Communism In Asia Research Articles

Worse Than a Monolith: Disorganization and Rivalry within Asian Communist Alliances and U.S. Containment Challenges, 1949–69

This article makes the counterintuitive argument that in the first two decades of the Cold War the communist alliance in East Asia was easiest for the United States and its allies to contain through coercive diplomacy during the period in which the communist alliance was most cohesive and unified under Soviet leadership (1954–57). With a focus on the Korean War and two Indochina Wars, this article shows how internal problems in the communist alliance significantly complicated the containment of communism. In the formative years of the East Asian communist alliances (1950–53), the alliance’s lack of organization and cohesion made it more difficult for anti-communist forces in the region to deter communist expansion and to control escalation of wars once they started. Between 1958–69, internal rivalry for leadership in the communist alliance made containment of the alliance particularly difficult for the United States and its allies. Until the Chinese and Soviet communists actually turned their guns on each other in early 1969, the Sino-Soviet rivalry for leadership of the international communist movement in the 1960s only served to increase the expansionist fervor of the communist movement as a whole, make peace agreements with anti-communist forces in the region more difficult, and maximize the amount of military assistance local revolutionaries, like Ho Chi Minh, received from both Moscow and Beijing.

Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire

From Genghis Khan to the arid wastes of the Gobi desert, from the Soviet Union's most Stalinist satellite to the first Asian communist country to embrace democracy, Mongolia has always been an area of mystery and dread to westerners. Studied in school as part of the core curriculum, the Mongol Empire once stretched across Asia from the Pacific Ocean to Kiev and Baghdad. In modern times, interest in Mongolia has been suddenly sparked by the opening up of the country after 70 years of isolation in the Communist block. This first comprehensive A-to-Z encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongols provides up-to-date, accurate, and readable entries on all aspects of this people's turbulent history and rich culture, from prehistory to modern times. While particular emphasis is placed on the Mongol Empire, entries cover the country's entire history and range from geography to culture and religion to personalities, battles, daily life, and folklore. This volume is a great first-stop for research on Mongolia as well as a valuable reference for those wishing to expand their knowledge of a region that is, to most westerners, exotic and relatively unknown.

La Troisième guerre d’Indochine, 1975-1999: Sécurité et géopolitique en Asie du Sud-Est, Bui Xuan Quang

This book is difficult to nail down. It is many things at once. And it is not always what one thinks. What is sure, however, is that this is one of the most ambitious attempts undertaken in the last decade to study what has commonly become known as the “Third Indochina War”: the regional conflict that broke out when Asian communists turned on each other shortly after the Americans pulled out of Indochina in 1975. Bui Xuan Quang is professor of International Relations at the University of Nant...

Explaining Postcommunist Economic Performance

This article critiques neoliberal transition theory from a neoclassical sociological perspective. Neoliberals argue that postcommunist economic failure is the result of inadequate adherence to neoliberal precepts. This paper argues that the neoliberal policy package of Shock Therapy (consisting of the radical transition to a market economy through rapid and extensive price and trade liberalization, stringent monetary and fiscal stabilization, and the implementation of a mass privatization program) creates severe supply-and-demand shocks for enterprises, inducing firm failure. This leads to a fiscal crisis for the state, and an erosion of its capacity and bureaucratic character. This in turn reacts back on the enterprise sector, since the state can no longer support the institutions necessary for the effective functioning of capitalist economies. The neoliberal theory is tested against a neoclassical sociological theory by examining the experience of 12 postcommunist countries and two reform Asian communist countries.

