Showing papers in "Journal of Contemporary Asia in 2006"
TL;DR: Hong Kong is often viewed as a Chinese immigrants' city as discussed by the authors, and the social exclusion of migrants designated as "new" Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong is discussed in this paper.
Abstract: Hong Kong is often viewed as a Chinese immigrants' city. This article discusses three interrelated dimensions of the social exclusion of migrants designated as “new” Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong. First, it is argued that globalisation has triggered intense economic rivalry among world cities as they undertake economic restructuring. Second, the political attempts of territorial states to establish their own legitimacy and strengthen their governing capacity are major catalysts that induce the social exclusion of immigrants. Third, the nature and strength of local place-based social identity is vital to determine the difficulties new immigrants face in being included in the host society. After recounting the history of Chinese immigrants and their recent profile in Hong Kong, the article examines the relationships between Hong Kong's economic development and the state's immigration policies, and how Hong Kong's state policies have constructed a form of Hong Kong identity vis-a-vis Mainland Chin...
104 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors find that South Korea's post-war development pattern has been considered to be a developmental state model, where the basic institutional framework was the state-banks-chaebol nexus.
Abstract: South Korea's post-war development pattern has been considered to be a developmental state model, where the basic institutional framework was the “state-banks-chaebol nexus.” Since the financial crisis of 1997, however, the country has been swiftly transformed from the developmental state model and has acquired more neo-liberal characteristics. This has been made possible through intense reforms implemented by the post-crisis South Korean government under the IMF's guidance and encouraged by domestic political, ideational, and social conditions. Among those, significant conditions for this swift transformation include chaebols' legitimacy problems, neo-liberal consensus among the domestic elite, democracy hijacked by neo-liberalism, and the role of some NGOs. As social outcomes of the transformation, we find the enlarged presence of transnational capital, increased labour flexibility, inequality and poverty, and an increasing cultural gap in the country. Huge social costs of such neo-liberal tran...
95 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the socio-political impact of the so-called IMF reforms that were implemented by the South Korean government in response to the financial crisis of 1997-98 is analyzed.
Abstract: This article provides a partial analysis of the socio-political impact of the so-called IMF reforms that were implemented by the South Korean government in response to the financial crisis of 1997–98. We find that at least in one key area — namely policies related to foreign investment — the IMF reforms fundamentally altered and reshaped Korea's development path. In fact, the policy changes affecting foreign investment produced what amounts to a paradigm shift in Korea's well-known model of developmental state. Alternatively put, these reforms led to the demise of the “Korea, Inc.,” the symbiotic relationship between government and businesses that was at the core of Korea's developmental state. As such, our analysis suggesting a paradigm shift in Korea's developmental state stands in contrast with previous (pre-crisis) arguments that proclaimed the demise of the developmental state.
77 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) cultural heritage policies and Chinese state-directed tourism policies in contemporary Tibet and examines the effects state tourism policies have had on specific Tibetan sites, based on field visits to Lhasa and Shigatse.
Abstract: 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 wor...
60 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse key elements of the Thaksin government's public sector reform program since 2001 in the context both of a longer history of public-sector reform in Thailand, and of Thaksink's style of political rule, and conclude that the reforms are best viewed as part of a politicisation strategy aimed at asserting political control at the centre.
Abstract: This article analyses key elements of the Thaksin government's public sector reform program since 2001 in the context both of a longer history of public sector reform in Thailand, and of Thaksin's style of political rule. Carefully chosen instruments of new public management reform such as budgeting for results and performance management have been accompanied by an agenda of wholesale restructuring of the bureaucracy. However, these instruments do not include many familiar items of the public management reform agenda. The reforms are best viewed as part of a politicisation strategy aimed at asserting political control at the centre. Managerial reforms are being deployed to reshape the bureaucracy into an instrument of the Thaksin government's political program. In the process, the traditional power of the bureaucracy is being challenged and undermined. The long-term impact of the bureaucratic modernisation program on administrative performance is less certain.
47 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe and document the impact in Southeast Asia: rapidly increasing, unsustainable, and often illegal production and export for the Chinese market, and note the growth in exports of furniture and plywood from China to the EU, UK, and elsewhere using imported and often illegally harvested timber from Southeast Asia.
