Diaspora of Chinese Intellectuals in the Cold War Era

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-170
Author(s):  
Kenneth Kai-chung Yung (容启聪)
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
North America ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Local Community ◽  
The Self ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract On the eve of the Communist takeover in 1949, a considerable number of Chinese intellectuals were reluctant to live under Communist rule. They began their self-exile and the search for a new home outside China. Many travelled to places on China’s periphery such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. Others continued their journey and finally settled down in Southeast Asia and North America. Sojourning abroad, most of these self-exiled intellectuals still kept a close eye on Chinese politics and society. They were eager to promote their political ideal for a liberal-democratic China in the overseas Chinese communities. However, they were at the same time facing the challenge of assimilation into local society. This article traces the journey of the self-exiles in the 1950s and 1960s from Hong Kong to Southeast Asia and North America. It examines several representative figures and studies their activities in their new place of settlement. It argues that, although the self-exiles largely maintained a strong commitment to the future of their homeland, they varied in their degree of assimilation into their new homes. Age was not a key factor in their decision to adapt to the local community. Instead, the existence of a politically and economically influential Chinese population played a more important role in such a decision. Intellectuals who lived in Hong Kong or Southeast Asia were more willing to adjust their life to the locality, while those who went to North America were less attached to the local society.

Thirty years from Tiananmen: China, Hong Kong, and the ongoing experiment to preserve liberal values in an authoritarian state

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 439-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cora Chan
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
World History ◽  
Tiananmen Square ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract The 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre marked China out as an exception in the chapter of world history that saw the fall of international communism. The massacre crystalized the mistrust between China and Hong Kong into an open ideological conflict—Leninist authoritarianism versus liberal democracy—that has colored relations between the two since then. This article tracks the hold that authoritarianism has gained over liberal values in Hong Kong in the past thirty years and reflects on what needs to be done in the next thirty years for the balance to be re-tilted and sustained beyond 2047, when China’s fifty-year commitment to preserving Hong Kong’s autonomy expires. Still surviving (just) as a largely liberal (though by no means fully democratic) jurisdiction after two decades of Chinese rule, Hong Kong is a testing ground for whether China can respect liberal values, how resilient such values are to the alternative authoritarian vision offered by an economic superpower, and the potential for establishing a liberal-democratic pocket within an authoritarian state. The territory’s everyday wrestle with Chinese pressures speaks to the liberal struggles against authoritarian challenges (in their various guises) that continue to plague the world thirty years after the end of the Cold War.​

Hong Kong and the Cold War in the 1950s

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy Steele
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Competing Interests ◽  
British Policy ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Cold War

Despite periods of internal agitation and international tension, in the 1950s the British did not fear the imminent loss of Hong Kong, which they believed was of value to the Chinese Communists as it stood. Still, the British were never complacent. During times of tension in East and Southeast Asia, British defense planning for Hong Kong went into high gear, but the inescapable reality was that Hong Kong could not be held without American air cover. The divergent British and American approaches to recognition of the PRC and ROC made matters murkier. Actions by both Chinese governments caused multifarious problems that threatened to divide the British and Americans. Despite entreaties from Colonial officials in Hong Kong to rein in the Americans and their Nationalist allies, throughout the 1950s British policy makers usually placed greater emphasis on preserving harmonious Anglo-American relations. As the British balanced competing interests, while always bearing in mind the goal of retaining Hong Kong, the course they steered to accomplish this often appeared more contradictory and vague than it did clear and decisive. However confusing the tactics, the objective remained the same.

scholarly journals Disseminating and Containing Communist Propaganda to Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia through Hong Kong, the Cold War Pivot, 1949–1960

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Florence Mok
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Regional Markets ◽  
Printed Materials ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract This article explores an understudied aspect in Asia's Cold War history: how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used Hong Kong as a Cold War pivot to produce and disseminate left-wing literature for overseas Chinese living in Southeast Asia. It argues that the CCP's expanding cultural influence can be attributed to the Party's commercial acumen. Operating within a permissive colonial regulatory regime, the CCP expanded its control of local and regional markets for left-wing printed materials. The content of CCP literature was inevitably propagandistic – that is, shaped by the changing demands of the Chinese government's foreign policy and by a need to attract foreign remittances and accommodate socialist transformation at home. Hong Kong's emergence as a pivot in propaganda wars that were global in scope created tensions between the United States and Britain, and led governments in Southeast Asia to strengthen state controls on imported communist media. As such, this article makes an original contribution to Hong Kong colonial history and deepens our understanding of transnational dynamics within Southeast Asia.

