Showing papers in "Critical Asian Studies in 2001"

Challenging The Mandate Of Heaven: Popular Protest in Modern China

Abstract: Arguing that popular protest has played an unusual role in bestowing political legitimacy in China, this article traces continuities in state responses to protest movements from imperial days to the present. The author compares the government's recent handling of three different types of protest: economically motivated actions by hard-pressed workers and farmers, nationalistically inspired demonstrations by patriotic students, and (at greater length) religiously rooted resistance by zealous believers. The central authorities' tolerance toward localized strikes and tax riots, and their overt encouragement of protests against the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, contrasts sharply with the harsh and unrelenting campaign of repression that has been directed against Falun Gong adherents. Explanations for these variant state responses are sought in historically grounded assessments of the political implications of different types of popular protest.

Water Margins: Competing Paradigms in China

Abstract: A global water crisis is widely predicted to occur in this century. China is both water-poor – in per capita terms one of the world's twelve most deprived (and increasingly water-polluted) countries – and, at the same time, also water-rich. This “blue gold” wealth makes China a potential water-power of “Saudi-Arabia” dimensions. While China's potential remains largely undeveloped, the country faces growing water pressures: highly uneven distribution between North and South, urbanization, population increase, degradation of the environment, and rapidly rising demands for energy, irrigation, and town water. The Three Gorges Dam project is the largest hydro-development project in the world and possibly the largest civil engineering project in history. This paper looks at less well-known development projects for the major rivers of China's South and Southwest including the Lancang (Mekong) and the Upper Yangzi. It also discusses the plans for a “Cascade” of dams on the Lancang, which will have a significant i...

ECONOMIC CRISIS AND RESTRUCTURING IN SOUTH KOREA: Beyond the Free Market-Statist Debate

Abstract: This paper, which examines the causes of the South Korean crisis in 1997-98 and the nature and consequences of the post-crisis restructuring process, looks critically at the neoliberal position but also at what the authors call the statist position (which celebrated and continues to defend the usefulness of industrial policy and state direction of the economy against neoliberal critics). While there are important differences between these approaches, the authors show that because both ignore the structural causes of South Korea's crisis, neither is able to explain, much less help overcome it. The paper then examines the economic, political, and social effects of the restructuring process, demonstrating how it has left the South Korean economy more dominated by foreign capital and the chaebol, and more dependent on exports and labor exploitation than before the crisis. As a result, South Korea appears headed for a new crisis. The authors conclude by highlighting ongoing worker resistance to the restructuri...

The sacrifice of a schoolgirl. The 1995 rape case, discourses of power, and women's lives in Okinawa.

Abstract: In September 1995 relations between the United States, Japan, and Okinawa were transformed when three U.S. servicemen brutally gang-raped a twelve-year-old schoolgirl. Okinawan feminists called public attention to the rape, but it wasn't long before the media and political leaders shifted their focus to concerns about Okinawa's colonial history and its postwar occupation by the United States. A crisis of sovereignty replaced the crisis for women and a particular girl, which gradually faded from view, as did the agenda of feminist activists. Through an examination of Okinawa's contentious identity politics, the author traces the political trajectories of Okinawa's component groups and asks why this particular crime, in a long list of crimes against Okinawans by U.S. personnel since 1945, resonates so strongly both in Okinawa and in mainland Japan. The author argues that the rape has been enlisted for its powerful symbolic capacity: Okinawa as sacrificed schoolgirl/daughter. As such it is emblematic of past...

Learning by What Example? Educational Propaganda in Twenty-first-Century China

Abstract: The moral education of the people has been viewed historically as a function of good government in China. Models have played an important role in this educational process, constantly making people aware of correct behavior and correct ideas. Since 1949, so-called propaganda art in the People's Republic of China has played a major supporting role in the many campaigns that have been designed to mobilize the people, with the propaganda poster being the favored vehicle to convey model behavior. In the twenty-first century, state-inspired education and the posters it produces are fighting an uphill battle to grasp the attention of the people. This illustrated article discusses the state of state-sponsored propaganda art and highlights the various social and artistic pressures that weigh on the propaganda poster in the era of reform. The author examines the changes in the government's communication strategy, and focuses on the changing way in which propaganda art has been used in the reform era, the technical ...

