Oil,arms procurement and security in the Persian gulf

Professor Anoushiravan Ehteshami is Professor of International Relations at the University of Durham. He is also Vice-President of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). His most recent publications include The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (co-editor, 2002), Iran and Eurasia (co-editor, 2000) and The Changing Balance of Power in Asia (1998).     

Letters to the Editor

Editor's Note: The following letter is a response to the correspondence between Michael Caroe, son of Sir Olaf Caroe, and Professor Parshotam Mehra, author of The North-West Frontier Drama, 1945–1947. The previous letter from Michael Caroe appeared in the October 2002 edition of Asian Affairs, Vol. XXXIII, Part III (p. 425). This was a response to a letter from Professor Mehra, which appeared in the June 2002 edition, Vol. XXXIII, Part II (p. 247).     

The origins and development of the Jihadist movement: from anti-communism to terrorism

Gilles Kepel is Professor, Institute of Political Studies, Paris (1985 to present); Senior Researcher, CNRS (National Board for Scientific Research), Paris (1984 to present); Director of the Doctoral Program on the Muslim World, Institute of Political Studies (1994 to present). He was Visiting Professor, Columbia University, New York (1996–1997); Researcher, CEDEJ (Egyptian–French Center for Scientific Cooperation), Cairo, Egypt (1980–1983). He is the author of several books on Islam, including Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, published by IB Tauris in 2002 (reviewed in this issue of Asian Affairs, p. 158) and Bad Moon Rising: A Chronicle of the Middle East Today (Saqi, 2003). An earlier version of this article was published in Ramse`s, 2003     

Malaysia: the making of a grand design

Anthony Stockwell is Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was President of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2002–2003 and is currently a Vice-President. His publications include British Policy and Malay Politics during the Malayan Union Experiment (1979) and, as editor, British Documents on End of Empire: Malaya, 1942–1957 (three parts, 1995). He has been joint editor of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History since 1990. This is a version of a lecture delivered to the Royal Society for Asian Affairs on 26 February 2003.     

Interview with Noam Chomsky, 1984

Dr. Chomsky is [emeritus] Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians (1983). The following interview was conducted by Anne Joyce, editor of Middle East Policy, on October 18, 1984 (when the title of this publication was American‐Arab Affairs).     

Global Capital and Media Control: A Case of Joint Venture in China’s Media Market before WTO

This story covered here is an unprecedented case of foreign “takeover” of a Chinese press in the pre-WTO era. Despite the open prohibition of foreign involvement in the media sector, the grip of the central state seems futile in the face of the lure of capital. This detailed study of foreign investment in The Modern Man (TMM), a newspaper in Guangzhou, helps uncover the tension and dynamics of the process of globalization. As reflected in the case of TMM, while the lure of foreign capital does account for the reticence of local state on the ideological concerns of the centre, the party-state however, still maintains an array of leverages in containing the unwelcome foreign presence when necessary. Neither the radical view of a “powerless state”, nor the moderate views of “enabling state” alone seem adequate in explaining the reality.

New Perspectives on Malaysia and a Rising China: Essays Honouring Lee Poh Ping

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the feature collection titled Malaysia and China in a Changing Region: Essays in Honour of Professor Lee Poh Ping. As well as introducing the six articles in the collection, this article pays tribute to Professor Lee, who passed away in late 2016. The article links some of the key themes of Professor Lee’s research and publications to the themes of the six articles, each of which is concerned with the rise of China and the various impacts this has for Malaysia’s political economy.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: BACEVICH, Andrew J.(2002). American Empire. The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy. DÉLOYE, Yves et Bernard VOUTAT (éds.)(2002). Faire de la science politique. GOETSCHEL, Laurent, Magdalena BERNATH et Daniel SCHWARZ (2002). Schweizerische Aussenpolitik. HOSLI, Madeleine O., Adrian Van DEEMEN et Mika WIDGRÉN (eds.)(2002) HUG, Simon (2002). Voices of Europe. Citizens, Referendums, and European Integration. THÉRET, Bruno (2002). Protection sociale et fédéralisme. L'Europe dans le miroir de l'Amérique du Nord     

BEYOND THE WILLOW PALISADE: MANCHURIA AND THE HISTORY OF CHINA'S INNER ASIAN FRONTIER

Dr David Sneath is the Director of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at Cambridge University and a lecturer in Social Anthropology. He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College where he is Deputy Tutor for Advanced Students and Director of Studies in Archaeology and Anthropology. He is the Co-editor of the journal Inner Asia and his most recent book Changing Inner Mongolia: Pastoral Mongolian Society and the Chinese State was published in 2000 by Oxford University Press (reviewed in Asian Affairs, June 2002). The following article is based on a lecture which he gave to the Society on 17 July, 2002.     