“Do We Get to Win This Time?”: POW/MIA Rescue Films and the American Monomyth

On evening of January 23, 1973, in a national radio and television address, President Richard Nixon announced conclusion of a cease-fire agreement between United States of America and Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Nixon explained all American prisoners of war would be released and there would also be the fullest possible accounting for all those who are missing in action (Agreement 153). In years followed such an accounting never materialized. Since then stories about American POW/MIAs in Southeast Asia have persisted. In early 1990s, U.S. Senate established a select committee to bring closure to this lingering question from Vietnam War. Sutton points out committee concluded there were no American POW/MIAs being held in Southeast Asia but not all Americans were convinced. In 1980s several films with a basic plot structure centered around rescue of American POW/MIAs in Southeast Asia appeared. Budra, in in Garden: The POW Film as Pastoral, argues POW/MIA rescue film is a sub-genre of Vietnam film genre. This essay examines films Uncommon Valor (1984), Missing in Action (1985), and Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985) and finds these films helped to lay foundation for POW/MIA rescue genre. However, more importantly, this paper argues a key factor in popularity of these films with American audiences lies in their ability to resolve POW/ MIA question while also giving Americans a symbolic in Vietnam War. For at conclusion of these films some of American POW/MIAs finally come home to be reunited with their families, and Southeast Asian Communists are brutally defeated by an American warrior. In short, as Rambo suggests in First Blood, Part II Americans get to win this time. There exists some debate about whether American Vietnam war films makeup a recognizable genre (e. g. Whillock). Budra points to similarities between narratives of these films and narrative conventions of classic Western genre with its ties to American monomyth. The typical story in these films consists of rescue of American POWs from Vietnamese and is closely followed by several of these films and continued with slight variations in others. This essay uses these familiar narrative conventions to demonstrate one of their appeals to American audiences is their use of key images found in classic American monomyth. The films Uncommon Valor (1984), Missing in Action (1985), and Rambo: First Blood, Part 11 (1985) were foundational for POW/MIA rescue film as a subgenre. American audiences flocked to these films, especially Rambo: First Blood, Part II, despite lack of critical acclaim. Although their plots differ in some details, Vietnam War POW/MIA rescue movies contain key images found in classic American monomyth. In their research into artifacts of American popular culture, Jewett and Lawrence found consistent pattern of monomyth: A community in harmonious paradise is threatened by evil; normal institutions fail to contend with this threat; a selfless superhero emerges to renounce temptations and carry out redemptive task; aided by fate, his decisive victory restores community to its paradisal condition; superhero then recedes into obscurity. (xi) Jewett and Lawrence see American monomyth as a secular version of Judeo-Christian stories of redemption combining elements from selfless servant who impassively gives his life for others and zealous crusader who destroys evil (xii-xiii). The heroes of American popular culture act as Christ-like figures. Because of this proximity to religious imagery, popular culture heroes possess a power over their admirers that should be compared with more traditional forms of religious zeal, and belief in abilities of popular culture heroes to do justice imparts relaxing feeling society can actually be redeemed by anti-democratic means (Jewett and Lawrence xii-xiii). …

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression

* Foreword: The Uses of Atrocity Martin Malia * Introduction: The Crimes of Communism Stephane Courtois I. A State against Its People: Violence, Repression, and Terror in the Soviet Union Nicolas Werth * Paradoxes and Misunderstandings Surrounding the October Revolution * The Iron Fist of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat * The Red Terror * The Dirty War * From Tambov to the Great Famine * From the Truce to the Great Turning Point * Forced Collectivization and Dekulakization * The Great Famine * Socially Foreign Elements and the Cycles of Repression * The Great Terror (1936 -1938) * The Empire of the Camps * The Other Side of Victory * Apogee and Crisis in the Gulag System * The Last Conspiracy * The Exit from Stalinism Conclusion II. Word Revolution, Civil War, and Terror Stephane Courtois, Jean-Louis Panne, and Remi Kauffer * The Comintern in Action Stephane Courtois and Jean-Louis Panne * The Shadow of the NKVD in Spain Stephane Courtois and Jean-Louis Panne * Communism and Terrorism Remi Kauffer III. The Other Europe: Victim of Communism Andrzej Paczkowski and Karel Bartoek * Poland, the Enemy Nation Andrzej Paczkowski * Central and Southeastern Europe Karel Bartoek IV. Communism in Asia: Between Reeducation and Massacre Jean-Louis Margolin and Pierre Rigoulot Introduction * China: A Long March into Night Jean-Louis Margolin * Crimes, Terror, and Secrecy in North Korea Pierre Rigoulot * Vietnam and Laos: The Impasse of War Communism Jean-Louis Margolin * Cambodia: The Country of Disconcerting Crimes Jean-Louis Margolin Conclusion Select Bibliography for Asia V. The Third World Pascal Fontaine, Yves Santamaria, and Sylvain Boulouque * Communism in Latin America Pascal Fontaine * Afrocommunism: Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique Yves Santamaria * Communism in Afghanistan Sylvain Boulouque Conclusion: Why? Stephane Courtois * Notes * Index * About the Authors

Altered States: The United States and Japan Since the Occupation.

