Spotlight East Asia

Third China Made Workshop - "Betcha Nickel: Manifold Routes to the Metropolitan in Indonesia," keynote address from AbdouMaliq Simone

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 19:08:54 +0000

Third China Made Workshop - "Betcha Nickel: Manifold Routes to the Metropolitan in Indonesia," keynote address from AbdouMaliq Simone Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/14/2021 - 13:08

Betcha Nickel: Manifold Routes to the Metropolitan in Indonesia

A keynote address from AbdouMaliq Simone at the Third China Made Workshop, on May 19, 2021.

AbdouMaliq Simone is Senior Professorial Fellow at the Urban Institute, University of Sheffield. He works on issues of spatial composition in extended urban regions, the production of everyday life for urban majorities in the Global South, infrastructural imaginaries, collective affect, global blackness, and histories of the present for Muslim working classes. He is the author of many books including recent titles such as Improvising Lives: Afterlives of an Urban South, and Jakarta: Drawing the City Near.

The Third China Made Workshop was hosted by the University of Colorado, National University of Singapore, and the University of Toronto. For more information about China Made visit www.chinamadeproject.net

[video:https://youtu.be/g2o1iYcW75Y]

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Dr. Joyce C. Lebra, Former Professor at University of Colorado Boulder, Awarded Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays

Anonymous — Mon, 17 May 2021 18:06:06 +0000

Dr. Joyce C. Lebra, Former Professor at University of Colorado Boulder, Awarded Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/17/2021 - 12:06

Press Release:

The Government of Japan announced on April 29, the 2021 Spring Conferment of Decorations on Foreign Nationals for their outstanding contribution to their respective areas.

The Consulate-General of Japan in Denver therefore wishes it to be known that the following recipient from within the jurisdiction of the Consulate-General of Japan in Denver shall be conferred with a decoration in recognition of their endeavors. The details of the recipient are as follows:

Dr. Joyce C. Lebra
Former Professor at University of Colorado Boulder

Dr. Lebra has been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon for her contribution to promoting academic exchange and mutual understanding between Japan and the United States.

From an article in the Denver Post covering the conferrence:

Joyce Lebra has committed most of her 95 years to researching Indian and Japanese history, and she is being recognized by the government of Japan for that work.

On Wednesday, Lebra was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.

“It’s overwhelming, really,” Lebra said. “It’s such an amazing way to end my career and my life.”

A news release from the Consulate-General of Japan in Denver said Lebra is being honored for her “contribution to promoting academic exchange and mutual understanding between Japan and the United States.”

Of her published work, she said that “Jungle Alliance: Japan And The Indian National Army” had the biggest impact on the academic community.
“I think it was because I was the only one who focused on the relationship between Japan and the fight for freedom,” Lebra said.

Find original Article in the Denver Post here.

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A Decade of Fukushima: Scholars discuss the implications of the Fukushima disaster for how we live in the nuclear age

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 17:40:24 +0000

A Decade of Fukushima: Scholars discuss the implications of the Fukushima disaster for how we live in the nuclear age Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/26/2021 - 11:40 Tim Oakes

On March 18^th and 19^th, the Center for Asian Studies hosted an international group of scholars for the workshop A Decade of Fukushima: Socio-Technical Perspectives on Surviving the Nuclear Age in Japan. Professor Hirokazu Miyazaki of Northwestern University launched the workshop on Thursday evening with his keynote address “Nuclear Compensation: Hope, Responsibility, and Collaboration around Fukushima.” On Friday, workshop presentations were delivered by Professors Ryo Morimoto (Princeton University), Hiroko Kumaki (Dartmouth College), Noriko Manabe (Temple University), and Sulfikar Amir (Nanyang Technology University). Discussion comments were provided by CU Boulder faculty Kate Goldfarb, Tim Oakes, Donna Goldstein, Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, and CAS postdoctoral fellow Darren Byler. A recording of the workshop can be found here.