America's Korea, Korea's Vietnam

Abstract: Atrocities committed by American soldiers against Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War have once again become an issue of public debate in the United States, yet similar actions by South Korean troops fighting America's war in Vietnam remain virtually unknown in the West. The Republic of Korea (ROK) dispatched more than 300,000 combat troops to Vietnam between 1965 and 1973, but after decades of enforced silence by successive authoritarian governments, Koreans have only recently begun to grapple with the ambiguous legacy of the Vietnam War for South Korea. In the spring and summer of 2000, testimonies in the South Korean media by Korean veterans of the Vietnam War revealed for the first time detailed, extensive accounts of Korean atrocities against Vietnamese civilians. These revelations, and the controversy they triggered within South Korea, bring into bold relief the role of Koreans in America's Vietnam War and the role of the Vietnam War in the political and economic development of South Korea.

THE REISCHAUER MEMO: Mr. Moto, Hirohito, and Japanese American Soldiers

Abstract: This article offers a critical reading of a recently discovered memorandum authored by Edwin O Reischauer in September 1942 Already at this early date in the war, Reischauer proposed retention of the Japanese emperor as head of a postwar “puppet regime” that would serve US interests in East Asia He also argued that Japanese Americans had until then been a “sheer liability” and that the United States could turn them into an “asset” by enlisting them in the US military He reasoned that Japanese American soldiers would be useful for propaganda purposes – that is, to demonstrate to the world and particularly the “yellow and brown peoples” that the United States was not a racist nation The article interrogates the racial thinking behind such utilitarian proposals for the Japanese emperor and Japanese Americans and considers the memorandum within the broader context of the wartime foundations of the postwar US-Japan relationship, the characteristics of postwar Japanese studies, the decision to mobili

Uchinaa Pop: Place and Identity in Contemporary Okinawan Popular Music

Abstract: Since the early 1990s, Uchinaa (Okinawan) Pop music has become popular in mainland Japan and abroad. Okinawan groups such as Kina Shoukichi and Champloose, the Rinken Band, and the Nenes have been perceived as Japan's contribution to “world music.” Certainly part of the appeal of such new Okinawan music lies in innovative and enjoyable hybrid syntheses of traditional Okinawan folk music with ”Western” musical styles and instruments. However, there are other levels of cultural and political significance reflected and constructed within the music that are silenced by writing and audiences that focus only on its colorful “ethnic” appeal. This article examines the cultural politics of the images of Okinawa – as both place and space – that are constructed within Uchinaa Pop music. The author argues that these images construct “Okinawa” as internally hybrid and, thereby, as marked by differences from mainland Japan, including linguistic and cultural distinctiveness, a(n endangered) purity of heart, closeness to...

China as a Non-Hegemonic Superpower? The Uses of History among the China Can Say No Writers and Their Critics

Abstract: Since the advent of Deng Xiaoping's policies of reform and opening in the late 1970s, most observers have agreed that China is likely to recover its rightful place in the world as a great power in the twenty-first century. Disagreements have arisen principally over whether China will join the world as a normal nation state or will instead seek to restore its traditional hegemony in East Asia and even attempt to extend that predominance to the entire world. This article challenges both of these positions by examining the uses of history –and the way in which the past uses those who use it – in several Chinese books published at the turn of the century and in a set of essays critiquing those books. The authors argue that China is likely to eschew both the national imperialism characteristic of Western superpowers and Japan and the over-expansion attempted by earlier Chinese states such as the Qin and the Yuan. Instead China is likely to pursue the minimal goal of avoiding political disunion and cultural cri...

Waging Peace on Okinawa

Abstract: “Waging Peace on Okinawa” examines peace discourses as enacted in tours of battle sites and war (peace) memorials on the main island of Okinawa. Pointing out linkages with and divergences from mainland Japanese peace practices, the essay focuses on “peace guides” that have emerged as the backbone of educational tours that cater to Okinawan and, especially, mainland Japanese schoolchildren. Staffed by volunteers in conjunction with private and public organizations, peace guide tours and their supporting materials endeavor to promote peace by conveying a historical knowledge of the Battle of Okinawa that is more richly contextualized – “complete” – than that which is typically found in official textbooks, commercial tours, and patriotic pilgrimages. “Complete” in this context implies open discussion – even highlighting – of the violence and discrimination Okinawan civilians suffered at the hands of Japanese during the battle, but it also signals discriminatory treatment toward Okinawans before and beyond th...

