Whole Life Stratification and Safety-net Status : From an East Asian Comparative Viewpoint

The Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna was established on January l, 2000 by merging the Institutes of Sinology and Japanese Studies. Initially comprising the pillars Sinology, Japanese, and Korean Studies, the fourth pillar, the Chair of East Asian Economy and Society (EcoS), was established in 2007. The first Head of Department was Erich Pilz (2000-2001), followed by Sepp Linhart (2001-2012), both leading researchers on Japanese history, society, and culture. The current head is Rudiger Frank (since 2012), specialized in East Asian politics and economics, in ge- neral and North Korea, in particular. In addition to six professors, the Department of East Asian Studies currently has a staff of about 50 permanent and temporary researchers and lecturers (Institut fur Ostasienwissenschaften der Universitat Wien, 2001-2013).In addition to language courses, the disciplines Sinology, Japanology, and Koreanol- ogy offer strong social and cultural science studies. EcoS focuses on current political, security, and economic relations in East Asia and the respective national political and economic systems. The Department of East Asian Studies applies a broad area defini- tion of East Asia by incorporating North-East and South-East Asia. In this context, South-East Asia, in particular the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in promoting East Asian regionalism, has always figured prominently in the respective EcoS courses. Yet, in order to demonstrate the growing international rel- evance of this region, it has been a strategic aim of Rudiger Frank to institutionalize South-East Asian Studies at the EcoS Department to complement its range. In Octo- ber 2013, the position of a university assistant at the postdoc level was created. Two university assistants (praedoc) and one study assistant, concentrating on North-East Asia, complete the EcoS team. Overall, the teaching and research program at EcoS reflect the interconnectedness of North-East and South-East Asia. For instance, two key areas of research are state socialist systems (notably China, North Korea, and Vietnam) and climate change, the environment, and energy.Since October 2008, EcoS offers a four-semester Master of Arts (MA) as well as a PhD course on East Asian Economy and Society. Since an adaption of the curriculum in 2011, the MA is offered exclusively in English, and South-East Asia features explic- itly as an area of research in addition to the North-East Asian countries China, Japan, and the two Koreas. The Master course promotes the inter- and transdisciplinary comparative analysis of international relations and of domestic politics and econom- ics in the region in the twentieth and twenty-first century. In their Master thesis, students have to compare specific topics in at least two countries, either in North- or South-East Asia. The program provides students with a broad range of possibilities to specialize in topics of their choice. In addition, students have to acquire basic lan- guage skills in an East Asian language, particularly in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. An admission requirement is a Bachelor or an equivalent college or university degree; eligible majors are, for instance, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Studies, (Internation- al) Business Studies, or Political Science. The five core modules are Contemporary East Asian Language, East Asian Economy, East Asian Politics, East Asian Society and Research, and Master's Colloquium.Due to the popularity of the program in other European but also East Asian coun- tries, student numbers have far exceeded the initial planning for 25 students per study year (217 Master students in the summer term 2013). Due to the shortage in staff, room, and teaching resources, the rectorate decided to introduce admission re- quirements, starting with winter term 2013/2014. Since then, students have to apply for admission to EcoS; inter alia, they have to submit a demanding letter of motiva- tion, detailing their research interests and goals after graduation. …