Abstract: Many developed countries have gained control of their forest-exploiting industries through advanced regulatory regimes. But stricter regulation usually displaces forest exploitation into developing countries with weaker regulatory regimes. The most important current example is the shift of forest exploitation for the Chinese market from China into Southeast Asia following the logging ban in China in 1998. In this article we describe and document the impact in Southeast Asia: rapidly increasing, unsustainable, and often illegal production and export for the Chinese market. We also note the growth in exports of furniture and plywood from China to the EU, UK, and elsewhere using imported and often illegally harvested timber from Southeast Asia. It is argued that it will be very difficult to interrupt the continuing deforestation in Southeast Asia because: (i) the profits from exporting forest products from Southeast Asia to the China market and the profits for Chinese firms which use these forest pr...
46 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take issue with the rhetorical construction of what constitutes a "regional market economy" that informs much official thinking around the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Program.
Abstract: This article takes issue with the rhetorical construction of what constitutes a “regional market economy” that informs much official thinking around the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Program. It is argued that this is a limited construction that privileges the unimpeded movement of goods and resources within the area. Missing from this construct are more fundamental dimensions of what constitutes a proper “economy,” such as production and the institutional foundation to support such activity. Without these, the GMS may be constrained in its future development, rising little beyond an entrepot basis. If the Program is to realise its full promise, further initiatives will be required, particularly to firmly embed a productive capacity within the region and establish a coherent institutional framework in its support.
43 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the adoption of state institutions presents an ongoing challenge for many other New Subsistence States, such as East Timor, where only a minority of states operate free from foreign aid and weak states composed of stateless societies with minimal surplus generation capacity.
Abstract: In the sixty years since the establishment of the United Nations on 24th October 1945, societies across the world have endeavoured to reshape themselves in accordance with the model of the modern state. Whereas the institutions of the modern state have proved appropriate for societies with historical experience of the production and administration of large surpluses, the adoption of state institutions presents an ongoing challenge for many other societies. Only a minority of states operate free from foreign aid, and weak states composed of stateless societies with minimal surplus generation capacity continue to face particular difficulties as they seek to adapt to the modern state system. Like other New Subsistence States, East Timor possesses grass-roots administrative capacities grounded in its village social structures. Short of the skills and resources necessary to support its formal justice system, East Timor has the option to formally integrate elements of its traditional mediation and conf...
40 citations
TL;DR: This article proposed a new approach for understanding authoritarianism based on Gramsci's theory of hegemony, which focuses directly on issues of legitimacy and popular perception and offers valuable insights into phenomena (e.g., popular dictatorship, soft authoritarianism, and fascism) that would otherwise be dismissed as exceptions to the rule.
Abstract: This essay critically evaluates contemporary theories of authoritarianism and, through an examination of one of the most outstandingly stubborn cases of authoritarianism — that of Singapore — suggests a new approach for understanding authoritarianism based on Gramsci's theory of hegemony This theory focuses directly on issues of legitimacy and popular perception and offers valuable insights into phenomena (eg, “popular dictatorship,” “soft authoritarianism” and “fascism”) that would otherwise be dismissed as exceptions to the rule Additionally, while being sensitive to historical contingency, hegemony theory does not lapse into an “it depends” mode but presses on to rigorously clarify the precise relationship between material conditions and ideology Additionally, unlike dominant theories that categorise world regimes into dichotomised and moralised categories of democracies and dictatorships, Gramsci's theory offers us a less epistemologically biased paradigm that can be utilised equally to
39 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight private interests and the public interest of MAFF bureaucrats and LDP politicians and examine how the evolving perception of the interests has influenced debates and the progress of free trade agreement (FTA) policy over agriculture.
Abstract: For a long time, the Japanese government showed awkward and indecisive attitudes towards trade policy. There was strong opposition from the two political actors — bureaucrats at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and politicians in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) — to market opening in the agricultural sector. This article highlights private interests and the public interest of MAFF bureaucrats and LDP politicians and examines how the evolving perception of the interests has influenced debates and the progress of free trade agreement (FTA) policy over agriculture. The central argument is that economic linkages and institutional cooperation in East Asia have changed basic interests of MAFF bureaucrats and LDP politicians, and such changes, then, have induced new moves in Japan's FTA policy towards countries of the region.
