Lingua Franca?: Francophone scholarship on the Asia-Pacific
Memo #349 By: Gisèle Yasmeen – gisele.yasmeen [at] ubc.ca While English is often thought of as the international academic lingua franca, there is significant scholarship on Asia in other languages, including French. French-language scholarship on the Asia-Pacific should be valued, particularly in Canada – a bilingual country home to a number of French-speaking Asianists who […]
South Korea Moves Ahead with Plans to Publish State-Authored Textbooks
Memo #348 By: Rufina K. Park – rufina.park [at] asiapacific.ca South Korea Nationalizes History Textbooks In October 2015, the South Korean government announced its decision to nationalize middle and high school history textbooks, which means that starting from 2017, schools will no longer have the option to choose from Ministry of Education approved independent publications. Instead, the […]
Spawn of China’s One-Child Policy
Memo #347 By: Christopher Rea – chris.rea [at] ubc.ca China’s One-Child Policy became, on October 29th, a two-child policy. The Policy was originally enacted to slow population growth, conserve resources, and ameliorate poverty; its actual results since 1979 have been well documented. One of its many unexpected effects was to inspire Mo Yan’s 2009 novel […]
Urbanized Interfaces: Chinese Visual Arts in the Age of Urbanization
Memo #346 By: Meiqin Wang – meiqin.wang [at] csun.edu and Minna Valjakka – minna.valjakka [at] helsinki.fi Interconnectedness between visual arts and urbanization defines the recent development of Chinese visual arts China’s massive urbanization in the past two decades has had a far-reaching impact on the practices of visual arts. These repercussions are evident in agencies, subject matters, themes, styles of […]
Urban Narrative in Delhi, India: Art Explorations and Urban Ethnography
Memo #345 By: Claudia Roselli – roselliclaudia [at] gmail.com The city today embodies a place where fears, hopes, dreams and transformations swirl together, creating new landscapes. Our urban future can be marvellous or frightening, but contemporary researchers, such as sociologists, urban planners, architects and ethnographers can have an important role in shaping the forms of urban and peri-urban evolutions and […]
Gender question: Toward an egalitarian society in urban China?
Memo #344 By: Julie Remoiville – julie.remoiville [at] gmail.com The “International conference on gender equality and institutional social responsibility,” organized by UN Women, takes place October 22-23, 2015 in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province in China, and the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country. Considering the substantial efforts invested by the Chinese state to improve […]
Human rights for human resources – Japan debates and expands the controversial Technical Internship Training Program, once more
Memo #343 By: Daniel Kremers – kremers [at] dijtokyo.org Intense debate currently surrounds the Technical Internship Training Program (TITP), Japan’s major source for lesser skilled temporary migrant workers, just five years after the last major revision of immigration laws in 2010. The program consists of three years of employment in manual jobs in mostly small and medium […]
Has Chinese foreign policy in Southeast Asia entered a bolder and more assertive phase?
Memo #342 By Kai Ostwald – kai.ostwald [at] ubc.ca With the major exception of the South China Sea, China’s political presence in Southeast Asia has been low profile in recent decades, if only because it has chosen to project power indirectly through economic might and behind closed doors. Its response to recent events in Malaysia, […]
Russia’s New Pivot to Asia: The Emergence of a New Geopolitics
Memo #341 By Alexander Korolev – akorolev [at] nus.edu.sg Many observers have recently registered a new shift in Russia’s foreign policy, labelling it, “pivot to Asia.” President Putin himself announced that “Russia’s reorientation toward the Pacific Ocean and the dynamic development in all our [Russia’s] eastern territories are our priority for the whole 21st century.” […]
LNG in British Columbia, Scandals in Malaysia, and the Complexity of Policy Decisions
Memo #340 By Kai Ostwald – kai.ostwald [at] ubc.ca Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) production is an important potential source of revenue and new jobs for British Columbia. The consortium tasked with developing the industry is led by Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned national oil firm. Given the size of investments (an initial $12 billion) and the […]