The North East Asia, geographically belongs to the sub-system in the East Asia, has once created the ”East Asian Community” which consists of China and its surrounding countries, as referred to ”Chinese World Empire” in this article. It popularized the Confucius thinking in term of culture, Suzerain-vassal System in politics, and Tribute Trade System in economy. In short, it was a China-center traditional regional integration in East Asia and also a life community with common culture value. Passed downward through the modern history, Japan, under this common culture value, promoted actively the ”Asianism” as well as the ”Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere”, which was once popular in the North East Asia but abandoned in WWⅡ. Meanwhile, the existing Chinese ”Universalism” and ”Chinese World Empire” in the East Asia were suppressed by Western influence to East and were succeeded by Japan afterward. The ”Chinese World Empire” was contained by the U.S. in the postwar period and encountered the crisis of the civil war. For the hundred years, it was merely self-protected. Therefore, the theory and practice of traditional eastern ”East Asian Community” were all collapsed. After WWⅡ, following by the defeat of Japan, Japanese style ”Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” was buried in the ash. The defeated Japan, learned the lesson and protected by the U.S. military, revived its economy and became the economic great power, and a technology great power because of reinvestment in RD it might be less attractive comparing to the Chinese-blood relations and interests of abundant resources and huge market. The ”Allying U.S. to restrain China” of Japan could be defeated by the ”Alienating Japan to engage China” of Korea. But for the purpose of national survival, the rivalry status between state and state is the last choice. The regional political and economical integration, such as ”East Asia Free Trade Area” or ”East Asian Community”, is not only the temporal phenomenon, rather the vision for co-existence and prosperity among the nations in the future. To lead by ”Japan as No. 1” or ”Peaceful rising China” in the regional integration towards ”East Asian Free Trade Area” or ”East Asian Community”, it will be defined by the result of duel between China and Japan for hegemony. Whoever winning the leadership in the East Asia would share with U.S. of its world leadership, arrange the international order, break the status quo, and reach the 2050 new era described by Goldman Sachs. The voice for ”East Asian Free Trade Area” or ”East Asian Community” has already been spoken loudly. The East Asian nations are also on the way to organize the ”Community”. Those nations are not bounded to the idea of boundary and have to learn to abandon ”Exclusive Sovereignty”. With gradual concession to the coming ”Asian” era and the agreement of peace, equality, consensus, they will push the regional integration in East Asia and build a life community of fellow feeling ”State of East Asia”. Let the power struggle among nations limit to the leadership of ”East Asian Free Trade Area” or ”East Asian Community”. That is the imminent issue for the intellectuals to work on with all effort.

This thesis investigates the question of how East Asian universities have engaged in urban processes as spatially grounded variegated social processes from the colonial era to recent decades by adopting a comparative urbanism approach. Historically, universities in the US and Europe have been influential urbanisation actors in their hosting cities, having occupied a substantial amount of land. The relationship between a university and its hosting city was often defined as ‘Town and Gown’; that implies an adversarial link, but this traditional relationship has changed. Universities in East Asia have also participated in urbanisation processes in diverse ways since their birth, but the dynamics behind this multi-faceted process has rarely been addressed. Using research data collected mainly from fieldwork in Singapore and South Korea, including 42 interviews and archival records, this thesis highlights the relationship between universities and cities in East Asia, focusing on three distinctive periods: the colonial, developmental, and postdevelopmental eras. In all these enquiries, land ownership by universities acts as a thread that weaves the diverse facets of the role of universities into different periods. The findings of this thesis can be summarised as follows: Firstly, colonialism has been influential in the university-urbanisation relationship. During the colonial era, the East Asian university emerged as a symbolic and political institution in the city. Various colonial and local actors surrounded the colonial universities to promote or fight against the ideology of imperialism, which demonstrates the diverse aspects of colonialism in cities of East Asia. Such legacies of colonialism are still found today. Secondly, the East Asian developmental state is a variegated concept. The university plays an important role in society, but the way in which the university engages with the developmental state has varied across geographies. The developmental state attempted to utilise universities to support rapid economic and urban development, but such efforts were not always successful. This finding challenges the conventional understanding that assumes a homogeneous conceptualisation of the East Asian developmental state. Lastly, the entrepreneurial character of East Asian universities has become increasingly evident while the presence of the state is still visible. Thus the role of East Asian universities in urban processes has also become more diverse and dynamic in the postdevelopmental state since the 1990s. While the entrepreneurial university has a long history in East Asia, the globalised and financialised interests are penetrating the university more actively through various urban development projects. This thesis concludes that there is an emerging need to recognise East Asian universities as land-based institutions playing an influential role in diverse and uneven urban processes. Investigating universities also provides an opportunity to identify linkages between their colonial legacies and contemporary urban processes in East Asia.

