War In China Research Articles

Reflections on Revolution and Socialism in Our Times

Reflections on Revolution and Socialism in Our Times Rebecca E. Karl (bio) As Fidel Castro lay dying in November 2016, the American electoral season was in the process of playing its most recent morbid joke on the world. On the one hand, Castro's death in Cuba seemed to augur the final demise of state alternatives to capitalist democracy—those alternatives historically named "socialism"—even while, on the other hand, Trump's victory in the United States seemed to ring the final death knell of precisely that very capitalist democracy, whose hovering on life support had already been signaled by the inexorable rise of Tea Party Republicans in the United States and of Far Right movements throughout Europe, the Philippines, and Japan, among others. Between the death, the demise, and the life support lurks China, an actually existing one-party Communist-led capitalist state, with nary a fig-leaf vestige of socialism remaining, despite a sometimes historical-sounding rhetoric promising a distantly attainable communist future. In critical global analyses of the past several decades, China often enough has been referred to as a "post-socialist" state,1 joined in that grouping by Russia and the former Eastern Europe bloc, whose post-1989/1991 histories are almost uniformly configured around a paradigm of reaction: all that is done, said, and promised is (but) a reaction against the previous Communist hegemony, as well as, more recently, against the attempts by "the West" (Euro-America) to capture that reaction for profit and the postsovereign politics of "humanitarian" military intervention. The fact that China is still ruled by a Communist Party-State is little hindrance, here, to its inclusion in the normative postsocialist grouping, although caveats of course abound. Given this muddle, I wish to inquire: What today is our "actuality" (as the 1930s Japanese philosopher Tosaka Jun called it)?2 More precisely, does the category "postsocialist" do the work it theoretically [End Page 278] and historically purports to do, so as to shed light on our times? Can postsocialist be a global concept rather than a delimited national or chronological marker? If so, what is its purview? In this brief essay, I argue that postsocialism can work as a global concept, albeit only in the sense that Dai Jinhua has discussed for our present moment. As Dai theorizes, we are in the "post post–Cold War era" (后冷战后时代), where the first "post" must be construed as an "anti" rather than merely a chronological "after." As she has explicated, the conceptual ambit named by the first "post" is the global problem of China-in-the-world after the Cold War and the consequent onset of a global antipolitical—a specifically antisocialist—present. First, then, hers is not the China-in-the-world articulated in the "rise of China" idiom so beloved by Chinese nationalist intellectual ventriloquists and state celebrators in the service of proclaiming that China is regaining its proper place at the center of world history. Or, that is, the dreamy triumphal assertion that China has (finally, rightfully) joined tracks with (jiegui: 接轨) the so-called normative history of capitalist accumulation wedded to culturalist conservatism, a path with Chinese characteristics that had been interrupted by the radicalism of the twentieth-century's revolutionary interregnum.3 Rather, Dai's is a lesser-known immanently critical China-in-the-world conceptualization premised on recuperating the erasure of twentieth-century revolutionary histories, histories that must centrally feature the intertwined revolutionary trajectory of China and the twentieth-century world. Thus, where the normative post post–Cold War China idiom points to a presentist repression of history, in which there is no imaginary of futurity other than the banal statement that "China is the future; the future is Chinese,"4 Dai's version has no use for this antipolitical China-in-the-world. Yet by the same token, as Dai maintains, for the critical version she advocates there are simply no historical or cultural coordinates in the mainland Chinese sphere (Dai 2016). Indeed, as she has noted, the celebratory suppression touted by the state and its many domestic and foreign ventriloquists overlaps with the age of the internet, where history is flattened, is a conjunctural coincidence as well as a...

Byline, Richard Wright: Articles from “The Daily Worker” and “New Masses”

Byline, Richard Wright: Articles from “The Daily Worker” and “New Masses”

The Long March from Bandung: The Ghost of the Bandung Spirit in Contemporary Relations between China and Africa

When Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) gave the opening address at the Jakarta reception of the Asian-African Business Summit (亚非商业峰会) in 2005, he characterized contemporary relations between China and various African states thusly “[In] the world today, economic globalization is further developing…[this] presents Asian and African countries with rare opportunities as well as severe challenges…. [We] must…develop a new type of strategic partnership between Asia and Africa...to carry on the Bandung spirit and contribute to the continuous progress in Asia and Africa”. The importance of the Bandung Conference in the Cold War era is beyond debate; what has been debated is its lasting relevance. This paper examines the global economic rise of post-Cold War China and its “new strategic partnerships” (新型战略伙伴关系) with various African states and argues that the “partnerships”, which specifically promote pragmatic cooperation and mutual benefits between the two regions in trade, industry, investment, finance, embody the “Bandung Spirit” (万隆精神). It argues that what we are seeing now in China’s relationship with Africa is the culmination of a process begun by Premier Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) at the Bandung Conference of 1955.

China's War Reporters: The Legacy of Resistance against Japan. By Parks M. Coble . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015. x, 267 pp. ISBN: 9780674967670 (cloth, also available as e-book).

