Towards a Third World Critique of Tourism: Resources for Global Action and Solidarity

Abstract

Third World tourism continues to expand apace. The tourism industry's promotional materials are replete with images of a “frontier” industry, new vistas of “paradise,” “virgin” beaches, and “untouched” landscapes. Indeed, the imagery is that of exploration, conquest, and domination. For the people of the Third World, whose natural, human, and cultural resources provide the raw material for this industry, this is no imagery, it is reality.     

“A Good‐Will Ship”: The Light Cruiser Köln Visits Rabaul (1933)

The concept of loyalty still holds a central space in many histories about New Guinean‐Australian relations, especially during the Second World War, and translates into demands by Australians that New Guineans recognize Australia's political system as “the best”. In this article about the visit of the first German navy cruiser to New Guinea after the First World War, I tell a story not about loyalties, but about contesting colonial claims, namely Australia's insistence on “loyalty”, and Germany's demand for a “return” of her colony. The visit of Köln in 1933 raises questions such as: How did Germans and Australians negotiate living together in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea? How were divisions, grief, tensions, and hostilities after the First World War dealt with? What separated them, what united them, and what role did New Guineans play in this complex relationship?     

WHEN WAL-MART WIMPED OUT

Abstract

This article offers one China analyst's perspective on a variety of questions related to the unionization of all sixty-six Wal-Mart outlets in China. Why did China force Wal-Mart to unionize? If, as Marx, paraphrasing Hegel, wrote, “all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice,” is Mao making his comeback? Or if, as Marx immediately continued in his own right, “He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce,” is Hu Jintao playing Louis Bonaparte to Mao's Napoleon? Is the Chinese state acting out of a new level of confidence that it can now challenge the world's most prepossessing corporate giants in order to make good on its communist commitments? Is it running scared in the face of a working class that has at last managed to score a victory? Or is it actually strengthening its power through time-honored tactics of mass organizational control that have not really changed despite the new market context? Are China's workers being protected, empowered, or co-opted and subjected to new forms of state control? And why did one of the world's most militantly antiunion corporations go along? Did they have a choice? Did they fear China's state-run union federation? And finally, what does all this portend for the future of labor relations in China?     

My Business Pays Me: Labourers and Entrepreneurs Among the Self–Employed Poor in Latin America

Are the independent economic activities of poor people “petty commodity production”—an informal way to earn a subsistence wage? Or are they “microentrepreneurship”, a launching point for capital accumulation and growth? This paper draws on fieldwork in Bolivia, Peru and Guatemala, focusing specifically on the poorest businesses. In–depth interviews indicate that even the smallest–scale producers, merchants and service providers have goals of “improving” their business and “growing” their capital, not unlike their capitalist counterparts. Yet, while growth is desirable, maintaining one's business as a steady source of income is a sufficient achievement for many. Poor self–employed people are both “labourers” and “entrepreneurs”; the key macro–level question becomes, not “Do petty–commodity producers have different goals than capitalist entrepreneurs”, but “What resources are lacking, and what obstacles exist, that keep many microentrepreneurs in low–yield activities, with little opportunity to grow their resources?”     

The Greening of the Brass: Taiwan's Civil–Military Relations since 2000 1

Abstract

Since the Democratic Progressive Party's stunning victory in the 2000 presidential election, Chen Shui-bian has accelerated the process of creating an officer corps without strong party inclination toward the KMT. What is the impact of Taiwan's democratization on its civil–military relations? What is the prospect of transitioning from a party-army to a “national army”? Will the DPP's zealous advocacy for Taiwan's independence be incompatible with the military's long-held belief in “China-centered” nationalism, straining relations between the military and the new administration? The analyses, implications, and conclusions of this study will shed light on the general role of the military in Taiwan's democratic transition and consolidation.     

An “Assertive” China? Insights from Interviews

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a more assertive China. What happened to China's “peaceful rise” and “charm offensive”? What explains the changes in China's foreign policy? According to interviews with Beijing and Shanghai-based analysts, China's assertiveness between 2008 and 2010 can be divided into two waves, each triggered by a different cause. The first wave seems triggered by a sense in Beijing that Washington, DC was more differential to China's interests, and less committed to East Asia. The second wave seems best explained as China's response to what it perceived as a far more assertive and threatening United States. Both waves were amplified by two domestic challenges: Chinese leaders’ hypersensitivity to popular nationalism and poor bureaucratic coordination among an expanding number of foreign policy actors.     

