Abstract
THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOUTH-EAST ASIA
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Armonk NY: ME Sharpe, 2003. 358, $27.95, ISBN 0 7656 1140 6
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: ***
Reviewer: OOI KEE BENG
(Institute Of South East Asian Studies, Singapore)
Decolonisation is a complex and controversial process no matter how one defines it. This exciting volume argues how it started as early as the late 19th century and continues along different trajectories to the present time. After touching on several theoretical themes, it extends to discussions about World War II, the economics of decolonisation in southeast Asia, and compares differences in French, Dutch and British colonial dominions. Interestingly, five of the 16 chapters – as many as the British case warrants in the volume – study the role the USA played in the overlap between decolonisation and Cold War strategic manoeuvres and beyond. A thoughtful afterword by Wang Gungwu warns against too careless and carefree a use of the term ‘decolonisation’. One must agree with him, for example, that initial resistance to colonialism should not be considered part of decolonisation, and that a definite line must be drawn between migration and colonization.
The concentration on the USA provides a needed focus and reminder that decolonisation was not and is not merely a matter between the withdrawing colonizer and colonised lands transforming into nation-states. New globe-spanning processes limit and configure available alternatives. While it is true that more ongoing political processes are linked to colonial history than is commonly thought, some of them are mere reactions to western pro-activeness, both during colonial rule and decolonisation.
Despite the understanding in the introduction that decolonisation is a multi-faceted affair, one is disappointed that so little is included about the concrete business of nation building and the epistemic revolutions and strategies it involves. Much has been said about how colonialism relied heavily on the creation of knowledge suited to its purpose, and therefore, a more concentrated exposé of how decolonisation deconstructs, constructs and reconstructs knowledge to suit new nation states would have been most welcome.
SOCIAL POLICY IN EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
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London: Routledge, 2004. 230, £65, ISBN 0 415 33255 9
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ***
Reviewer: KA HO MOK
(University of Bristol)
Ramesh's book offers us new insights and perspectives in analyzing and reflecting upon the recent debates on comparative welfare developments in East Asia. Unlike most of the previous works relating to welfare developments in East Asia that have chosen the focus on welfare policy, this book has moved beyond welfare policy to other social policy areas, discussing the role of the East Asian Tigers, namely, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, in income maintenance, health, housing and education policies. The discussions and reflections upon social policy developments of East Asia extended to these major social policy areas have indeed enabled readers who are interested in this to have a better understanding of how complex the social policy systems and how diverse are the social policy development experiences of East Asia.
The discussions extended to other social policy areas such as education, health and housing policies have indeed enabled the readers to have a fuller picture of how each plays different roles the modern East Asian states in social policy developments. Throughout his book, Ramesh has made various attempts to confront the conventional wisdom and existing conceptual understandings of East Asian welfare developments. He offers new insights and perspectives in understanding social policy developments by bringing the political economy perspective back in. In his discussions, he makes it clear although cultural factors are important here, we should not overstate the powerful impact of culture. In addition, he has tried to disagree with the conventional wisdom by classifying the Asian Tigers in line with the model proposed by Esping-Andersen's ‘Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism’. Instead, we must look into the details of policy areas and should not be misled by the policy rhetoric. Only when we look into the details of how and what really happens in terms of the state activities in three major aspects of governance, namely, provision, financing and regulation, will we be able to appreciate how complex social policy formulation and implementation is in East Asia. I welcome the publication of Social Policy in East and Southeast Asia. Those who are interested in East Asian studies and comparative social policy studies in East Asia should read this book.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD
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Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2004. 451, ISBN 92 808 1093 6
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: **
Reviewer: ALISTAIR MCMILLAN
(Nuffield College, University of Oxford)
This is an edited volume, based on papers delivered at an international conference organized by the United Nations University in 2002 on ‘The United Nations and South Asia’. It contains 26 chapters, covering security and the impact of the American-led invasion of Afghanistan, development, governance, environment, human security, and regional cooperation. The contributors include academics, diplomats, journalists, members of the military, an ex-Prime Minister of India (I.K. Gujral), activists and practitioners, often attached in some capacity to the United Nations.