This paper attempts to provide an empirical overview of the major issues brought about by recent studies of the East Asian development. Three main concerns are addressed. The first is the wider political economic context in which East Asia has progressed in the post-war era. The world economic system and its structural change, particularly the timing of its change at which East Asia was incorporated into the postwar America-dominated world system has been analyzed. It is assessed that the world economy’s timing was indeed unique and the ways American hegemony has practiced after the war was also quite unique. The geopolitical considerations that provided some room of manoeuvre of dependence was even considerable in shaping the relationships between East Asia and the world political economy. Under the above world constraints provided by such timing and the unique nature of the role of the U. S. in the region, the state structure and state-society relationships were also quite different from one might have observed in other part of the developing world. Therefore, the strategic shift of state policy on economic development from one phase to another has been rather smooth. Capitalist development via industrialization was then much more successful. Those state development strategies that were put forward by the relatively autonomous and ＂hard＂ states in East Asia have not been confronted by much severe oppositions from the local dominant classes. The most praised ＂right＂ development policies were made possible largely by effective mobilization of local and foreign、resources The states in East Asia might have been also greatly blessed with certain cultural factors that served as ＂comparative advantages＂ available for the economy to take off at the right moment. The ＂trigger＂ function of the major cultural factors in the East Asian development process-also has to be appreciated. As to what extent the three listed ingredients might have been combined together and in what order of importance should be a serious task lies before any serious social scientist to undertake.

Anna Sulikowska-Drozd, Takahiro Hirano, Shu-Ping Wu, and Barna Páll-Gergely (2018) Life history traits are important yet understudied aspects of ecological diversification in land snail faunas. To acquire information for comparative analysis of gastropod life cycles, we conducted experimental breeding of three viviparous clausiliids from Japan and Taiwan. Under laboratory conditions, Tauphaedusa sheridani (Pfeiffer, 1866), T. tau (O. Boettger, 1877) and Stereophaedusa (Breviphaedusa) jacobiana (Pilsbry, 1902) featured similar times to complete shell growth (12-16 weeks), age of first reproduction (23-24 weeks) and annual fecundity (143- 173 neonates per pair of snails). The maximum number of eggs retained in genital tract reaches nine for T. sheridani, 11 for T. tau, and seven for S. jacobiana. The ratio between average shell height of neonate and adult varied between 13.5% for T. tau, 13.9% for T. sheridani, and 16.7% for S. jacobiana. All species were able to self-fertilize. Exposure to long drought affects intrauterine embryo development in all species; additionally, it results in parent and embryo mortality in S. jacobiana. Observed differences in the structure of the egg envelope among studied species point to greater than expected differentiation of developmental processes in viviparous Phaedusinae of East Asia.

Literature shows that East Asians hold a more complex interactionist theory regarding behavior and are held to reason holistically. This assumption makes East Asians believe that human behavior is always jointly determined by their personality and situation and that everything in the universe is related to everything else in some way. Therefore, East Asians possess relatively sophisticated attributional schemata, display greater hindsight bias, and are less susceptible to the correspondence bias, etc. However, these lines of research share the same limit—they only compare country differences; nevertheless, they tend to interpret these differences with theoretical concepts such as self-construals, collectivism-individualism, and holism. This study aimed to investigate the association among interdependent and independent self-construals, collectivism-individualism, holistic and analytic reasoning, attributional complexity, and behaviors. Study 1 investigated the association between culture and personality. In Study 2, participants were separated by interdependent self-construal, collectivism, holism, and attributional complexity. However, we didn’t have the same results with cross-culture researches. To exclude the confounding of tasks, we used an open-end task in Study 3—participants freely listed reasons for life events. Study 3 provided evidence that prosessing the East Asian cultural tendency could predict that individuals generated more external causes for explanation of life events: Individuals with higher interdependent self-construal or higher collectivism spontaneously attributed life events to the context. Besides, individuals with higher attributional complexity listed more reasons for life events. We think that there are some other ways that can explain the results found by past cross-culture research. If we use more appropriate measures and tasks, we will find that individuals with higher East Asian culture tendency spontaneously produce more external causes. This result may compensate for the insufficiency of cross-culture research.

Three years from now in 2019, we will celebrate the 100th year of Japan’s City Planning Act (“Old Act,” 1919). The Old Act was the Japanese positive response to western modern planning, which was developed in western Europe and north America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was gradually spreading all over the world. Japan was the first nation in East Asia which systematically responded to this spreading process (Watanabe 1993) and, after establishing the Old Act system in the Japanese homeland, spread it in turn to the neighboring countries and regions in the process of imperial expansion. This “dual spread” is a very interesting topic particularly to comparative planning researchers. In this presentation, we plan to draw a rough sketch of the spreading process of western modern planning in East Asia from the viewpoint of Japan, as it was a crucially important spreading channel from the west. There were, however, another such channels to East Asia, especially to China. As planning history studies are now growing in China, we have to keep our eyes open to them if we are going to have a comprehensive planning history of East Asia. With this limitation in mind, we present some crucial research points and highlights in order to raise interests in East Asian planning history, particularly for external researchers. Therefore, we have tried to develop many stimulating research questions, hoping to see the IPHS become a forum of international exchanges in a really productive manner.