A Triptych in honour of the cultural revolution

Abstract

Here are three valuable books which sincerely try to understand the Cultural Revolution and make it understandable to Westerners. They avoid theoretical juggling as well as picturesqueness for its own sake. None of these books takes for granted what a certain rhetorical type of Chinese propaganda states with overflowing phraseology, nor do they indulge in the kind of trifling questions characteristic of many Western commentators, such as: Is Chou En-lai losing ground? Is there a rift between the Secretariat and the Politburo? A rebirth of regionalism? and so on. The authors' most obvious concession to Western “bourgeois-educated” readers is that they try to avoid jargonistic Marxism, and to explain even the doctrinal grounds of the Cultural Revolution with plain words; but maybe it could be argued. that they only apply Chairman Mao's teachings in opposition to the “eight-legged essay style.” As for the “socialist-educated” reader, I should add that the authors also escape flatulent psychoanalysis and sociology.     

Visions of Tsafendas: Literary Biography and the Limits of “Research”

Abstract

Research seminar, research cluster, research output. The word is almost a fetish within the contemporary academy—but what does “research” actually mean in a discipline like literature? And what happens when a research project overspills its bounds, or pushes up against disciplinary limits and protocols? In this piece, I explore such questions via the figure of Demetrios Tsafendas, the "mad Greek" who assassinated apartheid Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd in 1966, supposedly acting on instructions from a tapeworm inside him. It is one of the strangest facts in South African history; it is also, of course, a kind of fiction, and one that has been refracted into a range of literary and artistic works. Reading across both official and “creative” archives, I address a range of methodological problems that I encountered in attempting an academic treatment of Tsafendas and his (as the presiding apartheid judge put it) “useless life”.     

America's Rebalance to Asia and its Implications for Japan-US-Australia Security Cooperation

How does America's greater focus on Asia impact the security policies of Japan and Australia? How does it change the nature of the Japan-US-Australia security partnership? This paper attempts to answer these questions by looking at Japanese and Australian responses to the Obama Administration's new security policy toward Asia called “rebalancing.” After examining them, it argues that the regional allied response to America's new security posture has generated greater momentum for both allies to collaborate in wider areas in a more timely and effective way than before. It concludes asserting that, in the era of rebalance, Japan, the United States, and Australia have not only deepened their existing cooperation, but also have expanded potential areas of cooperation toward a more “dynamic” partnership.     

Extremists are extremely extreme

Abstract

China's foreign policy during the Cultural Revolution is usually treated as a non-event. Melvin Gurtov in his careful and extremely useful chronological account of China's foreign policy at this time (RAND, RM-5934-PR) still deems it “an aberrant episode” (VII, 83). He describes it as the manifestation of a power struggle between extreme young zealots and implacable older powerholders. “Substantive policy views” are almost beside the point (76). Far Eastern Economic Review (1968 Year Book) also characterizes Cultural Revolution foreign policy as one of “excesses” and “‘extreme’ behavior,” giving anti-foreignism as its content. Anti-foreignism is seen as a deeply felt belief that an attempt to borrow from foreigners has resulted in “manipulation and exploitation” by foreigners. Yung Ho, writing for the Union Research Institue's (URI) Communist China 1967, finds the essence of Mao's thought to be opposition to “anything foreign,” and China's attempt at “propagating Mao-Tse-tung's thought abroad” to be an aggressive policy “even worse than Hitler's rule,” one which inevitably produced setbacks which further isolate China (326–327).     

Strategic Othering: Framing Lebanese Migration and Fraser's “Mistake”

Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, has framed the mid‐1970s immigration of Lebanese affected by civil war as Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's “mistake”. His remarks sparked controversy in the parliament and the media. The issue became a contest of frames between the Murdoch media, which supported the Minister's “mistake” frame and argued his right to “tell the truth”, and the Fairfax media, which viewed the Minister as being “racist” for “scapegoating” the Lebanese community. Along with archival documents, this article examines the context and coverage of the Minister's remarks, noting that the frames presented in the media “indexed” those adopted amongst political elites, while failing to re‐examine the historical record. This case study demonstrates the power of framing and the media's tendency to accept rather than challenge frames used by those in the political contest, with the result that errors in the representation of history were never corrected. This article draws on framing theory and indexing theory and concludes that the “mistake” frame for the Lebanese feeds into narratives that serve to “other” Muslim and Arab groups, fanning fears and mobilising a discourse of Islamophobia around the exclusion of “undesirable” immigrants on the basis of “cultural fit”.     

