The author pays tribute to the extraordinary audacity of Bertrand Russell and Ho Chi Minh to create a transnational war crimes tribunal to try the United States government and some of its allies for crimes against the people of Vietnam and Laos through bombardment of innocent civilians, schools, hospitals, and villages. That the tribunal successfully held hearings in Stockholm, Denmark, and Japan stands testament to a massive global antiwar upsurge in the 1960s, and signposts the continuing relevance of war crimes trials.
Full Text PDFProfessor Tommy Koh traces the formation and growth of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the three historical phases of U.S.-China relations, and his cautious optimism that ASEAN will survive the U.S.- China confrontation. He draws our attention to the risks to ASEAN’s cohesion because some member countries of the grouping have chosen sides. “I think that the Philippines is an American ally, and if I am not wrong, Cambodia can be considered a Chinese ally,” he states. Professor Koh gives deep insights into ASEAN: that when the ten leaders of ASEAN meet by themselves, there is a consensus among them that ASEAN, as an organization must remain united and neutral. He explains that at a recent ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, the ASEAN Chairman, President Joko Widodo, said in a press conference that ASEAN is nobody’s ally, that ASEAN is not an ally of any great power. “I am therefore cautiously optimistic that ASEAN will survive the U.S.-China confrontation. Whether I am right or wrong, only the future will tell.”
Full Text PDFThe erstwhile Indian states of Jammu & Kashmir and Nagaland are two, among others, granted special provisions by the Constitution of India under Articles 370 and 371 A, respectively. While the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir enjoyed its own Constitution, a separate flag, and independence over all matters except foreign affairs, defence and communications, the state of Nagaland was granted special provisions to protect the rights of the tribal population. The Kashmir Reorganisation Act (KRA, 2019) which demoted the former state, hiving it off into two Union Territories, triggered questions about the future of Article 371 A that guarantees certain special provisions for Nagaland. This article puts forward two arguments: first, the KRA 2019 is like any territorial reorganization dictated by the political exigencies of the time. As such, at the right time and with political will, Article 371 A and the special provisions for Nagaland can be revoked. Second, Article 371 A will unlikely be diluted just yet. The Government of India may not risk diluting or revoking the special provisions for Nagaland as its history and the central government’s relations with Nagaland is intricately linked to the Naga national movement. The ongoing negotiations between the Government of India (GoI) and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) since 1997 are at an advanced stage and any drastic changes will prove detrimental to the interest of the GoI.
Full Text PDFThe combustible state of Sino-African relations raises the need to study the concept of social trust between both Chinese in Africa, as well as Africans in China, by documenting and analyzing the proliferation of business scams. This paper shows that there are issues of corruption in two geographies, Africa and China, and with actors forming a quadrilateral of murkiness in their modus operandi. One, there are several reported cases of Chinese defrauding Africans in Africa; two, of Africans defrauding the Chinese in Africa; three, of Chinese defrauding Africans in China; and four of Africans defrauding the Chinese in China. The quadrilateral of crime is significant particularly because China and African countries purportedly have a friendship that extends beyond their business dealings. This study explores reports of alleged fraud in African countries and in China pertaining to Chinese and African citizens. Based on an analysis of both Chinese and African media sources as well as global news sources, this study finds that cybercrime, visa fraud, and illegal mining are issues that need to be addressed to improve Sino-African relations.
Full Text PDFHong Kong cinema has always been bound up with the historical development of a crisis-ridden city. In the past decade, Hong Kong has experienced the rise and fall of civil society, from its rapid growth during massive civic movements to its disappearance following the Beijing government’s subsequent tightening of its grip over Hong Kong. Apart from some independent films that are now banned in Hong Kong and other large-scale co-productions with China that have lost touch with the city and its people, there is a facet of Hong Kong cinema consisting of medium- and low-budget films financed and produced locally for Hong Kongers, which this article calls “Hong Kong Localist New Wave,” providing rich texts for understanding Hong Kong cinema or even Hong Kong in general. A survey of this wave of Hong Kong cinema finds certain motifs shared by many of the titles in this analytical category: zero-to-hero stories in sports; portrayals of marginalized people, including ethnic minorities, the grassroots, and the disabled; topographic and nostalgic representations that document Hong Kong in geographical and historical dimensions; and separation and reconciliation of familial relationships. These motifs may be read symptomatically to examine how they echo Hong Kong’s emergent structure of feeling under the city’s rapidly changing socio-political conditions. Such changes also lead to a new tide of exodus from Hong Kong, and the “Hong Kong Localist New Wave” may help build an imagined community across geographic boundaries for Hong Kongers at home and in diaspora.
Full Text PDFThis paper tentatively proposes a new temporal approach to reexamine Chinese postwar cinema that fills the gap in conventional film categorization. It resituates Chinese postwar films in a historical context of a turbulent postwar society marked by uncertainty and trauma. Using Bergson and Deleuze’s theory on temporality, this paper interprets time as a medium of becoming, arguing that the classic progressive film, Spring River Flows East (1947), and the prestigious art film, Spring in a Small Town (1948), demonstrate more than one mode of cinematic temporality, embodying both linear rationalized time and dynamic duration. By turning the focus of analysis toward cinematic time, Chinese postwar films and their historical context cease to be alienated from contemporary viewers but interpermeate with viewers’ perceptions and engagement.
Full Text PDFThis article creates an alternative literary historiography to counter the excessive male-centric narratives that flood mainstream literary discourse. It argues that we often club together the experiences of all women under one broad category of “feminist caste.” In order to counter that, this essay explores four distinct female literary characters in the fictional works of authors from West Bengal and Bangladesh to understand their individual struggles against patriarchal reminisces, social hierarchization, and their journey towards individual freedom. The aim is to understand their different experiences as well as connect the common roots of oppression through the theoretical lens of standpoint feminism, a theory urging feminist social science to be practiced from the standpoint of women. The agenda, according to theorist Dorothy Smith, is to create a sociology for women.
Full Text PDFJohn F. McCarthy, Andrew McWilliam, and Gerben Nooteboom (eds.), The Paradox of Agrarian Changes: Food Security and the Politics of Social Protection in Indonesia (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2023), 464 pages, USD 38/SGD 42.
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