Conflicting Images? Germany and the Rise of China

While Germany's ‘Chinapolitik’ under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was driven by economic interests, Angela Merkel promised a normative turn in foreign policy toward China. This apparent turn became most visible in 2007 when she met with the Dalai Lama, which caused strong diplomatic protest from Beijing. This article asks whether Germany's foreign policy toward China did in fact shift under the leadership of Angela Merkel. Based on cognitive approaches, especially image theory, the perception(s) of China held by Chancellor Merkel and their impact on German foreign policy toward China are analysed. The findings suggest that the dominant image of China is that of a key trade partner on whom Germany's economy is increasingly dependent with little emphasis given to the political or normative discrepancies between the two countries. The article argues that Sino-German relations under Merkel appear to be more one-dimensional than the fall-out over the Dalai Lama issue suggests.     

Politics of alienation and polarization: Taiwan's Tangwai in the 1980s

Abstract

After a quarter-century power struggle on the Chinese mainland, in 1949 the Chinese Communists (CCP) defeated the Nationalists (the Kuomintang or KMT) and forced Chiang Kai-shek and his totally demoralized army and government to retreat to Taiwan, an island that had been returned to China in 1945 after fifty years of colonial rule by the Japanese. By 1949, the original residents of the island, the Taiwanese, most of whose ancestors had come from the mainland two or three centuries earlier, had already gone through the initial welcoming of the Nationalists and enthusiasm for going back to China in 1945, and the subsequent great shock, anger, and disappointment of the February 28, 1947 Uprising, and the suppression and massacre that followed it. The February 28 Uprising resulted from harsh and oppressive Nationalist policies that forced the generally passive Taiwanese people, particularly the intellectuals, to resort to a series of protest demonstrations, some of them violent. In response, the Nationalist army led by General Chen Yi carried out a bloody purge, a massacre of the Taiwanese sociopolitical elite. The Uprising has since been regarded by many Taiwanese as the most important historic event in contemporary Taiwanese history, a revolutionary fight against injustice and tyranny. The supporters of the Taiwan independence movement have looked upon it as the beginning, the source of inspiration and legitimacy for their movement. In 1949 the six million Taiwanese were no longer happy, and they were suspicious and resentful of the sudden influx of the one-million-strong Chinese mainlanders who had just been decimated and forced by the Communists to flee to Taiwan and were to rule over the Taiwanese as another colonial power.     

Housing subsidy projects in Amdo: modernity,governmentality, and income disparity in Tibetan areas of China

This paper explores the ways in which housing projects in the northeastern Tibetan region of Amdo (Qinghai) produce governable citizens through rural reconstruction projects. Since the beginning of the “Construction of the New Socialist Countryside” project in 2005, the Chinese state has made great efforts to improve the living standards of rural populations, with a particular focus on the construction of “comfortable” and modern housing. This paper examines the housing subsidy projects that were launched in Amdo in 2009. Drawing on qualitative data, including participant observation and interviews, the paper examines the ways in which Tibetan villagers seek to achieve their versions of modernity through these projects. It analyzes how housing projects have encouraged villagers to become more avid market consumers by cultivating and increasing their desires for material improvement. In doing so, these projects have increased income disparities among households in the same village.     

“I am concerned with the future of my children”: the project economy and shifting views of education in a Tibetan pastoral community

Tibetan pastoralists have been subject to large-scale state-led development policies over the past three decades. The provisioning of institutionalized state schooling, in particular, has all along been part and parcel of these development projects, including urbanization and resettlement initiatives. However, for a variety of reasons, the promotion of schooling in Tibetan pastoral areas has been a challenge since the first Maoist efforts in 1950s. By focusing on a case study of a Buddhist monk’s persistent effort to build a primary school in his home village in the eastern region of Tibet in 1990, and on how Tibetan villagers’ views of him and his school project have changed over time, this paper examines the nexus of relationships between schooling, and social and cultural changes in pastoral Tibet. I also aim to relate Tibetan pastoralists’ shifting values of schooling to the larger social and political context, particularly the ubiquitous Chinese xiangmu (project) economy and Tibetan pastoralists’ ever-increasing dependence on the state. This paper argues that although state schooling is highly contested, it has been one of the driving forces of social change in Tibetan pastoral areas today.     