Book Reviews

BACEVICH, Andrew J. (2002) . American Empire. The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. DÉLOYE, Yves et Bernard VOUTAT (éds.) (2002) . Faire de la science politique. GOETSCHEL, Laurent, Magdalena BERNATH et Daniel SCHWARZ (2002) . Schweizerische Aussenpolitik. HOSLI, Madeleine O., Adrian Van DEEMEN et Mika WIDGRÉN (eds.) (2002) . HUG, Simon (2002) . Voices of Europe. Citizens, Referendums, and European Integration. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 173 p . THÉRET, Bruno (2002) . Protection sociale et fédéralisme. L'Europe dans le miroir de l'Amérique du Nord.     

The historical significance of the japanese textbook lawsuit

Abstract

In 1960, Ienaga Saburō, Professor of Japanese History at Tokyo University of Education and the author of many books on Japanese history, began a long series of court actions to have the Ministry of Education's system of certifying all textbooks used in Japanese schools declared unconstitutional. In the following essay, written exclusively for the Bulletin Professor Ienaga provides an historical background to government control of education in Japan and reviews his long struggle against government censorship of books used in Japan's schools.     

The great game: Russia's role in the Persian Empire and Tibet

Formerly Professor of History and Central Asian Studies at the Panjab University, Chandigarh, Parshotam Mehra has written largely on India's northern frontiers and relations with Tibet and China. His publications include The North‐West Frontier Drama 1945–47 (1998), An ‘Agreed’ Frontier, Ladakh and India's Northern Borders (1992) and The McMahon Line and After (1974). Two of his books, From Conflict to Conciliation: Tibetan Polity Re‐visited and The Younghusband Expedition, an Interpretation (2^nd edition), are due to appear later this year.     

Politics and knowledge: An unorthodox history of modern China studies

Abstract

In the investigation of social phenomena — and the social organization of intellect is no exception — consideration of context is the crucial starting point for analysis. Professor Fairbank's comment on the CCAS Report, which he has duplicated for private circulation, and which is reprinted at his request in this journal, is not merely the expression of an intellectual position, but a political act.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: HOLZER, Thomas und Gerald SCHNEIDER (2002). Asylpolitik auf Abwegen. LAVENEX, Sandra (2001). The Europeanisation of Refugee Policies. HUG, Simon et Pascal SCIARINI (dirs.). Changement des valeurs et nouveaux clivages politiques en Suisse. KUHN, Raymond et Erik NEVEU (eds.)(2002) NEIDHART, Leonhard (2002). Die politische Schweiz. PINELL, Patrice (dir.)(2002). Une épidémie politique. La lutte contre le sida en France STEINER, Jürg and Thomas ERTMANN (eds.)(2002). Consociationalism and Corporatism in Western Europe—Still the politics of Accomodation?     

Recent books on the East

The following paper was discovered by Laurence Evans, Professor of History at the State University of New York at Binghamton, during the course of research in the files of the Department of State (to which Department the paper had been made available in 1918 for use as background information by the American Delegation at the Peace Conference), and Professor Evans has kindly communicated it to the Society. Its contents are not included in the book on Mecca which Snouk published in German, and it is not among the scattered articles in Verspreide Geschriften (1923–27). That collection does, however, include another essay about Ahmad Dahlan, in Dutch, entitled “Een rector der Mekkaansche universiteit”, originally contributed to a learned journal and reprinted in vol. 111, pp. 65–122. [We are printing this paper in good faith believing it to be previously unpublished. Ed.]     