28 citations
TL;DR: In view of China's economic growth and rising international status, Latin American and Caribbean countries will accord increasing priority to their relations with the Asian giant as discussed by the authors, while the vast distance between China and Latin America generates difficulties in transportation and mutual understanding, it also means that both parties have no serious conflicts of strategic and political interests.
Abstract: In view of China's economic growth and rising international status, Latin American and Caribbean countries will accord increasing priority to their relations with the Asian giant. China's permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council is also a factor to reckon with. Today, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico have established strategic partnerships with China. While the vast distance between China and Latin America generates difficulties in transportation and mutual understanding, it also means that both parties have no serious conflicts of strategic and political interests. Their Third World orientations in diplomacy contribute to a 95% concurrence in their votes in the United Nations. While the Chinese leadership seeks to promote multipolarity to curb US unilateralism, it appreciates its limitations in Latin America. In addition, China and the Latin American and Caribbean countries value good relations with the US. In the foreseeable future, China will increase its investment in Lati...
TL;DR: The most dynamic sector of growth is the private sector, but within that sector foreign capital is growing the fastest, especially in strategic export sectors and increasingly in finance and the domestic market as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This article raises serious methodological, conceptual, historical and empirical questions concerning the notion of China as the next world superpower. The most dynamic sector of growth is the private sector, but within that sector foreign capital is growing the fastest, especially in strategic export sectors and increasingly in finance and the domestic market. Historically China has passed from a semi-colony to a collectivist state to a state capitalist economy toward a neo-liberal economy which contains the seeds for the re-emergence of a foreign capitalist-dominated economy. Contradictions in the current neo-liberal economy are leading to increased class struggle especially in the countryside and increasing tension between the super-rich Chinese bourgeois allied to foreign capital and ‘national statist’ sectors of the governing class. The efforts by the new leadership to ameliorate the contradiction through increased social spending are too little and too late.
TL;DR: The Singapore state has been described as a "patriarchal state" and a "hegemonic state" by different scholars as mentioned in this paper, and it is a sophisticated and complex entity that continues to evade fixed characterisation, and yet, its concentration of power looms steadily across all state-society relations.
Abstract: The Singapore state has been described as a “patriarchal state” and a “hegemonic state,” among others. The sheer variety of theoretical models applied by different scholars reflect two contradictory truths about the Singapore state — firstly, it is a sophisticated and complex entity that continues to evade fixed characterisation, and yet, secondly, its concentration of power looms steadily across all state-society relations, confirming the basic premise of these models, that is, the sheer efficacy of state institutions and apparatuses in legitimising and fulfilling ruling class interests. This article problematises specific models by excavating contrary examples of civil society activism and relations with the state in order to demonstrate the descriptive limits of these models. This article goes on to argue that the Hegelian concept of the state continues to be of particular relevance to the Singapore condition in the way the People's Action Party understands and legitimises itself, and its disc...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the conditions that led to the formulation of the Cyberport project and the way it has been implemented, and reveal deep-seated and fundamental flaws in the Hong Kong government's ability and willingness to pursue a strategy for promotion of high technology industries.
Abstract: In the late 1990s, the nascent Special Administrative Region state put forward a new developmental strategy to turn Hong Kong into a global high tech city. Various programmes such as Cyberport, the Innovation Technology Fund, the Hong Kong Science & Technology Park, and the Applied Science and Technology Research Institute were launched. This article examines the conditions that led to the formulation of the Cyberport project and the way it has been implemented. It is argued that the project is deeply embedded in the political economy of the post-colonial Hong Kong state-society relationship. Furthermore, closer examination of the rhetoric and realities of the Cyberport project reveals deep-seated and fundamental flaws in the Hong Kong government's ability and willingness to pursue a strategy for promotion of high technology industries.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose an alternative analysis of the cultural economy of regionalisation and constructions of Chineseness, deconstructing the politics of culture and identity, and argue for the need to analyse Southeast Asian Chinese entrepreneurship within specific historical, geographical, economic, political and socio-cultural contexts.