Translating ecological migration policy: a conjunctural analysis of Tibetan pastoralist resettlement in China

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the transmission of China’s Ecological Migration Policy from the central government down to Tibetan villages and townships for implementation. It examines the specific ways through which the policy is translated from Chinese to Tibetan and communicated through various local dialects to concerned pastoralists. In order to achieve the Ecological Migration Policy’s purported objectives of environmental conservation, livelihood improvement, and urbanization, township government officials at the grassroots level mistranslate and miscommunicate policy meanings to villagers to render an otherwise unfeasible, impractical policy implementable on the ground. Tibetan pastoralists actively engage with this resettlement project to fulfill their desires and aspirations for accessing healthcare and educational services in urban areas. However, this pursuit of legibility is induced by the state’s negligence of rural pastoralist life and elimination of alternative educational facilities in rural communities. Both negligence and elimination of educational facilities in rural areas concentrate and increase investments in education and healthcare in urban settlements. These conjunctures ultimately drive Tibetan pastoralists to “choose” their only available option, to resettle in urban townships.     

The Islamist Uprising in Syria, 1976–82: The History and Legacy of a Failed Revolt

The Islamist Uprising in Syria between 1976 and 1982 remains understudied in view of the growing availability of new primary sources on the subject. The present article explores the unfolding of the Revolt, examining the causes for its eventual defeat and the long-term legacy of the Uprising. It argues that the Islamist Uprising in Syria failed for a variety of reasons, first and foremost internal disunity and indecisiveness, leading to a lack of military preparedness, planning, and coordination at critical junctures, and a lack of mass mobilization for the Revolt. Failure to rally sufficient foreign support made the Uprising crumble in the face of the regime’s unrestrained brutality. Rather than serving as a rallying cry for the Syrian opposition, the defeat at Hama has had a divisive effect, illustrated by the contradictory narratives embraced by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadi opponents.     

UNESCO and the politics of cultural heritage in Tibet

This article examines United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) cultural heritage policies and Chinese state-directed tourism policies in contemporary Tibet. It begins with a brief overview of the tourism industry in Tibet, and moves to a discussion of UNESCO's focus on the preservation of world cultural sites in the name of universal values, noting how this aids state claims to authority over culture as a tool in state-building in places such as Tibet and Indonesia. The article then examines the effects state tourism policies have had on specific Tibetan sites, based on field visits to Lhasa and Shigatse in 2001 and 2002 and Xiahe (Gansu Province) in 2004.

In a word, the Potala Palace, as a world cultural heritage and a place of religious activities, has drawn the attention of the world. With the deepening of the reform, opening and modermization drive and along with the implementation of the going-west strategy, the Potala Palace has become a treasure of the world. - Potala Palace Management Office (2002)     

SPECTACULAR COMPASSION

ABSTRACT

China's “Olympic Year” (2007–2008) was a watershed moment for the country and its ruling Chinese Communist Party. In this article, the author draws on her fieldwork experience as one of the few foreigners living in rural Tibetan regions during the Tibetan unrest in spring 2008 to consider the implications of the Olympic year from the margins of the state. Taking inspiration from recent anthropological debates about the nature of humanitarianism and sovereignty in neo-liberal and post-socialist states, the author considers the Tibetan unrest and the Sichuan earthquake that occurred just three weeks later on 12 May as particularly emblematic disastrous events linked by a new biopolitics of “charity” or “compassion” (Ch. aixin) in the context of state-led disaster relief. To get at the contested nature of morality and sovereignty in practice, the author focuses on nationally televised post-quake death rituals in which statist abstract compassion for lost Chinese citizens confronted the universalized compassion of embattled Tibetan Buddhist monastic communities.     

Urbanization,education, and the politics of space on the Tibetan Plateau

This article provides an introduction to a special collection of five articles showcasing the work of rising scholars in the geography and anthropology of Tibetan regions in China (Eveline Washul, Andrew Grant, Tsering Bum, Huatse Gyal and Duojie Zhaxi, published in Critical Asian Studies 50: 4 and Critical Asian Studies 51: 1). It contextualizes the authors’ contributions in the recent promotion of planned urbanization in Tibetan regions as the key to achieving the “Chinese Dream” under President Xi Jinping. The paper calls attention to these authors’ focus on Tibetan experiences of new urbanization policies and practices, as well as their less-appreciated entanglement with shifting education priorities. Providing brief summaries of each author’s case study and arguments, it points to the ways in which all five articles address the relationship between space and subjectivity, as well as the issue of constrained agency (versus simple notions of “choice”), in statist urbanization processes.     

