Imagining globalisation: The world and nation in Chinese communist party ideology

The study of migrant workers in Hong Kong has given attention to Filipinas. There has been just one published study of Thais in Hong Kong, despite the fact that they are a significant minority, and about half of them are domestic workers. This article presents the results of a survey of Thai workers, assessing a range of issues: scale of migration for work, remittances, roles and aspirations in Hong Kong, and perceptions of work. The survey indicated that the Thais interviewed were reasonably satisfied with their life in Hong Kong. While most are involved in “low status” activities, Thais appear to do better than Indonesian migrant workers in terms of the wages and conditions they achieve, and report less abuse. In broader terms, migrant labour is one option amongst many for working class Thais seeking better incomes but seldom achieving upward class mobility].     

A critique of South Africa: The solution

South Africa: The Solution by Leon Louw and Frances Kendall Amagi Publications, Bisho (Ciskei), 1986. xvi plus 237 pages including maps, figures, diagrams, illustrations, notes, appendices and bibliography. R14,95 paperback.     

A critique of South Africa: The solution

South Africa: The Solution by LEON LOUVV and FRANCES KENDALL Amagi Publications, Bisho (Ciskei), 1986. xvi plus 237 pages including maps, figures, diagrams, illustrations, notes, appendices and bibliography. R14,95 paperback.     

Third Worldist relativism: A new form of imperialism

This article challenges relativist and Third Worldist ideas which continue to influence the Left. It is argued that while the Left should remain critical of western domination of the global political economy, this should not be confused with the assumption that anti-western positions in the “Third World” are always and necessarily progressive. This is illustrated by a discussion of recent western interventions in the Third World. It is argued that a “Third Worldist” approach is based on a spurious relativism which has recently enjoyed a revival through the rise of post-modern social theory. In rejecting these approaches the case is made for a restatement of a genuine universalism and internationalism, which is equally critical of western imperialism and conflicts with the “Third World.”     

From sacrum to profanum: reinterpretation of communist places of power in Baltic cities

Places always represent the social and cultural dimensions of societies, seen through relationships between ideas, beliefs, and hopes. Places and their social practices are interwoven into the urban fabric and have become vital components of urban and ideological identities. Ideological systems create unique arrangements and classifications of those special places, which can be called “hallowed” or “profaned.” This project focuses on the recent transformation of the communist system of “sacral” spaces and their recent “profanation.” The transformation of meaning, together with the use and attitude toward landscape, has become visible due to spatial and functional manifestations of post-socialist cities.     

Imperialism and Chinese nationalism: Germany in Shantung,By John F. Schrecker

Abstract

Professor Schrecker's book is basically a defense of Qing foreign policy during the 1895-1911 period. He demonstrates a concern of nationalism in late Qing with protecting the legal sovereignty of the Chinese state by showing how turn-of-the-century governors Yuan Shi-kai, Zhou Fu, and Yang Shi-xiang labored to defend the territorial integrity of Shandong [Shantung] province against German imperialism. The book's strength lies in Schrecker's conceptual analysis of Chinese foreign policy and its intellectual roots in the late nineteenth century. He argues cogently and with originality that in their concern for defending “sovereignty,” officials like Yuan Shi-kai combined the militant conservative qing-i school of the 1880s with the internationalist approach after 1895 of radical reformers like Kang You-wei. But Schrecker also argues that Qing foreign policy succeeded in stopping German imperialism in Shandong by 1911 and in terms of the empire as a whole that “in the last decade of the dynasty the Chinese government made considerably more progress in its struggle against imperialism than has generally been believed.” (p. 254) In such judgments about the success of late Qing foreign policy, he betrays the bias of what Bulletin readers have come to know as the Harvard school of apologetics for Western and Japanese imperialism. Schrecker deserves credit for drawing attention to the nationalist posture which the late Qing took after 1901 but he goes too far in his defense of the dynasty and the “progress” actually made against Western and Japanese imperialism.     

Democracy and Taiwan-mainland China ties: A critique of three dominant views

The advent of democracy in Taiwan creates regime asymmetry between Taiwan and mainland China. Given that the size asymmetry so acutely favors mainland China, does democracy make Taiwan better or worse off? Taiwan’s principal opposition party posits that democracy presents a viable shortcut to an independent Taiwanese nation-state. A second perspective, held by proactive unificationists, emphasizes that Taiwan’s democracy, through a demonstration effect, can trigger or accelerate the long overdue political transformation of the mainland, and thereby contribute to the unification of the “greater China.” The third position, held by the mainstream ruling elites, highlights the corrosive and divisive effects that democracy may generate to undermine Taiwan’s political defense against her hereditary adversary. All three views are flawed. The first two are unwarrantedly sanguine and incorrectly assume risk neutrality as opposed to risk aversion for the majority of voters in Taiwan. The third perspective is an overstatement. Democracy permits subethnic cleavages to surface, but it also provides legitimate institutional devices to peacefully deal with intricate issues Taiwan faces, namely, her identity and her ties to the mainland.     

Review essay: Agrarian transformation,agrarian struggles,and Marxist analyses of the peasantry

Abstract

After some years of living in an Indian village, on family land that by the standards of most Marxist scholars puts us in the category of “capitalist farmers” or “kulaks,” I find myself taking scholarly discussion of “agrarian transformation” and “agrarian class structure” quite personally. There is something that jars against the reality of a daily life that includes hauling water for household use in the morning, enduring frequent blackouts or “load sheddings,” trying to decide whether to purchase first a TV or a refrigerator or a washing machine and not really being able to afford any of them, to be told that in moving from a salaried position in a U.S. university to an Indian village one has made a class jump upwards, from a section of the “expanded working class” or at worst “petty bourgeoisie” to membership among the capitalists and even (according to some scholars) participation in India's “ruling bloc.”