically and religiously diverse city and the authors treat the elections here as a case study of inter-communal dynamics in local elections in plural regions of Indonesia. The first round of the vote was contested by 10 pairs of candidates and occurred in a climate of cross-ethnic alliance building and appeals that, the authors argue, are typical of broader Indonesian patterns. The second round confronted voters with a choice between a Muslim candidate and an ethnic Chinese candidate who was also a Buddhist. …

The Security Situation For Central Asia: Afghanistan, Water, And Uzbek Stability, Carleton Wesley Becks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Central Asia has emerged on the global stage after spending decades in isolation. As developing nations, most of Central Asia possesses the resources to spur rapid development. Things would seem to be in the region's favor. There are, however, a few events that could derail the region.

Afghanistan is on the periphery of the region and presents a series of difficult dilemmas such as creating a functioning government from a country that has been at war for nearly 30 years, the problem of the insurgency in the south, and narcotics trafficking.

Water is scarce in the region, the leaders cannot …

Book Review: Fractured Rebellion, Amy O'Keefe

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Walder creates an orderly account of the events, discussions, and political currents that comprised the student movement in Beijing during the first two years of China’s Cultural Revolution. With meticulous attention to sequencing, he comprehends and brings meaning to a whirlwind of events often described as a vindictive political free-for-all, but which he shows, instead, to have been a structured series of rivalries.

Passport To The World: Chinese Students At The University Of Kentucky, Denise Ho, Jared Flanery

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

My Thursday afternoon flight from Shanghai to Chicago exhibited a curious phenomenon. United Airlines Flight 836, which went from China to Midwestern America on August 19, 2010, had the most homogenous set of passengers I had ever seen. They were all in their late teens and early twenties, Chinese youth dressed in the trendiest fashions and carrying the latest electronics. I was so impressed that I broke my rule about photographing people, popped up in my seat in the corner of economy class, and took their picture.

Whether United knew it or not, my flight was a modern school bus, …

Havel, China And Africa, Howard W. French

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I am eager to read Chinese news accounts of the life and death of Vaclav Havel, whose central message might be summed up as the necessity for individuals everywhere to cast off their apathy and assume their rights – and agency – as citizens.

The death of this figure of major importance to the history of the late- and post-Cold War world will inevitably generate talk that is heavily focused on Europe, just as the attention of the Western media and foreign ministries tended to stay almost exclusively bracketed on this region (with China, for a time, serving as a …

Liminal City, Rian Dundon

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

He says he’s lost his city and his society. We drive past a group of demonstrators protesting land seizures. He points out the scene and the gaggle of police cruisers nearby and grins in English “this is Chi-na”, emphasizing the play-on-words between “Chi” and “Chai” (chai, or 拆 being Chinese for “dismantle” or “demolish”). He sees the city’s recent prosperity through a filter of isolation, exclusion, and greed. Tells me how the doors are all closed. How peoples’ sense of self worth is determined by the number of contacts in their cell phones. How they are drifting further …

Review: Consent Of The Networked, Anne Henochowicz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The last two years have seen much talk about the explosion of social media as a tool of real change, most notably during the Arab Spring. Tunisia’s and Egypt’s revolutions were powered by Twitter and Facebook. Though these sites are blocked in China, Sina’s microblogging platform Weibo has also changed the political game in that country, forcing government accountability after last summer’s high-speed train crash in Wenzhou and contributing to the very public downfall of former Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai. Weibo’s power may also lead to its demise. After rumors of a coup attempt spread recently, the comment function …