Vitalizing Democracy at the Grassroots: A Contribution of Post-War Women’s Movements in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the socio-political significance of women’s collective activities in Japan. I attempt to demonstrate that the Japanese women’s movements act as a role of democratic agency through their commitment to social reform and to changes in the political status quo. In the first three sections, I give an overview of Japanese women’s movements from the early post-war period to the present day, categorizing them into three types: the elite-initiated, second-wave feminist, and non-feminist participatory. Subsequently, I discuss the confrontation and reconciliation between feminists and non-feminists. In the final section, I examine what role the women’s movements play in socio-political reforms in terms of civil society discourse, and I conclude that the diversity of Japanese women’s movements has contributed to strengthening democracy at the grassroots.

Exhibiting the Enlightenment: Joseph Banks’s Florilegium and Colonial Knowledge Production

ABSTRACT

The returned Australia-Japan Foundation Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo (2014–15), Anna Johnston, reflects on a 2014 exhibition held in Tokyo: The Bunkamura Museum of Art’s “Captain Cook’s Voyage and Banks’ Florilegium.” The Florilegium continues to have resonance as part of Australia’s complex colonial inheritance from the Enlightenment past. Its display and interpretation both overseas and within Australia provides an opportunity to better understand its origin in a pivotal historical period, globally, and its contribution to knowledge in arts and sciences. The Florilegium also reveals how Indigenous knowledge was central to European exploration and knowledge production. This article outlines contextual issues and seeks to provide a complex biography of this scientific and artistic artefact of Empire, in order to propose new ways of reading the Florilegium that pay attention to that enriched biography.     

Peaceful and Sustainable Development? Middle-Management Entrepreneurship and Transnational Competence in China

With deeper integration into the global economy and expanded penetration by multinational firms and other nonChinese actors following accession to the WTO, skills in bureaucratic entrepreneurship are not likely to be sufficient by themselves to bring about China’s sustainable development. In today’s interdependent and highly competitive trade, economic-cooperation, and resource-limited environment, sustainable development requires that subnational managers also possess transnational competence in collaborating with, negotiating with, and transforming foreign counterparts. However, survey research among Chinese executives based in Shanghai revealed that only a small proportion of the reporting current and future managers recognized the growing importance for China of an interculturally competent workforce. Without increased attention to enhancing the transnational competence of government and state-enterprise managers, peaceful and ecologically sound development will be difficult to sustain given the demands of multinational production chains, global resource constraints, and the challenges involved in managing transnational relations in the interest of China’s long-term economic progress.

Family Firms,Networks and ‘Ethnic Enterprise’: Chinese Food Industry in Britain

Chinese family enterprises in the United Kingdom have penetrated many different sectors of the economy, including restaurants, wholesaling, retailing, trading, manufacturing, property development, computer services and investment holding. Among the companies in these sectors, those involved in different segments of the food industry, as manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers, reputedly feature characteristics of Chinese culture. A majority of these enterprises, for example, function as family firms. This study explores the assertion that, among companies owned by ethnic minorities, culture strongly influences form of business development. This argument will be assessed through a focus on Chinese food-based enterprises in the UK. Two family-controlled companies, Seven Seas (Frozen Food) Ltd and Dayat Foods Packaging Ltd, were selected as case studies as they are involved in key business components of the Chinese food chain industry. Through an in-depth comparative study of the history and development of these two firms, we consider the argument that Chinese businesses have evolved well because of family ties and their inclusion in mutually-beneficial ethnically-constructed networks. Through these case studies, we provide an alternative perspective to diasporic Chinese business development which brings into question the extensive use of the concept of ethnic enterprise.

Saudi Arabia: the ‘arab street’, the media and popular agitation since September 11

Dr Mai Yamani studied Anthropology at Bryn Mawr and Oxford. She has taught at King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia, and lectured widely in the Middle East, Europe and the United States. She is currently an Associate Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she has participated in conferences in the Middle East Programme. In February 2003 she, with others in the RIIA Programme, published Iraq, the Regional Fallout, which is available on the RIIA website. She has written numerous articles and her book, Changed Identities: the Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia (Royal Institute for International Affairs, 2001) was reviewed in the February 2002 issue of Asian Affairs.