Abstract: This article seeks to debunk the persistent myth of an ethnically-based Chinese capitalism and the culturalist view of an “economic miracle” created by Asians of Chinese descent. This myth claims that Chinese entrepreneurs constitute a closed category with homogenous ethnic attributes and cultural values that have enabled them to achieve economic success. This article disputes such primordialist views and proposes an alternative analysis of the cultural economy of regionalisation and constructions of Chineseness. It deconstructs the politics of culture and identity, and argues for the need to analyse Southeast Asian Chinese entrepreneurship within specific historical, geographical, economic, political and socio-cultural contexts.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show how free trade agreements (FTAs) in Southeast Asia are essentially a means to secure foreign direct investment (FDI) at the expense of the working class.
Abstract: This article shows how free trade agreements (FTAs) in Southeast Asia are essentially a means to secure foreign direct investment (FDI) at the expense of the working class. It explores the significance of FDI in export-oriented industrialisation and for economic transformation in Southeast Asia, with emphasis on the increasing global competition for FDI. As negotiations at the World Trade Organization are uncertain, an intricate web of bilateral and regional FTAs has arisen over the past decade as states and business seek to revitalize competitiveness. These FTAs have a high potential for negative effects on workers, particularly in labour-intensive industries. This is best exemplified by Mexico's ten-year experience with NAFTA The Thailand-US FTA negotiations are a case study indicating that FTAs are more compatible with authoritarian labour control, increasing poverty, job displacement, and weakening of the development process than with sustainable development.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the factor of ethnicity in the positioning strategies of ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in relation to the emergence of China as a land of seemingly great economic potential, focusing on small and medium-scale entrepreneurs, rather than highly mobile business conglomerates.
Abstract: Based on recent fieldwork, this article examines the factor of ethnicity in the positioning strategies of ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in relation to the emergence of China as a land of seemingly great economic potential. The focus is on small- and medium-scale entrepreneurs, rather than highly mobile business conglomerates. The article compares such entrepreneurs in Manado (eastern Indonesia), Singapore and Johor Baru (southern Peninsular Malaysia). The analysis reveals different versions of “Chineseness” in the three cities, produced by different demographic, social and political contexts. What these versions have in common is the subject position of being constructed as “Other” in opposition to the indigenous “Self.” Nevertheless, despite such “othering” processes, these entrepreneurs are committed to local societies to which their families and fortunes are tied. They do not regard China as a diasporic “home.” Their “Chineseness,” defined through exclusion, does not enhance their proximity to ...
TL;DR: The authors argued that the Korean dream of independent foreign policy will be hard to realize until Koreans abandon the dependent mind-set in terms of national security and foreign policy, and that an instrumental approach, rather than an ideological adherence, toward the alliance system with the US is relevant for South Korea.
Abstract: South Korea's independent foreign policy should be understood as a growing self-reliant attitude in the process of managing foreign affairs, and not as a strict policy target that must be achieved within a single term of a specific government. In theory, an instrumental approach, rather than an ideological adherence, toward the alliance system with the US is relevant for South Korea. Most importantly of all, the Korean dream of independent foreign policy will be hard to realize until Koreans abandon the dependent mind-set in terms of national security and foreign policy.
TL;DR: This article explained the diverse responses among the Chinese bourgeoisie in Hong Kong and Singapore to Chinese nationalist movements in the 1930s, and interpreted Chinese bourgeois nationalism as a move toward transnational economic citizenship.
Abstract: This article explains the diverse responses among the Chinese bourgeoisie in Hong Kong and Singapore to Chinese nationalist movements in the 1930s. In Singapore, the slogan of “Chinese buy Chinese goods” boosted the Chinese bourgeoisie in their business competition with Japan. The same slogan was used by the Chinese bourgeoisie in Hong Kong to emphasize increased sales of Chinese goods while Japanese imports were used by Chinese manufacturers in Hong Kong. I also interpret Chinese bourgeois nationalism in Hong Kong and Singapore as a move toward transnational economic citizenship. Emphasising their Chinese ethnicity, the bourgeoisie in Hong Kong and Singapore asked the Chinese government for favourable import tariffs. At the same time, the bourgeoisie requested the British for favourable tariffs, when they wished to export goods to markets in Britain and its colonies.