This was the first of what will be three workshops organized by the Center for Asian Studies for the project A Tale of Two Asias: Living in and Beyond the Nuclear Age, funded by the Albert Smith Nuclear Age Fund. In this project we compare and contrast the experiences of Japan and China as they each pursue distinct nuclear energy paths. The project focuses on the local-scale, on-the-ground social, cultural and political effects of the development of nuclear energy infrastructures in Japan and China and, eventually, other Asian countries where China seeks to export its nuclear energy development.

With this first workshop, attention focused on the experience of Japan which, 10 years ago, experienced the triple disaster earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor meltdown in the northern Tohoku region. Presentations explored sociotechnical perspectives on how people in Japan have lived with the aftermath of the March 11, 2011 events. A ‘sociotechnical perspective’ is meant to recognize that nuclear power enrolls people, as individuals and as social collectivities, into a particular and peculiar set of relationships with technology. Those relationships blur the boundaries between science and society, and between technology and culture, in unique and compelling ways. For instance, how do people – in their everyday lives – understand and practice their relationship to radiation? How do they calculate different kinds of risk? How do they come to be involved in the measurement of radiation and the science of predicting health-related effects of radiation?

While the issues swirling around nuclear power are often portrayed in purely technical terms, the workshop’s aim was to demonstrate that nothing is ever ‘just technical’. Workshop presenters consider questions such as: How has the nuclear disaster brought about a crisis of expertise as people within the radiation zone live in a condition of uncertainty regarding the effects of radiation on their bodies, their animals, plants and soil? What have been the unexpected political outcomes of people’s encounters with nuclear technology? How do we define responsibility when considering the risks and benefits of nuclear energy? How have cultural practices been shaped by people’s relationship with the technologies and infrastructures of nuclear power, or with the technological interventions brought about by the disaster? In considering questions like these, workshop participants interrogated the intersections between cultural and social practices and technical or scientific processes in Japan’s efforts to address nuclear disaster risks, vulnerabilities and resiliency. Papers presented at the workshop will soon be available on the project website.

Image: Hirokazu Miyazaki, Tim Oakes and Kate Goldfarb on March 18, 2021

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China Made Post Doctoral Fellow Darren Byler’s Research Featured on Democracy Now!

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 21:05:42 +0000

China Made Post Doctoral Fellow Darren Byler’s Research Featured on Democracy Now! Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/03/2021 - 14:05

Since early 2020 Darren Byler has analyzed a 52 gigabyte internal police dataset obtained by the news journal The Intercept as part of his work with CAS’s China Made project and his position as a China Fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Wilson International Center for Scholars. The dataset he examined contains tens of thousands of police files which describe in fine-grained detail the goals and capacities of a mass internment system which targets Uyghurs and other minorities in Northwest China.

In his work Byler shows the way this system of policing fits into broader political and economic history. Over the past two decades Chinese Public Security Bureaus across China have increasingly begun to build and deploy interlinked systems of surveillance technology through private-public partnerships with technology companies. Since 2010, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has become a limit case for the development of such technologies. Xinjiang now has one of the highest densities of surveillance cameras, face-recognition checkpoints, and digital forensics infrastructures of any location in the world. From cellular towers, mobile devices, to smart ID systems, QR coded housing, neighborhood-level sub-monitoring stations, to centralized command centers, server rooms, and “smart” detention camps, a system of digital enclosure has enveloped the 24 million people who live in the vast Muslim-majority region.

After appearing in The Intercept’s flagship podcast “Intercepted” and speaking at a Wilson Center conference, on February 4, 2021 Byler was invited to speak on the nation-wide news program Democracy Now!. In the 20 minute segment he discussed the economic drivers and implications of the surveillance system along with a Uyghur poet and teacher, Abduweli Ayup, whose family members are featured in the police dataset.