The chapters are variable in quality, and reflect an ambiguity in the role of the United Nations itself. There is oversight, but it is often lofty and idealistic, and when it comes to implementation there is no real mechanism for tackling the problems highlighted. There is interesting work on Terrorism and political agitation in Kashmir and Sri Lanka by Kingsley de Silva; Lok Raj Baral gives new insight on inter-state conflict from the perspective of Nepal; Ashok Swain uses the issue of water-sharing where rivers cross international borders to focus on aspects of bilateral co-operation. However, there is little coherence either in content or approach, and one has to search for insight amongst much vapid commentary and speculative assertion. Policy analysis too often descends into jargon-laden restatements of the obvious: poverty alleviation is best served by pro-poor policies; working together to promote peace is in everyone's interests.
Overall, there is a useful breadth of coverage, although not much academic depth, and the volume provides a useful overview and source of general commentary on the region at the start of the century.
REMAKING CITIZENSHIP IN HONG KONG: community, nation and the global city
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London: Routledge, 2004. 260, £65.00, ISBN 0 415 33209 5
Reviewer: MICHAEL YAHUDA
(London School of Economics)
This edited volume, by what might be called a new generation of local scholars, uses the concept of citizenship in its economic, political and social, as well as its civic dimensions, to examine the development of Hong Kong from roughly the last 25 years of the colonial period through to the early years as a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. Its 12 chapters are divided into three parts, which first consider top-down issues of governance, welfare, civic education and the inequalities arising from attempts to develop the ‘ideal citizen’. The second examines issues of migration, belonging and exclusion. And the third looks at bottom-up issues of civil society, resistance and participation.
All the chapters reflect familiarity with contemporary general literature on their respective themes, considerable fieldwork and research, as well as insights derived from having personally experienced many of the changes presented in academic prose here.
As Hong Kong has never been an independent polity and, since its autonomy within the Chinese framework is circumscribed, its people have never enjoyed citizenship, as the concept is normally understood elsewhere. That may explain why the editors chose Marshall's approach of 1950, which differentiated between civil, political and social rights in the British welfare state, as a framework for analysis. In any event the different lines of enquiry by the contributors collectively provide a new perspective within which to view the fledging political system that is evolving within Hong Kong. They provide fresh analysis and new case studies to show implications of different approaches to governance. Despite the patriarchal style of a government favouring the local commercial elite and the heavy-handedness of Beijing's influence, it is clear that the twin pressures of being a global city and an adjunct of China are producing lively and competing forms of political activism in Hong Kong.
STATE AND SOCIETY IN 21ST CENTURY CHINA: crisis, contention and legitimation
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London: Routledge, 2004. 263, £19.99, ISBN 0 415 33205 2
Reviewer: JANE DUCKETT
(University of Glasgow)
This edited volume aims to challenge common perceptions of both Chinese state and society and ‘reconceptualize the dynamics of 21st century Chinese Politics’ (p. 4). It questions portrayals of the Chinese party-state as monolithic, and of society as simply subordinated and without a voice. And in looking at relations between the two it focuses attention on challenges to the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) legitimacy. Some contributions focus on well-known sources of opposition: Falungong (Shue), enterprise workers (Solinger, Weston), rural dwellers (O'Brien), the China Democracy Party and China Labour Bulletin (Wright), and ethnic minorities (Mackerras), though they go beyond the many conventional accounts that discuss disorder and potentially escalating protest to also demonstrate the incursions on the Party's claims to truth and interpretation. Others focus on contentious issues: taxation (Thornton), nationalism (Gries), and the recovery of art stolen by foreign imperialists in the 19th century (Kraus). Rosen looks at the impact on China's youth of the CCP's shift to staking its legitimacy on raising living standards and allowing the emergence of a middle class, while Dickson examines how the Party has responded to these challenges and the dilemmas of the long road it has taken since 1978. Finally, Balzer concludes by considering China's state-society relations from the standpoint of the Russian transition from communism. The book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on contention and conflict in contemporary China. Its focus on legitimation is particularly valuable, because while central to understanding the nature of CCP rule, this is often neglected or sidelined in favour of more straightforwardly materialist accounts. Although this volume can offer no more confident predictions of the CCP's fate than have its predecessors, it adds depth to our understanding of its precarious position and evolving relationship with the people it rules. For this reason it will be very valuable to both teachers and students of Chinese politics.