Crazy Rich Asians and pan-Asian screen cosmopolitanism

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
North America ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Asian American ◽  
American Film ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Cultural Markers ◽  
East And Southeast Asia

Crazy Rich Asians (2018), a box-office hit in North America, provoked celebration particularly from Asian American commentators and actors. Shot in Singapore and Malaysia with an Asian and Asian American cast, it was a success too in Singapore itself and in territories such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia but not in East Asia’s largest markets, those of China, Japan and South Korea. Focusing on the phenomenon of Crazy Rich Asians’ release, particularly its engagement with and circulation in East and Southeast Asia and its polarized reception among different Asian American and Asian communities, this article traces a series of discursive flashpoints to understand the film’s position in Asian and Asian American film culture. Arguing that the fortunes of US releases with Asian and Asian American casts reveal cosmopolitanism’s invisible borders, the article proposes a model of pan-Asian screen cosmopolitanism. This model recognizes that even globally hybrid screen texts such as Crazy Rich Asians bear cultural markers that may inhibit their appeal in territories with shared ethnic heritages but discrete social histories.

The Culture of New Wars

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Global Integration ◽  
New Wars ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
Small War ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The article analyses the dominant trends in contemporary armed conflicts that are referred to as the “new wars.” Rather than debating the empirical aspects of the concept, the author focuses on its conceptual content, which provides a theoretical framework for understanding the military actions that came after the end of the Cold War. She traces the genealogy of irregular wars, which is a concept known since late antiquity, although it was not at that time a definitive part military theory. Traditional military conflicts often took place between armies of states that officially declared war on each other. They were limited in time and space and had clear goals that, once achieved, left open the possibility of a return to peace. The term “small war” came into use by theorists only at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to describe the processes taking place on the periphery of classical conflicts. However, that term seems to be the most relevant for understanding the irregular nature of combat actions in the twenty-first century. New wars add a dimension of biopolitics to the traditional realm of geopolitics. Drawing examples from the conflicts and armed revolutionary movements of the second half of the twentieth century, the author argues that there were fundamental transformations that set irregular warfare apart: a shift of strategic emphasis, the insurgent and guerrilla nature of the conflicts, the redefinition of “collateral damage,” the spread of terrorist methods for waging war between unequal forces, and private financing of paramilitary groups. The characterization of the essential features of the new wars concept includes an analysis of the factors that led to reformulating war; the key factor was the combination of authoritarianism with economic openness and neoliberal economic policy. The conclusion reached is that, against the background of ongoing global integration, the changes in the conduct of armed conflicts are creating a new culture of security that is justifiably labelled “new wars.”

Where Great Powers Meet

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Shambaugh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Stable Region ◽  
Power Transition ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
The Cold War

After the end of the Cold War, it seemed as if Southeast Asia would remain a geopolitically stable region within the American imperious for the foreseeable future. In the last two decades, however, the re-emergence of China as a major great power has called into question the geopolitical future of the region and raised the specter of renewed great power competition. As this book shows, the United States and China are engaged in a broad-gauged and global competition for power. While this competition ranges across the entire world, it is centered in Asia, and here this text focuses on the ten countries that comprise Southeast Asia. The United States and China constantly vie for position and influence in this enormously significant region, and the outcome of this contest will do much to determine whether Asia leaves the American orbit after seven decades and falls into a new Chinese sphere of influence. Just as important, to the extent that there is a global “power transition” occurring from the United States to China, the fate of Southeast Asia will be a good indicator. Presently, both powers bring important assets to bear. The United States continues to possess a depth and breadth of security ties, soft power, and direct investment across the region that empirically outweigh China’s. For its part, China has more diplomatic influence, much greater trade, and geographic proximity. In assessing the likelihood of a regional power transition, the book looks at how ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and the countries within it maneuver between the United States and China and the degree to which they align with one or the other power.

scholarly journals Stylizations of Being: Attention as an Existential Hub in Heidegger and Christian Mysticism

Open Theology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-220
Author(s):  
Bernardo Manzoni Palmeirim
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Karl Rahner ◽  
Existential Phenomenology ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Christian Mysticism ◽  
Philosophy And Religion ◽  
Simone Weil ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Philosophical Framework