THE BATTLE FOR HISTORY AFTER SUHARTO: Beyond Sacred Dates, Great Men, and Legal Milestones

Abstract: Historical discourse has become an important aspect of post-Suharto Indonesian politics. The nationalist instrumentalization of the past, always strong in Indonesia, took on a martial aspect under the New Order. Even today, the establishment remains reluctant to abandon it. But new visions of history have arisen out of the widespread protests against the New Order. Some preserve the form of a martial nationalist historiography, but displace it to the regions (especially Aceh and Papua), thus turning it against Jakarta. Others, both at a national and a local level, embrace more societal historiographies in which the state and national unity are not idealized, and in which internal conflict is not taboo.

Playing Base Politics in a Global Strategic Theater: Futenma Relocation, the G-8 Summit, and Okinawa

Abstract: In late 1995, a culmination of events on Japan's southernmost island of Okinawa, home to over 70 percent of U.S. military facilities in Japan, both threatened the future of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty and posed a direct challenge to the contradictory legacies of Japan's postwar system of constitutional democracy. Almost five years later, in July 2000, in anticipation of the gathering of heads of state at the Okinawa 2000 G-8 Summit, Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit the island in over forty years. Speaking at the Cornerstone of Peace, a monument built in memory of the only ground war fought on Japanese soil between Japanese and U.S. forces in World War II, Clinton reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance – and Okinawa's role within it – to peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region. Yet in Okinawa the nature and constitution of peace itself has never been a political given. This article traces the politics surrounding the U.S. military presence over this period, delvi...

"We Came to Tell the Truth": Reflections On The Tokyo Women's Tribunal

Abstract: (2001). 'We Came to Tell the Truth': Reflections On The Tokyo Women's Tribunal. Critical Asian Studies: Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 591-602.

MONUMENTALIZING THE EVERYDAY: The Edo-Tokyo Museum

Abstract: The Edo-Tokyo Museum is both the crowning achievement of the populist historiography of Edo-Tokyo studies and the monumental embodiment of an era of cultural nationalism in Japan. It embodies the perennial tension between the city as home to a unique local culture and the city as a site of state power. The historians who oversaw the design of the exhibits envisioned a celebration of local everyday life, and focused their efforts on narrating the history of a mythic urban folk. A critical walk through the museum reveals three fundamental modes of mythic projection that underwrote this folk narrative: the city of the past as a “world we have lost,” commonplace tools as icons of an essential native culture resisting modernization, and the modern century as a march of progress in everyday life, indexed by ever-improving commodities. Throughout this narrative, the protagonists are the “ordinary people” (shomin) of Edo-Tokyo. In contrast, the building's architect saw the city solely in terms of its national sig...

The Japanese movement to protest wartime sexual violence: a survey of Japanese and international literature.

Abstract: The Japanese Movement to Protest Wartime Sexual Violence: A Survey of Japanese and International Literature Hayashi Hirofumi To cite this article: Hayashi Hirofumi (2001) The Japanese Movement to Protest Wartime Sexual Violence: A Survey of Japanese and International Literature, Critical Asian Studies, 33:4, 572-580, DOI: 10.1080/146727101760107433 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/146727101760107433

Occurrence at Nog Ŭn-ri Bridge: An Inquiry into the History and Memory of a Civil War

Abstract: This inquiry begins with the American Civil War and then moves into an investigation of history and memory in the context of the Korean War, using the alleged massacre of Korean civilians in the vicinity of Nogŭn village (Yŏngdong country) as a focal point. The article describes the progressive political background of Yŏngdong county and argues that revelations about the Nogŭn-ri massacre must be seen against the backdrop of leftist activity and guerrilla warfare in an area that was long known as the “red county.” Finding themselves facing “essentially a guerrilla war [fought] over rugged territory,” the American military forces responded by creating a free-fire zone. The author links these free-fire operations with U.S. actions during the war in Vietnam and then explores how and why the U.S. government (with the complicity of the mainstream media) has buried stories about the murder of civilians and he weighs U.S. responsibility for these atrocities.

