Rising Asia Journal
Rising Asia Foundation
ISSN 2583-1038
PEER REVIEWED | MULTI-DISCIPLINARY | EASTERN FOCUS

Previous Issues

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 3 (AUTUMN)
SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER 2021

Issue Information
Commentary
  • A Soft War in an Imagined Future
    Yuen Pau Woo
    Abstract

    A Soft War in an Imagined Future


    The world is stumbling into a war that is neither hot nor cold. Written from the vantage point of the late 2020s, this essay in future history describes a “Soft War” that was precipitated by the geopolitical contest between an incumbent superpower and a determined challenger.

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  • The Khmer Rouge Tribunal Slowly Grinds Toward a Legacy
    Craig Etcheson
    Abstract

    The Khmer Rouge Tribunal Slowly Grinds Toward a Legacy


    The Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT) is a hybrid internationalized court established in 2006 by Cambodia and the United Nations to judge war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity. Nearing the conclusion of its mandate, and with a decidedly mixed legacy, the KRT has several complicated tasks yet to complete.

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  • Britain’s Asian Partnerships must be Among Equals, Not Lopsided
    Gurjit Singh
    Abstract

    Britain’s Asian Partnerships must be Among Equals, Not Lopsided



    Missing from Asia for several decades, the United Kingdom has recently unveiled ambitious plans to regain the “Lost” Continent, much of it in rhetoric and trumpeted agreements, and much remaining to be seen on the ground. The U.K. must ensure that its partnership with the region is seen as among equals and not lopsided in favor of the U.K. It will need to provide better access to its own markets by being more reasonable than the European Union, as well as increase its overseas investments, and encourage its companies go out to Asia.

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  • Taiwan’s Economy and the Big Chip on its Shoulder
    S.R. Long
    Abstract

    Taiwan’s Economy and the Big Chip on its Shoulder


    The island nation of Taiwan, located at the center of great power rivalry between China and the United States, owes much of its stellar growth to the glowing fortunes of its leading chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which is at the forefront of the global tech race, even outpacing China. The author wonders aloud whether China's semiconductor companies, under Beijing’s control, may leapfrog their Taiwanese rival via a potential corporate acquisition, barring a military takeover, or a longer-term reunification option.

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Research Articles
  • The Race Factor in Japan Joining the ‘Five Eyes’:
    Subversive Ontology: Approaching Japanese Intelligence Culture as a Non-Western Intelligence Practice
    Pak Nung Wong
    Abstract

    The Race Factor in Japan Joining the ‘Five Eyes’: Subversive Ontology: Approaching Japanese Intelligence Culture as a Non-Western Intelligence Practice


    This article aims to achieve several goals. Theoretically, engaging with two theoretical approaches of Western intelligence culture which emerged in the past twenty years, this article aims to devise a new approach to better understand Japan’s intelligence culture as a non-Western intelligence culture.
    Policy-wise, this article contextualizes the English-speaking intelligence policy discussion for Japan to join the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance. It delineates the origins of the ‘Five Eyes’ and the ideation and considerations for Japan to join the ‘Five Eyes.’ Empirically, it examines the historical development of Japan’s intelligence system from before the First World War to the 2010s. By identifying the patterns along the interface between international dynamics and domestic politics that have entangled Japan’s intelligence system after the Second World War, it argues that Japan’s subversion-oriented intelligence culture has been prevented from developing by the United States. Finally, based on the lessons learnt, in the light of ancient Chinese and Indian strategic thought, this article reflects upon the cultural uniqueness of Japan’s intelligence culture through the prism of ‘subversive ontology.’

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  • The Interned, the Nikutai and the Kokutai:
    Triply Silenced Japanese in Canada and Japan
    Julie Banerjee Mehta
    Abstract

    The Interned, the Nikutai and the Kokutai: Triply Silenced Japanese in Canada and Japan


    This article argues that scholarly literature overlooks how the three Japanese-Canadian writers—Joy Kogawa, Kerri Sakamoto, and Hiromi Goto—address the representations of the treatment of Japanese-Canadians trapped in Japan, and Japanese victims of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this article, the author attempts to fill some of the hollows and make some of the connections that she found missing. This interrogation ferrets out the utter complexity of tellings of egregious attempts at silencing in three ways—by the Anglo-Canadian State, by Japanese patriarchy and, more fascinatingly, by Japanese-Canadians themselves who wanted to forget the ignominy, stigma, and shame of being reduced to the abject, decimated, dispossessed body. This project excavates the literary representations of the horror of the 22,000 Japanese-Canadians whom the Canadian State terrorized by detention in internment camps through the Second World War, on the one hand, while simultaneously exploring how Japan “othered,” shunned, and stigmatized all Japanese, including Japanese-Canadian victims of the nuclear bomb who were caught between worlds in Japan during the war, on the other, as represented in the fictional works by the three Canadian authors.

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  • Femme Oriental: Women “Looking Back” in East and
    Southeast Asian Cinema
    Raka Mukherjee
    Abstract

    Femme Oriental: Women “Looking Back” in East and Southeast Asian Cinema


    In the history of cinematic creations, representation of women in film have been subjected to the gaze of the heteronormative man under the thrall of a deep-rooted male hegemony. This paper argues that in the portrayal of the “oriental” woman in selected East Asian and Southeast Asian films, the identities of the women characters are shaped by the land they inhabit, their bodies, and their minds across time and geographies. This discourse provides us with a stencil to read three such films, Woman in the Dunes (1964) by Hiroshi Teshigahara, Mother (2009) by Bong Joon-ho, and Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (2017) by Mouly Surya, from Japan, South Korea and Indonesia, respectively, to explore whether these women are able to “look back” at the power or do they remain blindfolded under the oppression of double colonization. Through a deconstruction of the cinematic mise-en-scène that each director employs, this article presents a tripartite analysis of the Japanese widow “in the dunes,” the South Korean “Mother,” and the Indonesian Marlina the “murderer,” encompassing the study of the bodyscape, the womb and motherhood, and the psychoanalytical “becoming” and ownership of one’s own identity. This article argues that intersectional feminist representations in the films should be viewed through a theoretical perspective located within the socio-political milieu of the Asian countries in order to fully comprehend the predicament of Asian feminist movements and to explore their Asian identities

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