THE RETREAT OF THE ELEPHANTS: an environmental history of China
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New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2004. 564, £25.00, ISBN 0 300 10111 2
Reviewer: JANICE STARGARDT
(University of Cambridge)
This book is the culmination of some 15 years of pioneering research by Professor Mark Elvin specifically on the history of the environment in China. Further back, moreover, lies a lifetime's work on Chinese economic history. He combines a vast knowledge of Chinese texts revealing the details of environmental change with an unusual ability to conceptualise and argue the case for large, enduring patterns in China's environmental and economic history.
The overarching theme of this book is that farmers and elephants were in direct competition for the same habitats (p. 13), and that the retreat of elephants in China is the reverse side of the picture of the expansion of agriculture. Deforestation, which paralleled the retreat of the elephants, was driven by more than agricultural expansion alone.
The book therefore also explores, under it first section, ‘Patterns’, the roles of construction, war and irrigation in the unsustainable use of forests and through them the destruction of the habitats of elephants. Section 2, ‘Particularities’, provides richly documented studies of three contrasting areas of China: Jiaxing – ‘Richness to Riches’; Guizhou – ‘Chinese Colonialism: Guizhou and the Miao’; and Zunhua – ‘The Riddle of Longevity: why Zunhua?’ The final section, entitled ‘Perceptions’, covers very original insights into several themes: ‘Nature as Revelation’, ‘Science and Superfauna’, and ‘Imperial Dogma and Personal Perspectives’. This list suffices to show that environmental change is studied here in on the broad canvas of major historical problems.
It is difficult to imagine a more comprehensive and thought-provoking assemblage of quotations from primary sources bearing on the subject of environmental change in China. They do not impede the development of Elvin's arguments; on the contrary, they are elegantly integrated into his own clear, highly readable prose. This book also surveys and evaluates the secondary literature in authoritative fashion. Finally, Elvin's own primary environmental research together with hydrologist Su Ninghu is represented here.
This volume is likely to provide a benchmark for studies of the environmental history of China for some time to come and is warmly recommended to all who are interested in environmental history and Chinese studies.
Asia-Pacific
New books received
Vincent Boudreau (2004) Resisting Dictatorship: repression and protest in South-East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 290, £45.00, ISBN 0 521 83989 0
Christopher W. Hughes (2004) Japan's Security Agenda: military, economic and environmental dimensions. London: Eurospan, 287, £40.95, ISBN 1 58826 260 X
William C. Kirby (ed.) (2004) Realms of Freedom in Modern China. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 396, £42.50, ISBN 0 8047 4878 0
Isao Miyaoka (2004) Legitimacy in International Society: Japan's reaction to global wildlife preservation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 224, ISBN 1 4039 1780 9
Neil Renwick (2004) Northeast Asian Critical security: exploring democratic freedoms and social justice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 321, £55.00, ISBN 0 333 66788 3
Gilbert Rozman (2004) Northeast Asia's stunted Regionalism: bilateral distrust in the shadow globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 399, ISBN 0 521 54360 6
Kenneth E. Wilkening (2004) Acid Rain Science and Politics in Japan. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 322, £16.95, ISBN 0 262 73166 5