Search

The link between development and migration has been termed the 'new development mantra'. Studies on the subject have so far mostly focused on economic remittances, and the potential consequences of return migration on democratisation have been rarely touched upon. This article attests the potential of the migration experience to affect migrants' attitudes towards democracy, thus playing an important role in the diffuse support needed for democracies in the stage of consolidation. Based on a survey among 1,000 Philippine return migrants from six destinations, the paper suggests that the migration experience may not only lead to a more critical stance towards the political system of the home country; there are also indicators of lesser support for the principles of democracy when compared to migrants about to leave the country for the first time. The political system of the destination as such seems to be a less decisive factor than the specific freedoms and restrictions experienced by migrants and a potential bias when selecting the destination. The article focuses on return migrants from Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Japan, which showed the most distinctive numbers in support of democracy or changes therein when compared to first-time migrants heading for that destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1970s, overseas Chinese students in the United States protested against Japan's claim to the Diaoyutai Islands. Emerging at a time when the rivalry between the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland to represent China was at a critical juncture, the movement soon found itself caught up in the struggle between the two sides. It was out of the Protect Diaoyutai Movement that a new ideological constituent of overseas Chinese nationalism came to light, looking to the PRC as the hope for a sovereign China. It became a predominant force among overseas Chinese activists and the movement changed its direction from defending Diaoyutai to seeking Taiwan's reunification with the mainland. The paper discusses the factors that shaped and eventually radicalized the movement. It asserts that the event was a turning point in the evolution of overseas Chinese nationalism which transformed an undercurrent into a surging tide that gave rise to a new Chinese national identity among overseas Chinese in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade East Asia has taken steps to increase regional integration. This paper examines the vogue for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) currently raging in China and Japan. After mapping the regional links that knit East Asia together during the 1990s and 2000s, the focus then shifts to the specific trade agreements that China and Japan have signed. Both countries exhibit a particular FTA “style;” Japan has adopted a more orthodox and comprehensive approach to its treaties, while China has shown greater flexibility and gradualism when dealing with FTA partners. It is still unclear whether these efforts will lead to a region-wide FTA, or a continued crisscrossing of bilateral arrangements. In either case, China's eagerness to adapt to partner country expectations likely gives it an edge in becoming the regional hub of East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article characterizes the present global crisis as an interregnum of modernity. The paper, while granting that the multi-faceted brake if not break-down of world economic development is a major parameter of the global crisis, adopts the perspective that there are other deep structures operative--political, moral, cultural, and cognitive ones, which intertwine with the economic to produce a state of general disequilibrium, and not just a partial economic disequilibrium. The phrase "interregnum of modernity" has been used to propose that the world is in a global axial period of transition. This is paralleled in the interregnum of theoretical frameworks having paradigmatic status in American sociology, and probably in other social sciences. Japan has already shown remarkable technological and economic growth and even in the grim global economic climate of the past ten years, China and Korea have turned in above-average performances. In this interregnum, an innovative endeavor for sociologists is to study on a comparative, cross-national and cross-historical basis the nature of crises, societal as well as cognitive ones.

This article examines the history of a boundary dispute over an area of Northeast Asia known as Gando between the countries of China, South Korea, North Korea, and Japan. Three separate treaties written over the legal status of Gando are discussed. It is suggested that the tenets of international law have been distorted in the attempts to resolve this situation.

