The Future of Cambodian Heritage under China
Memo #398 By: Sarah K. Youngblutt – syoungblutt [at] gmail.com Of the 193 States Parties to the UNESCO World Heritage Convention (1972), Italy (with 47), Spain (45), France (42), and Germany (41) had traditionally held the most World Heritage Sites (WHS), with half of all WHS located in Europe and North America. In recent years, China […]
A New Era for Chinese Cartoons (Manhua)?
Memo #396 By: Nick Stember – nick.stember [at] gmail.com Chinese manhua (literally, ‘casual pictures’) remain virtually unknown in Europe and North America, trailing Japanese manga in popularity even within mainland China. Though China has a long history of satirical cartoons and comic strips going back to the early 20th century, since the 1990s Chinese-originated comics and […]
After the LegCo Oath Controversy, What’s Next for Hong Kong?
Memo #389 By: Justin Kwan – justin.kwan [at] alumni.ubc.ca Escalating tensions raise further concern about Hong Kong’s democracy Hong Kong’s democratic system has been dealt a severe blow after two democratically elected lawmakers who advocated independence from China, Sixtus “Baggio” Leung and Yau Wai-ching, were expelled from office. Beijing, in its interpretation of Hong Kong’s Basic […]
China’s ambitions welcomed in Kuala Lumpur?
Memo #388 By: Phuong Nguyen – h0aiphuong.14 [at] gmail.com and Kai Ostwald – kai.ostwald [at] ubc.ca In the shadows of the headline-grabbing October announcement that the Philippines would forge closer ties with China and “separate” from its long-time ally the United States, Malaysia quietly took its own significant strides towards Beijing’s orbit. Malaysia’s under-the-radar rebalance provides […]
Democracy Wall, Foreign Correspondents, and Deng Xiaoping
Memo #384 By: Andrew Chubb – achubb [at] gmail.com The significance of Western media coverage of the Democracy Wall Movement in China for the present. Between November 1978 and April 1979, Chinese citizens took to putting up wall posters on the streets of various cities in China, airing Cultural Revolution grievances, and calling for the […]
Constructed Hierarchical Government Trust in China: Formation Mechanism and Political Effects
Memo #382 By: Zhenhua Su – suzh [at] zju.edu.cn, Yanyu Ye, Jingkai He and Waibin Huang – huangwb [at] zucc.edu.cn In a political system, trust is of great importance for both legitimacy and effectiveness. A government with low levels of political trust will be more likely to face difficulties in finding public support for and […]
A Pariah No More: How Over-reliance on China Spurred Myanmar’s Reforms
Memo #380 By: Jonathan T. Chow – jchow [at] umac.mo and Leif-Eric Easley – easley [at] post.harvard.edu How Over-reliance on China Spurred Myanmar’s Reforms In late 2010, Myanmar’s repressive military junta transformed itself into a nominally civilian government, over two decades after it had seized power. Upon becoming president in early 2011, former general Thein Sein unexpectedly launched wide-ranging […]
“Bullet Comments”: the Construction of Online Carnival in China
Memo #374 By: Ying Guo – gynut2010 [at] 163.com Is the film so boring that you can’t help ranting? Find something interesting about that TV show? Why not share your comments and thoughts on the screen? The practice of displaying comments directly on the video screen has attracted tens of thousands who have registered on […]
Xi Jinping as Chiang Kai-shek 2.0
Memo #363 By Jeffrey Wasserstrom – jwassers [at] uci.edu Which past leader of a one-party state is Xi Jinping most like? When he took power in 2012, some expected his rule to resemble that of Hu Jintao, his predecessor – a bland technocrat uninterested in shaking things up. Others suggested he might morph into a […]
Pageantry Politics: Beauty Queens Challenging the Chinese Government
Memo #358 By Jonathan Brasnett – jonathan.brasnett [at] alumni.ubc.ca While beauty contests have often been analyzed as sites of gendered oppression or commodification, they have actually long been sites of political contestation and to a lesser degree, activism by the contestants. In November 2015, when the People’s Republic of China faced two beauty queens raising controversial […]