Asian Regimes Research Articles

“Land Without Identifiable Ownership” in the Post-East Japan Earthquake Recovery: Lawful Land-Grabbing in Neoliberal Japan

AbstractThis paper, with a focus on the status of tsunami disaster victims affected by the 2011 East Japan Earthquake, investigates into the status of private property rights in facing with the reviving legal instrumentalism in Japan, under the campaign of land law reform for the elimination of “land without identifiable owners” in the name of facilitating the disaster recovery, by means of the “special zone” method or the designation of lawless areas where the normal time law is excluded, with the particularly targeted area for such exclusion being the constitutional requirements of due process and fair compensation in public taking. Under the extraordinary setting of absolute majority of conservative party at the National Diet in the aftermath of the 2011 great disaster, legislations in Japan during this decade have been characterized by a manifestation of neo-liberal policy, driving the entire Japanese legal system into a corner. Facts observed in present Japanese society are not different from those observed in other authoritarian regimes in Asia, including the phenomenon of “land grabbing” by the governmental projects, which Asia once experienced a century ago for the colonial land enclosure by “wasteland management.”

Interactions and Interferences of Italian and German Nationalist Regimes in Asia during the Interwar Period (1928–1937)

This article presents a comprehensive narration and interpretation of the political relations between nationalist regimes in Asia and Europe during the interwar history from 1928 to 1937. Authoritarian regimes with political affinities and similar autarchic economic strategies created the ground for an unprecedented collaboration among governments situated on the opposite side of the world. China, Italy, Germany had a prolonged political, military and economic dialogue which lasted for almost a decade and involved the active mediation of political leaders, scholars and highly professional military officers. The interaction with Japan disrupted that partnership and finally changed the perspectives of the strategic alliance. Ultimately, affinities and disagreements among these governments were relevant in leading the world into the abyss of the Second World War. The preparation of this article is supported by primary sources consulted at diplomatic and historical archives and historical literature written in three languages (English, German, and Italian).

Welfare regimes in Asia: convergent or divergent?

While existing scholarship predominantly focuses on the evolution of welfare regimes in advanced Western economies, there has been limited investigation into the trajectories of such systems in the Asia-Pacific region. This study presents a nuanced analysis of welfare regimes in 20 Asian countries, examining their transformation since the 2000s through principle component analysis and clustering algorithms. Contrary to the predictions of comparative political economy and international political economy theories, the findings reveal that these nations neither exhibit a strict divergence in welfare patterns nor converge strictly towards market-driven commodification. Instead, they adopt a balanced approach, harmonizing elements of both commodification and decommodification. This flexibility allows them to navigate complex challenges, including productivity competition, external shocks, and internal inequality. The study suggests that this balanced approach may act as a positive feedback mechanism, enabling these countries to adapt to both global economic pressures and domestic social imperatives.

Gridded precipitation products on the Hindu Kush-Himalaya: Performance and accuracy of seven precipitation products

Climate change is expected to change precipitation and temperature patterns, which will impact the hydrological regime in Asia. Most river systems in the region originate from the Hindu Kush-Himalayas, and the altered precipitation patterns pose a threat to their sustainability, making it a major concern for planners and stakeholders. Obtaining accurate data on precipitation distribution is crucial for water accounting, which poses challenge. To address this, gridded precipitation products developed from satellite imagery and modeling techniques have become a viable alternative or addition to observed rainfall. However, the accuracy of these products in the region is uncertain. In this study, we aim to evaluate and compare the seven most commonly used precipitation products for the regions to address this gap. The study evaluated seven rainfall products, namely APHRODITE, TRMM, CHIRPS, PERSIANN-CDR, CMORPH, WFDEI, and GPCC by comparing daily, dekadal, and monthly rainfall data to 168 stations data in six countries and 11 river basins in the HKH region. The analysis used four continuous statistical indicators (Pearson correlation coefficient, Bias, Root Mean Square Error, and Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency coefficient) and two categorical indicators (Probability of Detection and False Alarm Ratio). APHRODITE consistently performed well in several basins with high r values and low RMSE values, but had positive or negative bias values in different basins. CMORPH had the lowest positive bias value in the Ganga_Brahmaputra basin, while GPCC showed the largest r value and lowest RMSE value in the Sindha basin. CHIRPS performed well in Afghanistan, but had positive bias values. GPCC performed well in Myanmar and Pakistan, but had negative or positive bias values. APHRODITE performed consistently well in Nepal, but had negative bias values. Overall, the performance of different gridded precipitation products varies depending on the country and type of evaluation.