The Initiation of the Sino-Indian rivalry

ABSTRACT

Sino-Indian interactions after the mid-19th century had a causal influence on Chinese and Indian elite perceptions. Modern China encountered modern India as an agent of British imperialism. China perceived India as an “imperial” power in the late 1940s by resorting to the availability heuristic while doubting India’s intentions in Tibet/Southeast Asia. By contrast, India viewed China as a fellow victim of colonialism that had sought India’s help during World War II. Consequently, India perceived China as a “partner” in postwar/postcolonial Asia. This interpretation was based on confirmation bias after 1947, despite contradictory Chinese signals. India’s image of China changed only after the 1950–51 invasion/annexation of Tibet. India then ascribed the image of an “expansionist/hegemonic” power to China based on historical analogy. Nevertheless, they carefully calibrated their strategies towards each other in consonance with these images until the 1959 Lhasa Uprising, thereby preventing their relationship from descending into militarized hostilities.     

Pursuing Chinese Studies Amidst Identity Politics in Malaysia

This paper seeks to analyze the development of three aspects of Chinese Studies, namely Sinology, China Studies, and Chinese Overseas Studies in Malaysia. Each aspect corresponds to different levels of looking at China: civilizational, state, and ethnic. It also examines how identity politics in Malaysia shapes the development of these fields and how these fields created different images of China. Sinology depoliticizes China and presents the magnificent Chinese culture as a positive element in Malaysian nation-building project. Chinese Overseas Studies de-centers China and examines the multiple identities of the Chinese people. China Studies were officially pursued under the agendas of inter-civilizational dialogue and friendship between China and Malaysia.     

Tibetan translocalities: navigating urban opportunities and new ways of belonging in Tibetan pastoral communities in China

ABSTRACT

Urban development in Tibetan areas of China lags behind that of other non-coastal, rural areas and occurs at a significantly smaller scale due to remote and mountainous terrain and a lower population density. However, just as in the rest of China, urban development in Tibetan regions is characterized by an unevenness that constitutes and produces new translocal ties, as people belong to multiple localities at the same time. But Tibetan patterns of translocal ties are unique. For college-educated Tibetans, structural factors such as educational institutions and ethnic discrimination and affective factors such as attachment to home places powerfully shape the landscape of urban opportunities along ethnic lines. Instead of educational and employment structures enabling Tibetans to pursue economic opportunities in urban centers across the country, socio-ethnic inequalities and thick relational ties eventually bring many Tibetan graduates back to the urban centers administratively connected to their rural home places in Tibetan areas.     

Chinese Nation Building and Foreign Policy: Japan and the US as the Significant “Others” in National Identity Construction

This article examines Chinese nation building in the post-Cold War era from the perspective of foreign policy. It focuses on the role of Japan and the United States as significant “Others” in Chinese leaders’ construction of three major variants of Chinese national identity: as a victim (past), as a developing country (present) and as a great power (future). The article argues that Japan occupies a primary place in the enactment of the past aspect of Chinese identity, while the US plays a major role in its present and, especially, future aspects.     

从"双重国籍"的放弃看中国侨务与外交的关系

本文探讨了1954-1955年新中国通过谈判放弃"双重国籍"问题的外交背景,认为放弃"双重国籍"是新中国在权衡周边安全环境和国家利益得失后进行外交战略和策略调整的重大举措,也是同一时期中国进行外交战略和策略调整的重要佐证,还是将侨务与外交密切联系在一起的最为重大的历史事件.在此基础上,本文还论述了中国外交战略和策略调整背景下的侨务工作,既具体分析了侨务对外交的服从情况,又明确指出了侨务对外交的补充与支持作用.     

China’s Response to the Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa

This article examines the Chinese response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, first surveying Chinese interests in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Many Chinese workers have been evacuated and projects postponed. For the first time, China has extended humanitarian aid to countries facing a public health emergency. China is under pressure to ‘do something’ but faces its own developmental challenges as well as problems of logistics. Chinese knowledge of Africa is still relatively weak and uninformed. Although China’s assistance dwarves that from the other BRICS, the Ebola crisis has revealed problems in Sino-African relations, not least the gap between rhetoric and reality.     