Norbert Elias and Postnational Integration

What is the “Civilising Process” according to Norbert Elias? It is the history of the increase in interdependency links, and in their complexity, between individuals. From this perspective, the evolution of European society since the medieval period has seemed to follow a “determined direction” or a “constant orientation” defined by the passage to more and more globalising domination instances. Nowadays the debates arising from the building up of a political Union on a European scale lend new interest to the works of the German sociologist. Starting from the distinction between “objective” functional interdependence and integration, which suggests the development of a collective identity, Elias attempts to explain the gap between the arrival of a new “survival entity” and the growth of a new “definition of “we””. In the case of contemporary Europe, the persistence of national habitus which run counter political integration portrayed nonetheless as ineluctable have to be explained. In order to evaluate the originality of Elias' approach and its relevance to the present philosophical and political issues at stake, the author's “postnational intuitions” have to be confronted with the most recent theoretical orientations, including Dominique Schnapper's national‐democratic option and the “constitutional patriotism” of Jürgen Habermas.     

“The Chinese Dream” and Chinese Foreign and Security Policies—Rosy Rhetoric versus Harsh Realities

The “China Dream” announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping’ in 2012 paints a very rosy picture of China under his seemingly undisputed leadership: China's economic and political rise will be beneficial to China and indeed the international community putting Beijing on top of the list of “peace-loving” countries. Reality, however, as it turned out over the last four years, is distinctively different as a number of countries in China's neighborhood and beyond can surely confirm. Indeed, Beijing unilaterally claiming and building civilian and military facilities on disputed islands in the South China Sea are arguably the very opposite of a peaceful contribution to world politics and security facilitated by the rhetorical hype of Xi's “Chinese Dream.” While outside observers can be excused for concluding that the “Chinese Dream” mantra is directed at the Chinese domestic audience to distract from the very many economic, environment and social problems within China, the consequences of Beijing's “dreaming” of re-gaining its former undisputed “Middle Kingdom” status in Asia are very much felt abroad. This, it is argued, could be the time when “dreams” turn into “nightmares” for those at the receiving end of Beijing's dream.     

International Intervention and the People's Will: The Demoralization of Democracy in Cambodia

This article examines the deterioration in relations between two Cambodian opposition parties and the “international community” from whom they sought support during the 1998 Cambodian elections. It is suggested that the manipulation, by influential political actors, of internationally promoted political concepts such as “democracy,” “sovereignty,” and “the people's will” is problematic for mutual understanding between international and local political actors. In Cambodia in 1998, liberal views of the “people's will” as an amoral and neutral construct facilitating the delegation of authority were awkwardly but influentially conflated, by the election campaigning of the two parties, with a view of the “people's will” as a moral imperative to liberate the nation from alleged “traitors.” This caused widespread adherence, among the parties' followers, to views of the 1998 elections that were non-liberal and antidemocratic in a number of respects. When sharp differences in understandings of the political situation emerged between local and international actors, following the electoral defeat of those opposition party leaders, the fragile nature of a purported “partnership” between a self-appointed “international community” and the Cambodian people was exposed.     

“We Have Wines of All Kinds: Red,White, and Green”: Romanian Reactions to the Hungarian Uprising in 1956*

Drawing on memoirs, archival documents, and recent scholarship, this article examines the reverberations of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 in three Romanian cities, Bucharest, Cluj‐Napoca, and Timi?oara. Before the collapse of communism in Romania in 1989, a stereotype prevailed that, in contrast to the youth in Hungary, as well as in Poland and Czechoslovakia, Romanian students were too “cowardly” to voice their opinion of the events of the 1950s, including the Hungarian revolt. After the communist regime's collapse, Romanian scholars working with new archival documents debunked this conception, claiming that a student protest “movement” and widespread “demonstrations” (manifestarile) did indeed occur throughout Romania. The truth lies somewhere in‐between. Romanian university students were neither too “timid” to speak their minds about the need for reforms, nor tightly united in a movement with a central leadership and specific agenda.     