Byler is also the author of two forthcoming books on this topic. The first, a short narrative-driven account of the Xinjiang internment and surveillance system titled In the Camps: China’s High Tech Penal Colony, will be published by Columbia Global Reports in October 2021. The second, an academic monograph titled Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City, will be published by Duke University Press in November 2021. A research proposal that draws on his work with China Made and the Wilson Center has also been nominated for a 2021 Early Career Fellowship from the Luce Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies.

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CAS Event Wednesday: Under Beijing's Shadow

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jan 2021 17:21:32 +0000

CAS Event Wednesday: Under Beijing's Shadow Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/25/2021 - 10:21

Under Beijing's Shadow

Wednesday, January 27 at 4:30pm MST

ZOOM Registration

China’s rise and stepped-up involvement in Southeast Asia have prompted a blend of anticipation and unease among its smaller neighbors. The stunning growth of China has yanked up the region’s economies, but its militarization of the South China Sea and dam building on the Mekong River has nations wary about Beijing’s outsized ambitions. Southeast Asians long felt relatively secure, relying on the United States as a security hedge, but that confidence began to slip after the Trump administration launched a trade war with China and questioned the usefulness of traditional alliances. This compelling talk provides a snapshot of ten countries in Southeast Asia by exploring their diverse experiences with China and how this impacts their perceptions of Beijing’s actions and its long- term political, economic, military, and “soft power” goals in the region.

Murray Hiebert is a senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. He earlier served as senior adviser and deputy director of the CSIS Southeast Asia Program. Prior to joining CSIS, Hiebert was senior director for Southeast Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Earlier, he was a journalist in the China bureau of the Wall Street Journal. Prior to his posting to Beijing, he worked for the Wall Street Journal Asia and the Far Eastern Economic Review in Washington, reporting on U.S.-Asia relations. From 1995 to 1999, he was based in Kuala Lumpur for the Far Eastern Economic Review. In the early 1990s, he was based in Hanoi for the Review. He joined the Review's Bangkok bureau in 1986, covering developments in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Hiebert is the author of two books on Vietnam: Chasing the Tigers and Vietnam Notebook.

Co-Sponsored by the ChinaMade Project, made possible by The Henry Luce Foundation.

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CU Boulder's Will Taylor featured in New York Times Article

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 17:43:31 +0000

CU Boulder's Will Taylor featured in New York Times Article Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/23/2020 - 10:43

In an article in the New York Times, A Record of Horseback Riding, Written in Bone and Teeth, written by Katherine Kornei, research by William Taylor is featured.

Quoting the article, it says:

The advent of horseback riding transformed our ancestors’ lives, irrevocably changing how they migrated, fought wars and traded. Now, researchers have found the oldest direct evidence of horseback riding in China, which could help unlock the historical timeline of how the civilization was affected by a newfound ability to get around on four legs.

While neighboring civilizations — such as those in the area now known as Mongolia — had been riding since roughly 1200 B.C., the timing and details of the rise of horsemanship in China have long remained murky, said William Taylor, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder.

But the new study to which he contributed, published last month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that mounted equestrianism in China goes back as far as 350 B.C. That is consistent with the belief that horseback riding enhanced Chinese military might and contributed to the formation of the first unified empire during the Qin dynasty in the 3rd century B.C., and also helped catalyze the Silk Road trading route through China.

Dr. Taylor and his colleagues, led by Yue Li and Jian Ma of Northwest University in Xi’an, China, analyzed eight largely intact horse skeletons roughly 2,400 years old excavated in northwestern China. Having access to the animals’ entire bodies was a boon, Dr. Taylor said. “Usually we’re working with bits and pieces.”

Read the full article here.

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CAS Event Wednesday: Hong Kong: Global China’s Restive Frontier

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 15:26:52 +0000

CAS Event Wednesday: Hong Kong: Global China’s Restive Frontier Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/14/2020 - 09:26

CAS is holding a webinar on Wednesday evening at 7pm MDT. You must register for the event to receive the ZOOM link, see registration link below.
ZOOM webinar registration now open.

