Rejoinder

Abstract

Many of Mr. van Walt's criticisms are based solely on fabrications of his own making. For example, I am accused, twice, of referring to myself as a “scholar” and to my article as “scholarly.” I could find no trace of either. I am further accused of considering all Tibetan refugee accounts as “unreliable.” To be sure, I believe that one cannot base the study of historical events solely on refugee accounts, but that does not make all of these stories “unreliable.” After all, Dawa Norbu, a refugee himself, wrote in Red Star Over Tibet, “I never saw or heard of any case of misconduct by a Red soldier.” I would never argue that this statement was unreliable. We are further told that I refer to Tibetans as Chinese when in the second paragraph of my review I wrote, “… Tibetans [are] only one of 56 minority nationalities.” Chinese citizens yes, ethnic Hans no. A final example, although there are many more, is Mr. van Walt's attempt to attribute to me the opinion that

… the only importance to the Western academic world is that the situation in Tibet can teach us how to eliminate a “mystical religion” and that “it gives clues as to how Peking will integrate a capitalist Taiwan into a Communist China in the future”. (emphasis added)     

Shifting the perspective on identity discourse in Estonia

Abstract

I argue that the post-socialist identity discourse in Estonia should be studied as a result of the dialectic relationship between the international context in which Estonia exists and the perceptions of history and culture that elites deploy in the public discourse of Estonia's identity. Four major narratives that compose much of the identity discourse emerge from this dialectic: Estonia as a reconstituted state and society; Estonia as European; Estonia as Finno-Ugric; and Estonia as Nordic. These narratives can be overlooked if research relies simply on “East” and “West” analytic categories or assumes that history and culture alone yield identity. Estonia provides an excellent opportunity to examine this dialectic because of the international community's role in the country's transformation into a European Union applicant state.     

Communications: Exchange on the Philippines

Abstract

In the December 1973 issue you printed an article by Ms. Luzviminda Francisco in which she attempted to sketch in the “nature of America's policy of aggression, the depth of popular mass resistance to the American forces and the duration of the struggle….” (p. 3) in order to move against “Filipino false consciousness” (p. 2) of the American connection in the history of the Philippines. It is a brief survey and rather well done, although one may quibble about the relationship of excesses (what a tame word compared to the record she presents!) of war and the nature of imperialism as well as implying that there was a “nation,” a “Philippine society,” or a “national struggle” (p. 3) before the late 19th century, at the earliest.     

Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity,Phantasm, Japan by Marilyn Ivy

Abstract

Discourses of the Vanishing has been anticipated for several years now; it won't disappoint. Despite the rising number of authors who seek to “explain” Japan or attack its essentialism, Ivy is one of the few who have the understanding of modernity and the methodological tools to excavate the celebration (Japanese and American) of Japan's “uniqueness.” Discourses is by far one of the most sophisticated inquiries into what Ivy calls—properly I believe—the “Japanese thing.” The juxtaposition between the singular, thing, and plural, discourses, suggests her overall theme: to discuss the always incomplete reconfigurations of the many pasts that have existed within the archipelago into a singular ideology of Japan.     

An open letter/review

Abstract

I first read about you and your book, The Woman Warrior, in the book review sections of several magazines and Sunday newspapers. I read Susan Brownmiller's interview with you in “Mademoiselle” magazine, Jane Kramer's review of your book in the New York Times, and Nan Robertson's interview with you, also in the Times. In addition, several white feminist friends were telling me I should read your book “because it is a powerful, feminist story by a Chinese American woman.” So I read your book.     

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.”     

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).     

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”.     

“Tongpan”: An important event in Thai cinema

Abstract

Films being made in Asian countries are now beginning to express an Asian reality. This is happening in a small way, but it is happening. The scale of the movement to break away from Hollywood and Bombay-type extravaganzas, and from films as a kind of “celluloid LSD,” is still small, constrained as it is by film-makers and sellers out to make quick profits. One little ripple that has recently emerged from the stagnant waters of Asia's film world is called “Tongpan.” The work of a group of creative amateurs, “Tongpan” is not the result of a commercial venture, and is not a professionally-made film in the conventional sense. It is also not a film in the style of what has come to be known as the “New Wave Cinema,” for “Tongpan” is not an art film to be “museumed” for wealthy connoisseurs. But precisely for all these reasons it is important that a film called “Tongpan” has been made. Indeed an important event has occurred in Thai Cinema. Important because it shows what is happening to the Thai people in the name of ‘development’ and captures for posterity the tensions and strains of an important period in Thailand's recent history.     

Thaksin's Achilles' Heel: The failure of Hawkish approaches in the Thai South

Abstract

Many scholars voice approval for the political strategies and approaches that businessman-turned-politician Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has borrowed from the business world. His CEO management style is regarded as a key political asset. Moreover, his populist policies such as the “one village–one tambon” village fund and the “bank for the poor” show him to be full of concern for grass-roots Thais. In this article I argue that Thaksin's handling of the South reveals another side of his character, his preference for the use of violence to tackle problems and his disdain for “softer” methods such as discussion and negotiations. Thaksin pays very little attention to peaceful solutions offered by academics, the National Human Right Commission, and even the government-appointed National Reconciliation Commission. Unfortunately, this hawkish approach has widened distrust and discrimination among Thais and non-Thais. Thaksin's draconian methods have had serious consequences both on himself and the country. The volatile conflict in Thailand's far South is Thaksin's Achilles' heel.     