AbstractThe assimilation of phenomenology by theology (namely of Heidegger by Karl Rahner) exemplifies how a pre-existing philosophical framework can be imported into a theological system by being suffused with belief. Although one would imagine that the incommensurability between philosophy and religion would thus be overcome, the two disciplines risk to remain, given the sequels of the ‘French debate’, worlds apart, separated by a leap of faith. In this paper I attempt to uncover what grammatical similitudes afforded Rahner formal transference in the first place. Uncovering analogous uses of contemplative attention, namely between Heidegger and Simone Weil, I hope to demonstrate the filial relationship between existential phenomenology and Christian mysticism. I propose that attention is a key factor in both systems of thought. Furthermore, I propose that: 1) attention, the existential hub between subject and phenomena, provides a base for investigating methodologies, as opposed to causal relations, in philosophy and religion; 2) that the two attentional disciplines of meditation and contemplation, spiritual practices designed to shape the self, also constitute styles of thinking; and 3) the ‘turn’ in the later Heidegger’s philosophy is a strategic point to inquire into this confluence of styles of thinking, evincing the constantly dynamic and intrinsically tight relation between philosophy and theology.

Better a Friend Nearby Than a Brother Far Away? The Health Implications of Foreign Domestic Workers’ Family and Friendship Networks

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 765-783
Author(s):  
Jing Ye ◽  
Feinian Chen
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Protective Effects ◽  
Personal Network ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Daily Contact ◽  
Foreign Domestic Workers ◽  
Reported Health ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

Migrant domestic workers provide essential services to the families they live with, but they are not considered a part of the family. As a group, they are not well-integrated into the society and often suffer from social isolation. In this article, we explore the potential health buffering effects of their personal network, in terms of family and friendship ties in both the local community and their home country. Existing literature provides inconsistent evidence on who and what matters more, with regard to the nature, strength, and geographic locations of individual personal networks. Using data from the Survey of Migrant domestic Workers in Hong Kong (2017), we find that family ties are extremely important. The presence of family members in Hong Kong as well as daily contact with family, regardless of location, are associated with better self-reported health. Only daily contact with friends in Hong Kong, not with friends in other countries, promotes better health. We also find evidence that the protective effects of family and friends networks depend on each other. Those foreign domestic workers with families in Hong Kong but also maintain daily contact with friends have the best self-reported health among all.

scholarly journals Decolonization, the Cold War, and Africans’ routes to higher education overseas, 1957–65

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-191
Author(s):  
Eric Burton
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Cold War ◽  
North America ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Access To Higher Education ◽  
African Students ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Gain Access

AbstractFrom the late 1950s, Africans seeking higher education went to a rapidly increasing number of destinations, both within Africa and overseas. Based on multi-sited archival research and memoirs, this article shows how Africans forged and used new routes to gain access to higher education denied to them in their territories of origin, and in this way also shaped scholarship policies across the globe. Focusing on British-ruled territories in East Africa, the article establishes the importance of African intermediaries and independent countries as hubs of mobility. The agency of students and intermediaries, as well as official responses, are examined in three interconnected cases: the clandestine ‘Nile route’ from East Africa to Egypt and eastern Europe; the ‘airlifts’ from East Africa to North America; and the ‘exodus’ of African students from the Eastern bloc to western Europe. Although all of these routes were short-lived, they transformed official scholarship provisions, and significantly shaped the postcolonial period in the countries of origin.

Designing a Cultural Heritage Articulated Warning System (CHAWS) strategy to improve disaster risk preparedness in Brazil

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-85
Author(s):  
Victor Marchezini ◽  
Allan Yu Iwama ◽  
Danilo Celso Pereira ◽  
Rodrigo Silva da Conceição ◽  
Rachel Trajber ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Warning System ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Scientific Challenge ◽  
Risk Preparedness

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study an articulated warning system that provides information about the heritage at risk and encourages a dialogue between the heritage sector, civil defense agencies and local communities. Design/methodology/approach The databases from the National Heritage Institute, National Civil Defense, National Geological Service and National Early Warning System were investigated and the local community provided input which helped form a participatory risk mapping strategy for a warning system in the heritage sector. Findings There is little knowledge of the Brazilian heritage that is at risk and a lack of coordination between the cultural heritage and DRR sectors. This means that there is a need to organize the geo-referenced databases so that information can be shared and the public provided with broader access. As a result, there can be a greater production, dissemination and application of knowledge to help protect the cultural heritage. Practical implications The findings can be included in the debate about the importance of framing disaster risk management (DRM) policies in the Brazilian heritage sector. Social implications The findings and maps of the case study in the town of São Luiz do Paraitinga involve the heritage sector, civil defense agencies and local people and can be used for disaster risk preparedness. Originality/value A DRM program is being formulated in Brazil. However, the kind of strategy needed to incorporate the heritage sector in this program stills needs to be planned, and the knowledge of the cultural heritage at risk is a key factor when faced with this new social and scientific challenge.

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