Michael Schaller supplies the historical background to show how the US transformed Japan from enemy to ally, covering the crucial years from 1945 to 1973 in which Japan emerged as a regional and global economic power. Schaller focuses on political, strategic, and economic relations, illuminating the connections between America's early trade policies toward Japan and the desire to secure the country as a bulwark against Communism in Asia.

Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley, 1927-1961 by James T. Fisher

594BOOK REVIEWS Suzanne Rini is a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer who was working on another book about Rice at the same time I was. Her manuscript focused exclusively on his role in expelling the left from the labor movement, and in her portrait Rice was a scoundrel. She has complained to me that Rice intervened to forestall her attempts to find a publisher. To my knowledge, her work remains unpublished today. Now McCollester's effort, the friendliest one so far, has emerged with a long list of financial contributors to the publication project. Thus scholarship on Rice's life seems to have succeeded in proportion as it tells the story in terms flattering to its subject. Television viewers may be reminded of the plight ofthe show "Nothing Sacred," which has created a firestorm of criticism from the Catholic hierarchy and some laity, by depicting life in an American Catholic parish in ways that are sometimes irreverent and unflattering. In biography, there will always be a tension between the search for heroes and the quest for accuracy. Where does scholarship on the life of Charles Owen Rice go from here? Deeper, I hope. None of us who has attempted so far to tell the story of Rice's life has been a professional historian (McCollester was trained as a philosopher, I as a political scientist). But Rice's importance to the history of his time and place merits the attentions of such a professional. I hope he receives them. Patrick J. McGeever Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley 1927-1961. By James T. Fisher. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 1997. Pp. xi, 304. $25.95.) Thomas Anthony Dooley, III, interrupted studies at the University of Notre Dame to serve briefly as a Navy hospital corpsman and in 1953 graduated in medicine at Saint Louis University. After internship in Navy hospitals and "special duty" in southeastAsia, ostensibly to collect epidemiologic data, he resigned from the Navy in March, 1956, to avoid court martial for buggery. Immediately transfigured into a "Jungle Doctor," he was carefully packaged as ? celebrity hook into the Irish Catholic subculture. This book tells little about his medical practice, which approximated that of the medics who did the work during the five years when Dooley wrote three best-selling books, toured the United States to raise money, collected honorary degrees from Holy Cross and Notre Dame, and relaxed in homosexual purlieux from Bangkok to Manhattan. This jungle surgeon confined himself to emergency circumcisions although acute balanoposthitis has, at least since the Civil War, been treated by a simple incision through the dorsal foreskin and, anyhow,Asians typically have short foreskins. BOOK REVIEWS595 What little medical assistance he founded did not survive his well-publicized death from melanoma. The author misses an essential point: Dooley's flaw was not his tedious homosexual promiscuity. His lying, egocentricity, manipulativeness, and lack of close human relationships document a profound psychopathic character disorder . Charming, pretty, and sexually available, he simply had no sense ofright and wrong. Psychological rationalization of unacceptable behavior not very uncommonly assumes a super-righteous, sometimes super-patriotic, facade that can end in fantasy. Dooley's fair-haired status among parochial sectarians protected him from the less forgiving conservative Protestant establishment that he so much resented. Morally rootless, Dooley served a bizarre confederacy ranging from the messianic liberal left through public relations firms and the Vietnam lobby to Cardinal Spellman, all eager to involve the United States in Southeast Asia. He gladly proved useful to Diem's handlers. His stateside public persona—"Blessed Thomas of Laos"—precluded control and his role in getting at least Irish Catholics (and, therefore, Democrats) to support the American disaster in Vietnam remains murky. He certainly helped to focus Catholic hatred on Asian communists, but the State Department and CIA loathed and mistrusted him. The author hints at but does not document some vast gay network involving the Pentagon, the CIA, and the Catholic Church; nudges and winks are not scholarship. Balance required more attention to what other superpatriots contributed to anticommunist hatred, and why. This book required tighter editing than it got, and it is not clear what it...