Social policy in modern industrialised societies is increasingly challenged by new social risks. These include insecure employment resulting from ever more volatile labour markets, new family and gender relationships resulting from the growing participation of women in the labour market, and the many problems resulting from very much longer human life expectancy. Whereas once social policy had to be in step with a standardised, relatively stable and predictable life course, it now has to cope with non-standardised individual preferences, life courses and families, and the consequent increased risks and uncertainties. This book examines these new life courses and their impact on social policy across a range of East Asian societies. It shows how governments and social welfare institutions have been slow to respond to the new challenges. In response, we propose a life-course sensitised policy as an approach to manage these risks. Overall, the book provides many new insights which will assist advance social policy in East Asia.

From a comparative perspective, one of the most noteworthy aspects of East Asia' over the past five or six decades has been the region’s rapid development, which is true whether one defines ‘development’ in economic terms alone or takes a broader view. Growth rates in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and, more recently, China have been outstanding over sustained periods, as has been these societies’ performance on many broader measures of well-being (World Bank, 1993). For scholars interested in understanding how law and legal institutions interact with social processes of development, East Asia therefore provides a rich arena for research, not only to deepen understanding of fundamental theoretical issues, but also perhaps to provide practical guidance to today’s developing countries as they seek to structure their own legal systems to facilitate development. As this chapter will demonstrate, the East Asian experience challenges many claims and assumptions found in the mainstream law and development field. This was true of the East Asian ‘miracle’ economies of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, but the challenges posed by China’s development path are even more fundamental.

There are several common features of legal culture, legal profession, and legal education in East Asia, especially among China, Japan and South Korea. All three countries had been affected by traditional Chinese Confucius legal culture before the western powers invaded into East Asia in the mid-19 century. There were no formal legal education systems and no legal profession in the ancient period in those countries. Administrative officials who were selected by civil service examination filled the roles of judges and prosecutors, and no formal legal service industry existed. With the invasion of western forces in order to withdraw adjudication privileges for foreign citizens from those western countries, the governments of countries like China and Japan had to initiate legal reforms to meet the requirements demanded by the invading western countries. In the process of legal reforms since the 1860s, continental law, rather than common law, impacted the formation of modern Japanese law, Chinese law, and Korean Law.

After the end of the Cold War, the interactions of international community have gradually moved from the confrontation of high-politics to the non-traditional security of low-politics such as economic cooperation and competition. East Asia’s economic integration is mainly influenced by the US-led “Asia-Pacificism”, Chinese and Japanese “East- Asianism” as well as the ASEAN-proposed “Aseanism”. The interactions among these three regionalisms have formed the major pillars for the development trend of East Asia’s economic integration. The realization of Chinese “continental East-Asianism and Japanese “oceanic East-Asianism” focuses on the operations of “East Asian Summit” and the construction of “East Asian community”. In the process of regional integration, ASEAN is one of the most important “actors”; however, in the operations of ASEAN+3 and East Asian Summit, ASEAN has no sufficient capability to establish a path for East Asia’s integration. ASEAN’s role is more like a “pioneer” than a “power source” for regional integration. The real “power source” for East Asia’s integration is China and Japan. While China plays such a role as “active leader” for the development of East Asia Summit, Japan is an “integrator” for the summit. Both countries compete with each other for the dominance of East Asia’s integration. In essence, the development of East Asia’s integration will depend on Chinese and Japanese relations. This thesis intends to study the differences between East-Asianisms proposed by China and Japan respectively. It also examines the cooperation and competition between the two. How these two countries make use of East Asia Summit as platform to realize their own ideas concerning the development of East Asianism is another concern of this study. It should be noted that the US factor is a key force that can influence the future development of East Asia’s economic integration. To be sure, to examine Chinese and Japanese East Asianism must consider the role of the US, thus the complexity of analysis will be increased.