Secret Intelligence And Escape Clauses: Australia and the Indonesian Annexation of East Timor, 1963-76

Abstract: In September 2000 the Australian government declassified thousands of pages of documents concerning the Indonesian invasion and annexation of East Timor in 1975. Some 68,000 pages of documents were released. About 2,600 pages of diplomatic documents were withheld, along with Cabinet papers, intelligence materials, and Defence Department records. The documents cover only the period from early 1974 to mid-1976 and do not document the Indonesian war and its human costs. What they do document is the process whereby Australia acquiesced in the Indonesian annexation of East Timor. Above all, they show that secret briefings by the Indonesians kept the Australian government closely informed of Indonesian intentions and operations at every step. In the light of these secret briefings and related documents, it is clear that Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's claim that he wanted to see a “genuine act of self-determination” by the East Timorese is and always was hollow. This was a fig leaf covering his desire to see Eas...

Challenge and Co-optation: Women's Movements, NGOs, and Advocacy Coalitions in Asia

Abstract: (2001). Challenge and Co-optation: Women's Movements, NGOs, and Advocacy Coalitions in Asia. Critical Asian Studies: Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 439-445.

Introduction: The Territory of Identity and Remembrance in Okinawa

Abstract: The political dimensions of Okinawan identity today are the focus of this two-part collection of essays in Critical Asian Studies 33, nos. 1 and 2 (2001). The essays in this issue (January-March) explore contemporary Okinawan claims to authority and identity through anti-base protests and peace education; essays in the April-June issue will examine new musical trends and clashes over feminism and gender analysis in Okinawa. But these are only some of the arenas in which Okinawans are reimagining and debating what it means to be Okinawan today. The dilemmas facing Okinawans — and the ways they are responding to them — are similar to struggles occurring in many other parts of the world. Okinawa’s dilemma, fundamentally, is that of a small place forced to pick its way carefully through a world full of powerful states with their own agendas and only a secondary concern for the well-being of Okinawans. Okinawa has long existed at the margins of national, regional, and global history and its inhabitants have had to accept incorporation into projects developed by powers far greater than their own. Over the last century, that primarily has meant two things: subordination into the Japanese state and, beginning in 1945, into U.S. cold war military strategy in the Pacific region. Finding a way to criticize and renegotiate Okinawa’s place within those constraints has always also meant rejecting some key Japanese and American assumptions about Okinawa and articulating a more positive local identity and an alternative history, one that could be mobilized for different visions of the future. Critical Asian Studies 33:1 (2001), 31-36

PARALLEL LIVES: A Conversation between Hwang Suk-young and Bao Ninh Two Veterans of the Vietnam War

Abstract: Translators' Preface: The dialogue below is a translation of a conversation between South Korean novelist Hwang Suk-young and Vietnamese novelist Bao Ninh, who met in Seoul on 4 June 2000. Held a few days before the historic summit meeting between South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, the Hwang Suk-young/Bao Ninh meeting is probably the first such encounter between two major novelists of the Vietnam War from South Korea and Vietnam. The conversation first appeared in the South Korean weekly news journal Hangyoreh 21 on 22 June 2000. The translators would like to thank the editors of Hangyoreh 21 for their kind permission to reproduce the article here.

The Asian Economic Crisis and the Future of Asian Capitalism

Abstract: The economic and political fallout from the Asian economic crisis of 1997 is unabated. Economic uncertainty, social hardship, political instability, and popular unrest are evident in nearly every country in the region. Four years after the financial collapse that began in Thailand, the search for explanations continues. In Thailand, what the Asian Wall Street Journal called “the blame game” (8 May 2001) includes foreign investors, speculators, the World Bank/IMF (International Monetary Fund), local politicians, and bankers; efforts to extradite Thai financiers who fled abroad continue today. Why has understanding the crisis proven to be so difficult? Interpretations of capitalist crises have always been the Achilles heel of the Left. The historic divide between revolutionaries and reformists in the late nineteenth century turned on the fundamental question of whether capitalism was capable of internal reform or whether it was so deeply contradictory that it required radical transformation. Interpretations of the Asian crisis are thus politically charged. The questions the crisis raises are broad: (1) Is the crisis a symptom of the failure of capitalist development in general or only of its Asian variant (the “miracle economies,” as the World Bank called them a year or so before the

Translation, Modernity, and Women in China

Abstract: (2001). Translation, Modernity, and Women in China. Critical Asian Studies: Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 459-472.

Hirohito Redux-- Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix

Abstract: (2001). Hirohito Redux-- Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix. Critical Asian Studies: Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 609-636.