China's War Reporters: The Legacy of Resistance against Japan. By Parks M. Coble . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015. x, 267 pp. ISBN: 9780674967670 (cloth, also available as e-book).

Research on The Dispatch of United States Marines to North China in the Second Chinese Civil War and The Development of Sino - North Korea Military Alliance

Research on The Dispatch of United States Marines to North China in the Second Chinese Civil War and The Development of Sino - North Korea Military Alliance

Quantitative analysis of the impact of droughts and floods on internal wars in China over the last 500 years

Although many large-N quantitative studies have evidenced the adverse effects of climatic extremes on social stability in China during the historical period, most of them rely on temperature and precipitation as major explanatory variables, while the influence of floods and droughts on social crises is rarely measured. Furthermore, a comparison of the climate-society nexus among different geographic regions and at different temporal scales is missing in those studies. To address this knowledge gap, this study examines quantitatively the influence of floods and droughts on internal wars in three agro-ecological (rice, wheat, and pastoral) regions in China in AD1470–1911. Poisson regression and wavelet transform coherence analyses are applied to allow for the non-linear and non-stationary nature of the climate-war nexus. Results show that floods and droughts are significant in driving internal wars in historical China, but are characterized by strong regional variation. In the rice region, floods trigger internal wars at the inter-annual and multi-decadal time scales. In the wheat region, both floods and droughts cause internal wars at the inter-annual and multi-decadal time scales. In the pastoral region, internal wars are associated with floods only at the multi-decadal time scale. In addition, the multi-decadal coherence between hydro-climatic extremes and internal wars in all three of the agro-ecological regions is only significant in periods in which population density is increasing or the upper limit of regional carrying capacity is being reached. The above results imply that the climate-war nexus is mediated by regional geographic factors such as physical environmental setting and population pressure. Hence, we encourage researchers who study the historical human-climate relationship to boil down data according to geographic regions in the course of statistical analysis and to examine each region individually in follow-up studies.

China's War on Air Pollution: Can Existing Governance Structures Support New Ambitions?

AbstractUnprecedented and highly visible degraded air quality in China's urban centres has prompted a step change in central government control efforts in recent years. This “War on Air Pollution” has included a mixture of administrative controls, regulatory clampdowns, economic incentives and public education campaigns. A critical constraint on how policies are designed and implemented is the central government's capacity to access accurate cost information, and monitor, evaluate and enforce the policies at subordinate levels of government. We examine in detail the directives and arrangements that underpin China's “War on Air Pollution” at the provincial level, taking Hebei province as a case study. Located upwind of Beijing, Hebei's heavy industries have been a particular focus of the environmental policies. The current approach, which requires highly specific and costly local actions, yet allocates funds centrally, suffers from misaligned incentives and does not address longstanding weaknesses in local policy monitoring, evaluation and enforcement.

Divided loyalties: Russian emigrés in Japanese-occupied Manchuria

ABSTRACTThis article describes how the changing political situation in Manchuria from the 1920s to the 1940s affected the lives of the Russian émigré community. The establishment of Manzhouguo (1932–1945) and growing international conflict in Northeast Asia exacerbated internal differences within the Russian community, producing multiple loyalties and shifting commitments. Partly as a result of their diversity and different earlier loyalties (Tsarist and Civil War periods), the Russian emigres in Manzhouguo found it difficult to attach to any one ideal, leader, political group or state. Facing very few choices, Russian émigré organizations and their leaders collaborated with the Japanese authorities. The escalation of war in China made their lives even more unsettled and unpredictable, as they became vulnerable to manipulation by different political forces. Although the notion of singular loyalty had been a virtue for them, it was perforce betrayed as recourse to weak multiple loyalties became the means of survival.

Old Menace in New China: Coastal smuggling, illicit markets, and symbiotic economies in the early People's Republic

AbstractThis article explores the ambiguous role of coastal smuggling during the first decade and a half of Communist rule (1949–65). Fearing that the illicit flow of commodities siphoned critical revenues and undermined foreign policy, Communist China repurposed and expanded Nationalist China's war on smuggling while employing novel tactics of mobilization. Yet smuggling was not just a threat; it was also a lifeline that alleviated widespread material shortages and supplied the everyday needs of individuals and firms during the tumultuous transition to central planning. Businesses from ‘underground factories’ to state-owned enterprises relied on black markets to meet ambitious production targets and circumvent bottlenecks in official supply channels. Smuggling was thus more than just ‘corruption’ practised by officials—it was also a ‘creative accommodation’ employed by broad swaths of social actors coping with the enormous changes. This article argues that the nascent command economy and the vibrant underground economy existed symbiotically rather than antagonistically. Exploration into this complex relationship reveals many cross-border connections between Communist China and the capitalist world that both complemented and undermined domestic state consolidation.

China's War against the Many Faces of Poverty: Towards a New Long March, by JingYang and PundarikMukhopadhaya (Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2016), pp. 345.