Post-1997 Hong Kong has become the restive frontier of global China. It is the place where the major strategies of global Chinese power are in full display, and where these have provoked the strongest popular resistance yet to Chinese domination. In this talk, I will analyze (1) how global China’s generic playbook -- economic statecraft, patron-clientelism and symbolic violence – has been applied to Hong Kong over the past two decades, and (2) how this process of internal colonization has spurred and radicalized a momentous popular movement for self-determination. The politics of infrastructure is a key element in this historic struggle between Hong Kong and China.

Ching Kwan Lee is Dr. Chung Sze-yuen Professor of Social Science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Professor of Sociology at UCLA. She is the author of three multiple award-winning monographs on contemporary China: Gender and the South China Miracle: Two Worlds of Factory Women (1998), Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt (2007), and The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor and Foreign Investment in Africa (2017). She is the founding chair of the Society for Hong Kong Studies, and her latest book on Hong Kong is Take Back Our Future: an Eventful Political Sociology of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement (coedited with Ming Sing, 2019).

This webinar is part of the China Made Project made possible by a grant from The Henry Luce Foundation.

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How Discrimination Increases Chinese Overseas �鶹��Ժ' Support for Authoritarian Rule

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 06:00:00 +0000

How Discrimination Increases Chinese Overseas �鶹��Ժ' Support for Authoritarian Rule Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/20/2020 - 00:00

This is a paper written by
Yingjie Fan
Stanford University - Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Jennifer Pan
Stanford University

Zijie Shao
Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - School of Government

Yiqing Xu
Stanford University

Abstract: The cross-border flow of people for educational exchange in Western democracies is seen as a way to transfer democratic values to non-democratic regions of the world. What happens when students studying in the West encounter discrimination? Based on an experiment among hundreds of Chinese first-year undergraduates in the United States, we show that discrimination interferes with the transfer of democratic values. Chinese students who study in the United States are more predisposed to favor liberal democracy than their peers in China. However, anti-Chinese discrimination significantly reduces their belief that political reform is desirable for China and increases their support for authoritarian rule. These effects of discrimination are most pronounced among students who are more likely to reject Chinese nationalism. Encountering non-racist criticisms of the Chinese government does not increase support for authoritarianism. Our results are not explained by relative evaluations of US and Chinese government handling of COVID-19.

Read the full article here.

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Uyghur Voices: "Never Again" is Now video is posted

Anonymous — Mon, 04 May 2020 16:57:23 +0000

Uyghur Voices: "Never Again" is Now video is posted Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/04/2020 - 10:57

The video from the CAS Event held on March 4th is now posted and available for viewing.

Since 2017, as many as 800,000 - 1.8 million Uyghurs and Kazakhs have been “disappeared” into a widespread system of “reeducation camps” in the Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang). Nearly all Uyghurs and Kazakhs in China have an immediate family member who is interned in this camp system. This process resonates with the most horrific moments in modern history. In the past such camp systems have resulted in generational trauma and social elimination. They shattered families, destroyed native forms of knowledge and, at times, resulted in mass death. Come for a heartfelt presentation by Uyghurs whose family members have disappeared into this system. Guest speaker Mustafa Aksu, representative from the Uyghur Human Rights Project, will present and Dr. Sarah Tynen (University of Colorado) and Dr. Darren Byler (University of Colorado) will moderate the event.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFNy5OyRBvY]

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Second CHINA MADE WORKSHOP Held in Hong Kong

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 17:22:19 +0000

Second CHINA MADE WORKSHOP Held in Hong Kong Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/27/2020 - 11:22

Just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut conferences down around the world, the China Made Project held it's second workshop in Hong Kong in early January.

This workshop brought together scholars from different fields of the social sciences and humanities to discuss infrastructure development in China. Drawing on the recent infrastructural turn in the social sciences and bearing on an ethnographic approach to infrastructure, the workshop put the spotlight on China’s domestic infrastructure.

To read more about this workshop, visit the China Made page.

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