Objective To compare the safety and efficacy of pulsed dye laser (PDL) with different sessios for the East Asian infants with port-wine stains(PWS). Methods From September 2016 to September 2017, 24 East Asian infants with untreated PWS, who met the standards of enrollment, received seven treatments by PDL at 2-week intervals and three treatments at 6-week intervals at adjacent locations in each patient 2 months after final treatment. The efficacy outcome was compared with Wilcoxon signed-rank test, while the safety was compared using Fisher′s exact test. Results Of the 24 patients, 20 completed study. Seven patients had multiple sites, given a total of 62 treated PWS sites. Among the patients, 18 had lesions on the face and 2 on the extremities. The average blanching rate was (43.71 ± 27.16) % and (43.29 ± 31.58) % for PDL treatments with 7- and 3- sessions, respectively (P>0.05). The result was consistent with independent observer assessment judging that the result of 7 laser treatments was equally with that of 3 treatments (r=0.416, P=0.0008). The average grade was 3.58 ± 1.21 and 3.53 ± 1.16 for 7- and 3-sessions. The patients treated with 7-sessions developed a little more side effects than 3-sessions, including residue purpura, pigmentation changes, eczema and dermatitis. Conclusions After three treatments of PDL, the efficacy may not necessarily increased by more frequent treatments for East Asian infantile PWS. Key words: Port-wine stains; Infant; Laser therapy; Treatment sessions

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) forthcoming Ninth Ministerial Conference in Bali comes at a critical juncture for the multilateral trade body, long mired in the Doha Round stalemate. Beyond offering a critical first test at consensus-building and institutional renewal, the Bali Ministerial affords a unique opportunity to gauge contrasting perceptions across ASEAN and East Asian countries of the continued relevance of the WTO to trade and economic governance within the region and beyond. Resulting from the collaborative efforts of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), the Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) and the World Trade Institute at the University of Bern (WTI), this policy research initiative offers comparative scholarship on some of the key questions arising from the forthcoming WTO Ministerial gathering from an East Asian perspective. Specifically, it explores what scholars in the region expect the Bali Ministerial to produce by way of tangible outcomes and whether the Ministerial will restore the momentum needed to bring the Doha Round to a successful conclusion. Contributors also investigate how relevant the WTO remains to the multiple processes of deepening economic integration in ASEAN and East Asia (e.g. AEC, TPP, RCEP) and, importantly, what lessons in rule-design and market opening WTO Members could usefully draw from the ongoing march towards the establishment of an ASEAN Economic Community.

This article offers a comprehensive and dynamic account of democratization in East Asia over the past two decades. It first traces the history of democratic transitions in the region, and thereafter examines their contours, modes, and sources from a comparative perspective. It then considers the extent to which third-wave democracies have consolidated, by appraising the quality of their performances. Finally, it explores the prospect of democratic regime change in China and Singapore. Analyses of Freedom House and the World Bank data reveal that the East Asian region has been slow in responding to the surging wave of global democratization in terms of not only transforming authoritarian regimes into electoral democracies, but also consolidating electoral democracies into well-functioning liberal democracies. Analyses of the Asian Barometer surveys, on the other hand, suggest that the mass citizenries of China and Singapore endorse their current regime as a well-functioning democracy, and are not much in favor of democratic regime change in their respective countries.

Karatani Kojin is one of the most important New Left critics active today. Several of his key concepts, such as “beyond capital-nation-state” and “singularity,” have not only sparked considerable theoretical discussion in the academe, but have sometimes become guiding principles of social movements both in Japan and abroad. Over the past fifteen years, his has been a key standpoint in discussions of the nation state in political philosophy. Taiwan’s massive “Sunflower Movement” in March of 2014, which to some extent related to Karatani, can be interpreted as the reproblematization of the concept of “East Asia” and subjectivity under postmodernity. This essay attempts to characterize the potential, practicality, as well as problems in Karatani’s thinking on democracy, through a comparative analysis of the recent history of the nation state in Japan and China. The starkly different interpretations of the concept of modernity in China and Japan complicate a general account of East Asian modernity. Japan’s pre-war “East Asian imaginary” and the notion of “overcoming modernity” also differ sharply from revolutionary China’s “anti-modern modernity.” I argue that such a comparison shows the strengths and limitations of Karatani’s formulations. Moreover, the study of social movement must also be modified to account for these divergent trajectories. Keywords Japanese philosophy, Kyoto School, Kant, modern thought, national sovereignty, nationalism