DIALOGUE WITH THE WEST

Abstract

This portrayal of China by one of the most respected intellectuals ever to emerge from the shadowy labyrinth of the American diplomatic establishment mirrors twenty years of concentrated work by American China scholars. Not every China expert would accept all of Kennan's assumptions or express them in such strident form. Yet over the last two decades the China profession has evolved a style of thought, a mode of asking questions, which has largely substantiated such views in both the public and scholarly worlds. The majority of China watchers have pleaded for “tolerance” and “patience” towards the People's Republic as she gradually learns, aided by a flexible American containment policy, to “adjust” to the “international community of nations” and the “rationalizing” qualities implicit in the “modernization” process. While protesting against certain aspects of America's foreign policy toward China, however, their thought and work has reinforced, at times deepened, the ideological justifications that support America's role in Asia and her attitudes towards China.     

Gorbachev's Social Contract

The Soviet economic slowdown is explained in the context of an eroding “social contract” between regime and society, established in the 1950s and defined as a set of norms, constituency benefits, and political-economic institutions which elite and public have regarded as legitimate means of regulating their mutual relations. Gorbachev must rebuild state legitimacy; the “objective,” mutually constraining relationship between economic system and state legitimation implies that a new social contract can serve as a “test” of Gorbachev's intent to pursue “radical” economic reform. Evidence suggests that prospects for radical reform have risen substantially since Gorbachev's election as General Secretary. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 830.     

Media Dissent and Peri-urban Land Struggles in Vietnam: The Case of the Văn Giang Incident

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of media-led dissent in Vietnam's contemporary land struggles. The analysis focuses on Vietnamese-language material published online by domestic and foreign media about the so-called V?n Giang incident – a high-profile land dispute that shook the country between 2009 and 2012. Looking at how the media treated this incident broadens studies of land struggles in Vietnam, which up till now have focused on peasants’ resistance strategies. This case not only shows that media practitioners engage in dissent with regard to land politics, but also that they engage in more straightforward criticism of the state and its corporate redevelopment partners than what most analyses of rural land struggles in Vietnam, centered on the micro-level and on “lawful” (O'Brien) forms of resistance, would lead one to believe. Illustrating this point, the author shows that media dissent throughout the V?n Giang land dispute openly challenged the government's justificatory discourse about “displacement for development” as well as the mismanagement of land resources on which political and economic elites rely to dispossess peasants from peri-urban lands. If it has not yet provoked major institutional changes, the media's contribution to land struggles has nevertheless succeeded in creating a genuine, national public debate on land politics in rapidly urbanizing Vietnam.     

Gillard,Rudd and Labor Tradition*

Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd as prime minister and Labor leader in June 2010. She describes her government as being firmly in the “tradition of Labor”. To locate it in the broad ideological continuum of Labor governments, and to test the suggestion that she is travelling a reform path set largely by the Hawke and Keating governments, I analyse the positions taken by Rudd and Gillard on a range of issues, beginning with economic policy. On social issues Gillard has been even more cautious than Rudd and this reflects her analysis of the electoral impact of Howard's Culture Wars. Her focus on educational opportunity suggests she is the logical successor to Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. As Labor leaders, Rudd and Gillard each embraced market‐reliant policy positions. Rudd even claimed to be an “fiscal conservative”. However, with Rudd venturing a critique of neo‐liberalism, it is Gillard whose stance is closer to Hawke and Keating's “economic rationalism”. Indeed Gillard's insistence upon the centrality of markets leaves Labor with a dilemma: if there are no significant problems with relying on markets then why does Australia need a social democratic party?     

Development of the Mekong Region as Part of Japan's Diplomatic Strategy for East Asia

Japan's active engagement in the development of the Mekong region since the 1990s needs to be understood not only from an economic but also from a diplomatic perspective. Japan seeks to collaborate with ASEAN in facilitating multilateral “political dialogue” in the Asia-Pacific region and building an East Asian order based on “universal values” such as democracy and the rule of law, and the Mekong region could be the “weakest link” of ASEAN. After outlining Japan's twenty-year undertaking to cultivate Mekong-Japan cooperation, the author suggests that it is time to broaden the scope of the cooperation and accelerate Japan's “proactive contribution to peace” policy to cope with the changing security environment.