蓬勃与多元:20世纪以来《罗摩衍那》在中国藏区的译介与接受

印度史诗《罗摩衍那》自吐蕃时期传入中国藏区后,在悠久绵长的千年历史中扎根藏地,逐步成为藏族人民耳熟能详的外国经典故事.中国藏区的罗摩故事形态受到印度和藏区本土的历史语境、文化氛围、宗教传播及译介主体等多种现实因素的限制与影响.长期以来,由于《罗摩衍那》的印度教文本属性与藏区的藏传佛教信仰,藏族学者的文学接受过程中出现了大量过滤与变异现象.20世纪初,《罗摩衍那》的藏译与接受现象迎来了具有重要意义的历史性变迁.藏族学者筚路蓝缕,抛弃了狭隘的宗教派别偏见,力求探索真知,开创了《罗摩衍那》在藏区译介与接受史的系统化、全面化和多元化局面,呈现出全新的文学景观.以根敦群培为代表的藏族学者开始跳脱佛教神学观念藩篱,以人文史观与实证考察的学术方法开启对《罗摩衍那》的评判与研究.这与当时藏族学者学术价值观念的剧变紧密相连.此外,罗摩故事与藏戏表演艺术的密切结合使其根植于民间口头叙事传统,纷繁多样的藏戏流派因地制宜,基于地方性知识与各自独特的表演模式进行阐释,衍生出丰富各异的罗摩故事样态,进一步强化了藏族群众对这一古老外来题材的文化认知.可见,印度罗摩故事已深入当代藏族本土语境,成为藏族民众喜闻乐见、津津乐道的经典故事.     

What is to be Done? WTO,Globalisation and State‐Labour Relations in China

China as a nation benefits from entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) but the effects are neither immediate nor uniform. Significant long-term benefits from WTO entry can be realised only if WTO entry acts as a catalyst for further and deeper systemic reform of the economy. Some workers benefit from the opening of foreign markets to Chinese goods but others are affected adversely by the increase in foreign competition in Chinese markets. This paper examines the impact of globalisation and WTO entry on China and how they affect state-labour relations.     

Traditionalization as a response to state-induced development in rural Tibetan areas of Qinghai,PRC

ABSTRACT

The current state-induced and top-down-implemented development and modernization of the predominantly rural areas of western China can be perceived as a clear demonstration of Chinese power in Tibetan areas, resulting in the repression of expressions of minority culture. This article argues that the local population’s various practices of traditionalization, as demonstrated through an emphasis on the maintenance or (re)invention of representative cultural forms can be understood as efforts to counteract the socio-economic and cultural assimilation measures or even as a form of political resistance. At the same time, in the context of the economic opportunities brought on by the rapid development, in tourism for example, traditionalization has become an important economic asset for both the state and local Tibetans. These (revived) traditions could enhance cultural awareness among visitors to minority areas and strengthen local people’s sense of cultural security and their self-understanding as Tibetans.     

新时期中法关系前景探究

2009年4月1日中法外交部《中法新闻公报》的发布，意味着中法关系突破08年年底萨科齐会见达赖所致的双边关系的冰点屏障。随着法国政府官员频频访问中国，中法经贸领域的合作也开始回暖，地方政府合作不断向前推进。法国方面频频向中国释放善意的同时，中国方面也在积极修复两国间政治、经济等各领域的合作关系。但笔者认为，在未来的几年内，两国间关系并没有进入安全期，未来几年的磕磕碰碰在所难免，双边关系出现倒退的风险依然存在。     

China's Advances in the South China Sea: Strategies and Objectives

The sea lanes of the South China Sea are vital not only as a trade route but also for strategic security. It is self-evident that this should be so for the East Asian countries who lay claim to the area, but it is also true for those nations further afield who are affected by the activities there, such as Japan, Korea and the US. Based on his observations of the Chinese navy'sactivities in the South China Sea over the last ten years, Shigeo Hiramatsu, Professor of Social Sciences at Kyorin University, examines the history of the Chinese Navy within the context of East Asian security in the following article. He argues that in light of Chinese plans to increase the capability of its navy, a strong US-Japan relationship as well as a more active Japanese role in the region is essential to prevent a possible flare up of skirmishes around the South China Sea.