By reinterpreting a set of correspondence between Chinese and Japanese monks, this article gives a "thick description" of a lumber transaction between a prestigious monastery in Hangzhou, China, and a newly established monastery in Hakata, Japan. Examining the network connecting the two monasteries shows that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Hakata-based Chinese merchants sought patronage and connections from powerful religious establishments in both China and Japan, whose political patronage conferred economic privileges. The quest for gaining trade profits, spreading Buddhist teachings, and enhancing political authority drove all the parties together and formed a religio-commercial network linking China and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: During quarantine inspections, a new species of Hoplotylus was detected from the rhizosphere of the Japanese maple, Acer palmatum , imported into China from Japan. Hoplotylus japonicus n. sp. is characterised by a stout 431-602 μ m long body, well-developed 20.0-24.5 μ m long stylet with tulip-shaped knobs having rounded sides in lateral view and a rounded anterior margin, excretory pore located slightly posterior to the hemizonid, usually empty, spermatheca, conical tail with a spike-like projection, which is distally smooth on the dorsal side, and males not found. It was morphologically compared with four currently known species of the genus, viz., H. femina , H. montanus , H. silvaticus , and H. sjacobi. In molecular phylogenetic analyses using 18S, 28S and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) ribosomal DNA sequences, the new species formed a clade with the only currently sequenced species of the genus, H. femina , in all phylogenies. This is the second species of the genus characterised by molecular data and the second species recovered from Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Powerful states often use tools of economic statecraft, such as foreign aid and other financial policy instruments, in a bid to "purchase" influence as well as establish regional leadership among their neighbors. How and why do these states undertake similar economic statecraft strategies and policies? The article examines the evolution of infrastructure financing policy of China and Japan and identifies the ever changing and, yet at the same time, mirroring interaction between the two countries' development finance practices. We argue that emulation and competition have led to the process of policy diffusion between these two countries. The competition between these two foreign aid leaders in East Asia especially after China's Belt and Road Initiative has shaped the region's infrastructure development dynamics as they strive to move the equilibrium outcome to their advantage. Such equilibrium through the policy diffusion process has important implications on global development governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can be learned from the now largely forgotten first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) about concepts like the heroism of surrender? I show that Japanese depictions, far from being universally contemptuous, treated their main opponent, the commander of the Chinese Beiyang fleet, Admiral Ding Ruchang, with great respect before, during, and even after the war despite his surrender. Why? I use accounts by observers and Ding's own letters to scrutinize the enduring popularity of his posthumous image in Japan versus China. I argue that Ding showed neither strategic brilliance nor formidability as an opponent. This means he does not fit the "nobility of failure" concept, remaining an anomalous outlier for provoking such hero-worship in Japan despite his mediocre wartime performance. Overall, how Ding and the Beiyang Fleet were treated in popular Japanese accounts suggests that Japanese attitudes towards concepts such as "bravery," "surrender," and "suicide" were in flux in the 1890s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the sources and consequences of East Asia's participation in global governance. Despite the rhetoric of global contribution, the article argues that global governance issues are reframed in East Asia to better suit domestic and regional priorities. Specifically, two underlying mechanisms are at work to complicate, and often render ineffective, East Asia's foray into global governance: (1) the conflicting identities of the three countries at the regional and global levels; and (2) the localization of global governance issues. By examining the global role of China, Japan, and South Korea in climate change, peacekeeping, nuclear nonproliferation, the article shows how the shared desire of enhancing global status in East Asia is tempered by the politics of dual identity and issue localization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of economic issues, in a comprehensive multilateral and bilateral context, has been receiving increased attention in writings about the Korean Peninsula lately. This article adds to this debate by analysing Japan's relations with North Korea from an economic diplomacy perspective. The concept of 'negative economic diplomacy' is introduced to understand actions of the Japanese government, which had tried economic engagement in various ways until the early 1990s, but hardened its stance thereafter. Tokyo seems to have come to the conclusion that North Korean rulers are more willing to preserve the status quo than some wish to believe and, consequently, started to use the North Korean threat to justify Japan's controversial military enhancement in a context of uncertainty about the United States' commitment and an increasingly stronger China. is strategy was practised through a negative approach to economic diplomacy of withholding economic benefits-in policy fields ranging from the abductees and normalisation of diplomatic relations, to trade relations, sanctions and the six-way process. Japan's policy was most outspoken from late 2002 until at least mid-2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1947 has not been sufficiently understood as a narrative in its own right, but rather, as a transitional conflict between Nationalist and Communist rule. The examination of the visual imagery of warfare disseminated through newsprint and books is one way to reinterpret the history of this period. Through a close reading of images printed in a Shanghai newspaper, Zhonghua ribao, during the final days of the battle for the city in 1937, we see how the news was shaped to impose a narrative of order with a positive teleology at a time when China was plunged into chaos with no guarantee of the eventual outcome of the war. The nature of this narrative is explored through examination of images of the body, as well as the positioning of images in the context of the printed page. The conclusion then contrasts these images with a pictorial history of the Sino-Japanese War published during the Civil War, in 1947. It suggests that although this book is able to bring narrative closure to the earlier conflict, its own narrative is imbued with an unease caused by the reality of the new war that had broken out within months of the ending of the war against Japan, and suggests that narrative closure is never truly obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 1931, Japanese-hired Chinese 'plainclothesmen' attacked strategic locations in the Chinese portions of Tianjin leading to the eruption of a mini war for most of the month. At the time the Chinese and Japanese sides engaged in a bitter dispute about the basic facts of the events. The use of photographs in the service of these conflicting narratives shows that on the Chinese side coverage emphasised the link between the plainclothesmen and Japan by contrasting Japanese aggression with Chinese victimhood. Photographs in Japanese sources portrayed an enclosed and claustrophobic Japanese concession surrounded by threats from Chinese agitators goaded on by the Nationalist government. In all versions, photographic content and political narrative often fit awkwardly. Captions, juxtaposition and accompanying news stories placed otherwise cryptic photographs in larger political narratives. The ubiquitous use of photographs indicates a belief in their power which derived from both their claim on veracity and their ability to create an emotional conenction with the viewer. As a political tool, the photograph functioned in public mass media where readers hungered for the poignant and sensational. In the end, veracity and emotional charge, political narrative and sensationalist photo, militarism and wartime reporting were all inextricably linked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]