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.     

“A Rose”

Abstract

The following is an example of a story written by one of Taiwan's folk writers. The movement of which he's a leader is called “Shandu,” and some consider it Taiwan's first indigenous literary tradition.     

The silence of the bullet monument: Violence and “Truth” management,Dusun-nyor 1948, and Kru-Ze 2004

Abstract

The so-called Dusun-nyor rebellion of April 1948 is a central and highly controversial episode in the history of southern Thailand. During the “rebellion,” Malay-Muslim villagers fought pitched battles with Thai police and soldiers. Drawing upon sources from a variety of perspectives, this article reviews these events in light of the Thai state's persistent attempts at “truth” management. What soon emerges is that the same events are understood quite differently by those of different perspectives. Using insights developed in other studies of the political usages of monuments, the article focuses on a rather mysterious “bullet monument” that commemorates the 1948 event. The bullet-shaped monument, which is located in the grounds of a police station in Narathiwat Province, has no accompanying text. Like the rebellion whose suppression it appears to celebrate, the bullet monument represents an ambiguous and confusing manifestation of collective memory. In various respects, the “Dusun-nyor rebellion” prefigures the controversy and ambiguity surrounding the storming of the Kru-Ze mosque in Pattani in April 2004. In this recent episode, thirty-two men were killed by Thai security forces inside one of the country's most sacred Muslim sites. Both the Dusun-nyor and Kru-Ze events point to the importance of looking beyond violence, and of thinking critically about the nature of “truth.”     

Obama's Pacific Pivot in US Grand Strategy: A Canadian Perspective

Abstract

This article explores the possible long-term trajectory of America's “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific and its implications for Canada's security policy. It shows that Obama's pivot represents the beginnings of a strategic choice on “selective primacy,” which, due to Washington's worrisome fiscal situation and push towards a more specialized force structure, promises to only deepen in the future. In the second half of the article, I examine how Canada will likely respond to America's more sustained strategic adjustment to the Pacific based on a reading of how the country traditionally adapts to American strategic preferences. The article concludes with some thoughts on an expanded Canadian effort at maritime diplomacy and the future of a Pacific-centric Royal Canadian Navy.     

Bridging the gender gap

Abstract

While the World Bank has publicly proclaimed that women's participation in development is “essential” not only for achieving social justice but also for reducing poverty, a confidential report by its own staff paints a grim picture of the Bank's history of failing to integrate gender concerns into its lending programs.     

“Making the Crooked Straight”: China's Grand Strategy of “Peaceful Rise” and its Central Asian Dimension

Abstract

This article argues that China's foreign policy since 1991 has been guided by the evolution of a grand strategy of “peaceful rise” that seeks to ensure China's smooth transition to great power status. Moreover, it suggests that a strategic preoccupation with Central Asia has become an important expression of this grand strategy. Framing these arguments is a third overarching one that postulates that China's foreign policy in Central Asia is not only intimately related to the strategy of “peaceful rise” but also to a particular, historically and geopolitically informed narrative of China's “Inner Asian” power.     

Beyond Modern: Shimizu Shikin and “Two Modern Girls”

Abstract

This essay introduces the translation of Shimizu Shikin's “Tōsei futari musume” (Two Modern Girls, 1897), which follows, and argues that by separating the body from gender, Shikin (1868–1933) effectively threatened the dimorphic ideology of sex that underpinned the literary establishment of Meiji Japan. In an essay written in 1896, Shikin posits an hermaphrodite combining allegedly gendered character traits in a “perfect” body, thus asserting that behavioral traits are not limited to one sex. Shikin calls attention not only to “the second sex” but a third sex decades before twentieth-century writers did in Japan and elsewhere, and she was erased because of it.     

Living in an Age of Precarity in 21st Century Asia

ABSTRACT

The term “precarity” pays attention to the various ways in which policies and processes that promote economic growth can also, at the same time, induce a state of precarity or precarious living. In this introductory article, we interrogate one of the paradoxes of Asian development: greater precarity set against the backdrop of an economic “miracle.” The focus is on how policies and processes that are part of neo-liberal orthodoxy create new forms of marginalisation or precarity and new classes of the marginalised or the precariat. These include: transnational migrants without basic protection; factory workers employed on casual contracts; elderly with no old age state support; minorities dispossessed by land grabbing or resettled to make way for mega-projects; and farmers facing declining terms of trade, shrinking landholdings, and growing debts as they invest in new farm technologies. These disparate experiences provide a telling antidote to the growth-at-all-costs philosophy that favours economic expansion over matters of distribution, material prosperity over human flourishing, and corporate profitability over workers’ basic incomes.     

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.     

Shimizu Ikkō's “Silver sanctuary” (Gin no seiiki): A Japanese business novel

Abstract

“I want to describe lots of people who are directly involved in business,” says Shimizu Ikkō. Shimizu Ikkō (1931- )is the pioneer of Japanese “business novels” (kigyō shōsetsu) and one of the most prolific and popular novelists today. Born in Tokyo, Shimizu attended Waseda University and was active as a freelance writer contributing articles to weekly magazines until he was recognized as a novelist. His An Artery Archipelago (Dōmyaku rettō) was awarded the 28th Japanese Detective Story Writers Association Prize in 1975.