China's War against the Many Faces of Poverty: Towards a New Long March, by JingYang and PundarikMukhopadhaya (Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2016), pp. 345.

日清戦争後中国における日本の女子教育情報 : 呉汝綸(ウルゥルン)による日本視察(1902)を通して

日清戦争後中国における日本の女子教育情報 : 呉汝綸(ウルゥルン)による日本視察(1902)を通して

Redefining Wartime Chongqing: International capital of a global power in the making, 1938–46

AbstractThis article examines the historical role and legacy of the foreign establishment in China's temporary capital Chongqing during the Chinese War of Resistance against Japan and the Second World War. This extraordinary episode, lasting from 1938 to 1946, ushered in a new era for China's foreign diplomacy and laid the foundation for its rise to world-power status. Placing Chongqing at the very heart of this epochal chapter in modern Chinese history, this article describes the major events, trends, and actors that directly or indirectly were instrumental to China's wartime transformation from a partitioned, de facto colony to a first-rate global power with a permanent seat among the ‘Big Five’. Seventy years after the end of the Second World War, this article presents fresh perspectives on a near-forgotten episode of China's war experience. Moving beyond the traditional typecasting of ‘Chungking’ as a primitive backwater in China's remote hinterland, this article reappraises wartime Chongqing as a major international centre at the spearhead of global change and as an important cradle of the modern power that China is today.

The East Is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination. By Robeson Taj Frazier . Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2015. xiv, 314 pp. ISBN: 9780822357681 (cloth, also available in paper).

The East Is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination. By Robeson Taj Frazier . Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2015. xiv, 314 pp. ISBN: 9780822357681 (cloth, also available in paper).

The East is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination

The East is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination

The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938-1950. By Micah S. Muscolino. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. xiii + 294 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, notes, glossary, bibliography, and index. Cloth $85.00.

<i>The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938-1950.</i> By Micah S. Muscolino. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. xiii + 294 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, notes, glossary, bibliography, and index. Cloth $85.00.

Toby Lincoln. Urbanizing China in War and Peace: The Case of Wuxi County.

Toby Lincoln. Urbanizing China in War and Peace: The Case of Wuxi County.

Micah S. Muscolino. The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938–1950.

Micah S. Muscolino. The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938–1950.

Rebublika Chińska na Tajwanie – pytanie o status prawnomiędzynarodowy

The Republic of China is the specific subject of International Law, because after many years of functioning formal and legal status of the island remains unregulated. According to the classical concept of state Taiwan has all three requirements necessary to be considered as a state organism. However, in situation where law and international relations have become very complicated and developed, it is not a sufficient condition to give recognition to the Republic of China as a full-fledged state creation. The necessity is the acknowledgement of the Republic of China by the international community, which was lost in the second half of the twentieth century. Many historical events politically oriented has contributed to this situation. Two major events of international importance relevantly complicated the situation of the Republic of China. The outbreak of civil war in China ended in 1949 with failure of the Kuomintang, as well as the Korean War in 1950. The first one lead to the rule of Mao Zedong’s and proclamation, on 1st October 1949, The People’s Republic of China on the mainland while the sovereign government of The Republic of China was established in Taiwan. Another important moment in the history of Taiwan was exclusion its representatives from the UN body in 1971, which resulted in 2 years of almost total political isolation of Taiwan. The problem of Taiwan and its representation in international organizations remain unsolved for decades, which is a precedent in international law.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Diaoyu Islands and the Ryukyu Issue

ABSTRACTThis paper refutes the view of the Japanese government that the Diaoyu Islands have nothing to do with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and points out that “stealing” the Diaoyu Islands was one step in the Japanese strategy of the invasion of China in the Sino-Japanese War in 1894. Only because the Japanese cabinet was fully assured of winning the war did it “steal” the Diaoyu Islands before the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and the treaty was nothing but a means of legitimating this theft. Large numbers of historical documents are cited in this paper to prove that the Diaoyu Islands are affiliated islands of Chinese Taiwan. Although Japan annexed Ryukyu in 1879, these documents show that the Qing government protested immediately, and later on negotiated with Japan concerning Ryukyu. According to the Sino-Japanese negotiations over Ryukyu in 1880, the Japanese government agreed to give the Miyako and Yaeyama islands back to China. Until 1887, Zeng Jize, an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Qing Dynasty, continued to declare that the Ryukyu issue had not been resolved. It was only because China lost the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 that the Ryukyu issue fell into abeyance amid the cloud of failure. Because the Chinese government subsequently repudiated the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and under the terms of the Cairo Declaration, the Ryukyu issue should again be back on the table.

The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938–1950, by Micah S. Muscolino. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. xiii+294 pp. US$85.00 (cloth), US$55.00 (paper), US$66.00 (eBook).

<i>The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938–1950</i>, by Micah S. Muscolino. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. xiii+294 pp. US$85.00 (cloth), US$55.00 (paper), US$66.00 (eBook).