Reinventing comparative public administration

The study of administration in other countries is often labelled comparative public administration and, since the Second World War, has developed a vast literature covering many world areas and utilizing various methods. Along with its more practical, more prescriptive counterpart, development administration, it has frequently been analysed and critiqued as a study and as a guide to development assistance. Suggests a new role for comparative/development administration as it faces the important challenge of addressing administrative requirements not only in the Third World but also in the former Second World (former Soviet Union and Central/Eastern Europe). The suggestion here is that iconoclastic models and non‐Western approaches are worthy of consideration, even though they may range from the unpleasant to the bizarre. Explores the Asian Communist administration – as found in China – and the Islamic revivalist administration – as found in Iran.

The Last Leninists: The Uncertain Future of Asia's Communist States

Addresses the question, Can communism survive anywhere? Asian communist states may be the only serious contenders, and the author weighs the futures of Communist rule in China, Indochina, North Korea and Mongolia.

Mongolia in 1987: Out from the Cold?

Mongolia made a big splash in Western media in 1987. The year began with two dramatic announcements: on January 15, the Soviet Union announced its intention to withdraw one of five Soviet divisions stationed in Mongolia, and on January 27, Mongolia and the United States announced the establishment of diplomatic relations. This high media profile was not sustained throughout the year, but Mongolia did maintain greater visibility on the international scene in 1987 than during most past years. The usual parade of visitors traveled to and from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and a conference of Asian Communist parties was held in Ulaanbaatar. However, in an important sign of diversification, Foreign Minister Dugersuren traveled to Japan and Australia. Mongolia also hosted visits by the United Nations SecretaryGeneral, the President of the International Olympics Committee, and a delegation from China's National People's Congress. Of significance on the domestic side in 1987, was heightened concern in Moscow over better utilization of Soviet economic assistance to Mongolia, which ranks among the highest per capita in the world.

China's role in Pacific Basin security

Abstract : Topics include: Assessing China's Strategic Role; China and the Asian Communist States; and China and the Pacific Basin.

Nepal in 1982: Panchayat Leadership in Crisis

THE MONARCHY IN NEPAL is widely regarded as an indispensable institution by the people, but, depending on their political affiliation and profession, they differ on the kind of political and economic powers the King should exercise. In foreign policy, because of Nepal's geographic location between the two Asian giants democratic India and Communist China the people of Nepal believe that the King should follow a nonaligned policy, thereby maintaining a political balance and possibly saving the sovereignty of the country. However, the King and responsible elected political leaders face important political and economic problems that can no longer be neglected or avoided. The reformed Panchayat political system was established as the people's political representational system by a narrow victory in the National Referendum on May 2, 1980, and in the General Election on May 8, 1981. The political features of the reformed Panchayat system include: election of a National Panchayat (assembly) through adult franchise; election of the Prime Minister by the National Panchayat; formation of a government responsible to the people; and affirmation that the nation's sovereignty is vested in the crown. But the reformed political system has not yet brought a significant change in the direction of political leadership on economic policies or foreign policy.