TL;DR: In this paper, the history of interactions between China and Russia and the countries' geographic juxtaposition are described with a view toward how these have affected earlier and contemporary economic relations between them.
Abstract: History of interactions between China and Russia and the countries' geographic juxtaposition are described with a view toward how these have affected earlier and contemporary economic relations between them. Special attention is paid to developments in the transition era. Quantitative data are examined to evaluate bilateral trade and investment activities in a comparative context. Both the level and composition of trade are evaluated. Potential for labor flows from China to Russia are assessed, and economic data on the border regions are examined to describe interaction at the regional level. Future trends in Chinese-Russian economic relations are projected.
TL;DR: The authors assesses the argument that common ethnic identity has facilitated the creation of transnational business networks leading to the rise of a new economically powerful "global tribe" and assesses how common ethnic identities have influenced the formation of these networks.
Abstract: This study assesses the argument that common ethnic identity has facilitated the creation of transnational business networks leading to the rise of a new economically powerful “global tribe” compri...
TL;DR: This paper argued that only through the prism of analysis of the modalities and institutional architecture of accumulation in the post-Second World War stage of capitalism is it possible to adequately treat questions of causality in South Korean development or similarly, address the specific role of the capitalist state.
Abstract: The article maintains that only through the prism of analysis of the modalities and institutional architecture of accumulation in the post-Second World War stage of capitalism is it possible to adequately treat questions of causality in South Korean development or similarly, address the specific role of the capitalist state.
TL;DR: The authors argue for the need to anchor analyses of socalled "Chinese capitalism" in dynamic interactions between economic capital, social capital, and social networks. But they do not address the role of ethnic Chinese in the economic development of Southeast Asia.
Abstract: From 1978 to the present, the relative positions of China and Southeast Asia in global capitalism have been altered by three key events: (1) China's economic growth after the reforms of 1978; (2) the end of the Cold War in 1990; and (3) the Asian financial crisis in 1997 that ended the high growth of the Southeast Asian economies. Two broad and cumulative phases of change may be discerned. In the first phase, from 1978 up to the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, China was a site for Southeast Asian investments, mostly by privileged Southeast Asian Chinese. The second phase, following the Asian Financial Crisis, sees China combine its role asan investment site with becoming-an economic competitor to Southeast Asia, especially for foreign direct investments and export markets. More recently, these two roles have been combined with China also becoming an investor in Southeast Asia, as well as a market for Southeast Asian products. Since 2002, this rapidly developing relationship has been formalised with the signing of the many agreements between ASEAN and China; the two sub-regions are now appear to be engaged in a formal process of regional integration. As a result of these changes, there is increased interest in so-called \"Chinese capitalism\" as an ethnicised variety of capitalist practice, as well as in the nexus between Chinese ethnicity and Chinese capital as a vehicle for regional integration. \"Regionalism\" and \"Chinese capitalism\" have become fashionable terms in studies concerning the economic development of the region and expanding supra-national capitalist developments in China and Southeast Asia. Many such studies focus on the rising economic power of both China and ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, thereby implying a supposedly homogeneous \"Chinese\" pattern of organising businesses and economic interests. Disturbingly, this discourse conveys the constructed appearance of a seemingly omnipresent Chinese power that is articulated in the 2\"orm Of cross-border, transnational Chinese nationalism. As Ong (1999:18) has noted, such a discourse expresses Chinese triumphalism, amounting to a re-orientalisation of \"Chineseness.\" On the other hand, this kind of discourse can also feed revived fears of the so-called \"yellow peril.\" The collection of articles in this feature section attempts to debunk such mythical claims of Chinese power, \"Chinese capital\" and homogeneous \"Chineseness.\" Rejecting a simplistic culturalist view of Chinese ethnicity which treats all those labelled \"Chinese\" as an intrinsically homogenous group, we argue for the need to anchor analyses of socalled \"Chinese capitalism\" in dynamic interactions between economic capital, social_
TL;DR: McFarlane as mentioned in this paper described himself as the consummate Marxist and argued that he was a "consume Marxist" and "consistency is a sign of a consummate leader".
Abstract: (2006). Bruce McFarlane: The consummate Marxist. Journal of Contemporary Asia: Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 529-531.