China and Southeast Asian Communist Movements: The Decline of Dual Track Diplomacy

China and Southeast Asian Communist Movements: The Decline of Dual Track Diplomacy

China and Southeast Asian Communist Movements: The Decline of Dual Track Diplomacy

DURING A VISIT to several Southeast Asian countries in August 1981, Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang sought to assure their leaders that China did not intend to interfere in their internal affairs. Addressing the highly sensitive question of Chinese support for insurgent communist parties in these countries, Zhao claimed that relations between the Chinese Communist Party and these parties were political and moral and that China do its utmost to see that the problems left over from the past would not hinder the development of relations with Southeast Asian countries.' Zhao's statements continue a gradual process of Chinese downgrading of ties with the insurgent parties that has been occurring since the mid-1970s. This article seeks to explain the reasons for China's withdrawal of support and will then examine relations between China and the respective parties from the mid-1970s to the present. During the Cultural Revolution, China had cultivated ties with insurgent communist parties in Thailand (Communist Party of ThailandCPT), Malaysia (Malayan Communist Party-MCP and North Kalimantan Communist Party-NKCP), Burma (Burmese Communist PartyBCP), Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party-PKI), and the Philippines (Philippine Communist Party-PCP). Besides endorsing the call for armed struggle against the central government in these countries, Beijing

Origins of Khmer Communism

On 3 April 1979, the new pro-Vietnamese Government in Kampuchea renamed Phnom Penh's Avenue General de Gaulle after a Buddhist monk called Achar Hem Chieu, who died in a French prison in 1943. Other main streets were named after former anti French monks who, unlike Chieu, became communist leaders in the 1950s and the 1960s: Achar Mean (Son Ngoc Minn), Tou Samouth (Achar Sok), and Keo Moni (Achar Mao), whose name now belongs to the Boulevard which had borne that of another Asian communist leader called Mao. The names of nineteenth century anti-French rebels such as Pou Kombo and Si Votha were also given to some of Phnom Penh's avenues. This symbolic change was an attempt by the remnants (and the successors) of the early communist movement, now ruling Kampuchea, to declare their links with the anticolo nial tradition out of which Khmer communism was born. The period (1963-79) of the Pol Pot group's leadership of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), when anticolonial figures were ignored or despised as Vietnamese puppets and nearly all veteran communists were among the hundreds of thousands executed, was thus seen as a break from this tradition which needed to be corrected. Although the early communists such as Son Ngoc Minn never won unchallenged leadership of the 1945-54 Kampuchean anti-French movement, they did play an important role in securing independence for the country. This role is worth studying, if only to see how their descendents, the Heng Samrin/Pen Sovan regime, now seek to cast themselves in terms of Khmer patriotism.

New light on Vietnamese Marxism

The historical roots of Vietnamese Marx-sm and its popular appeal are well-known, but the history of the Marxist movement, especially before World War II, has been, up to now, obscure and difficult to pinpoint. Most students of Asia recall that the Indochina Communist Party (ICP) was the first communist party to come to power in Asia (in 1945, with the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam), although the Korean Communist Party has the distinction of being the first Asian communist party. The reasons for the early success of the ICP (founded formally in 1930) and information about its early history are largely obscure in Western scholarship on Vietnam. The sources are in Vietnamese (published in Vietnam) and in French in the colonial archives in France. This is not likely to be rectified in the near future in the United States, at least, because Vietnam scholarship no longer enjoys the academic and research support it once had and there is no sign of any rush of support to help fill the gap.

Nationalism and Communism in Asia: The American Response

Nationalism and Communism in Asia: The American Response

Nationalism and Communism in Asia: The American Response.

Seabridge, G. W. War and nationalism in Southeast Asia.--Isaacs, H. R. The pattern of revolt in Asia.--Moffat, A. L. Nationalism and communism in postwar Indochina.--Bulitt, W. C. Soviet expansion and China.--Hu, S. China in Stalin's grand strategy.--Fairbank, J. K. Reform and revolution in China.--Sacks, M. Communist strategy in Southeast Asia.--Dulles, J. F. International communism and the Korean war.--Hitchcock, W. W. North Korea jumps the gun.--Harris, R. The limits of Communist expansion.--Schwartz,B. Ideology and the Sino-Soviet alliance.--Scalapino, R. A. Moscow, Peking and Asian communism.--Lin, P. China and the people's war. Michael, F. China's design for aggression.--Lee, O. M. The myth of Chinese aggression.--Thompson, J. C., Jr. China's new diplomacy.

Encounters with communism in Asia

Encounters with communism in Asia