Who can you blame? Trust in institutions and mobilization across regimes in Asia

In this article, we consider the attitudinal motivations for political participation in countries across Asia. Specifically, we assess how trust in different types of institutional actors provides incentives for extra-legal actions, such as protest and the use of force, by analyzing the behaviors of individuals based upon their evaluations of representational and implementing institutions. As part of this analysis, we consider attitudes and action in both democracies and non-democracies, arguing for separate mechanisms to motivate unconventional political participation. Using Asian Barometer Survey data, we find that individuals living under democratic regimes are motivated to engage in more costly forms of participation in response to their assessments of trust in elected officials, while those individuals residing in non-democracies engage in these high-risk activities when they are dissatisfied with the performance of the police, civil service, and courts.

The critical temporalities of serial migration and family social reproduction in Southeast Asia.

The prevailing neoliberal labour migration regime in Asia is underpinned by principles of enforced transience: the overwhelming majority of migrants - particularly those seeking low-skilled, low-waged work - are admitted into host nation-states on the basis of short-term, time-bound contracts, with little or no possibility of family reunification or permanent settlement at the destination. As families go transnational, 'family times' become inextricably intertwined with the 'times of migration' (Cwerner, 2001). In this context, for many migrant-sending families in Southeast Asian source countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, parental migration as a strategy for migrating out of poverty or for socio-economic advancement requires the left-behind family to resiliently absorb the uncertainties of parental leaving and returning. Based on research on Indonesian and Filipino rural households (studied from 2008 through 2017) including paired life-story interviews with parental/non-parental adult carers and children, the article investigates the crucial links between the time construct of seriality in migration on the one hand, and the temporal structure of family based social reproduction on the other. It first focuses on how serial migration produces, and is produced by, spiraling needs and expanding aspirations, hence creating its own momentum for continuity. The paper then explores how competing temporal logics create difficult choices for migrants, leading to the recalibration of priorities within constrained resources. By drawing attention to the co-existence of and contradictions between multiple temporalities in the lives of migrants and their families, a critical temporalities framework yields new insights in understanding the social reproduction of families in a migratory context.

Mesozoic-Cenozoic Exhumation History of the Bogda Range, Eastern Tianshan: Insights from Apatite Fission Track Thermochronology

The Bogda Range (hereafter referred to as the Bogda) is located in the Eastern Tianshan. Interpreting its tectono-thermal history is critical to understanding the intra-continental evolution of the Tianshan. In this study, we report new apatite fission track data from the late Paleozoic–Mesozoic sedimentary rocks in the northern Bogda and the Late Paleozoic granites in the southern Bogda to investigate the exhumation history of the Bogda. Apatite fission track ages dominantly range from the Jurassic to earliest Cenozoic (~143–61 Ma), except for one siliciclastic sample from the Early Permian strata with an older age of ~251 Ma. Thermal history modeling, together with detrital apatite fission track age peaks, reveal that the Bogda underwent three episodes of cooling during the Late Triassic, the Late Cretaceous, and the Late Miocene. The Late Triassic rapid cooling may represent the initial building of the Bogda, which is probably related to the final closure of the Paleo-Asian Ocean. During the Late Cretaceous, the Bogda may have experienced a moderate exhumation, which was possibly triggered by the extensive tectonic extension in the central–eastern Asian regime during the Cretaceous. The Late Miocene rapid cooling may be a response to the rapid uplift of the whole Tianshan, due to the far-field effect of the continuous India–Eurasia collision since the beginning of the Cenozoic.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Authoritarian Resilience of Communist Regimes in Asia

This special issue focuses on the resilience of the communist regimes in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China. Three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, all four not only survived a hostile post-communist world dominated by liberal capitalism but have thrived economically. The five articles in this special issue hope to build on existing scholarship on authoritarian resilience while contributing in the following ways. First, by adopting a regional framework, we hope to offer a fuller examination of varieties in communist Asia. After all, this is the only world region with such a large concentration of surviving communist parties. Second, while highlighting the critical role of revolutionary origins, our approach corrects the tendency in scholarship on democratic transition that neglects the totalitarian legacies. Third, the articles support the institutionalist approach by showing how ruling parties in authoritarian regimes are critical; yet we also seek to balance between historical legacies and contemporary developments and to analyze the interactions among ideologies, organizations, and resources.

Strengths and Vulnerabilities of Surviving Asian Communist Regimes from a Historical, Regional, and Holistic Approach

In this article, I propose a historically grounded, regionally framed, and holistically constructed framework and make three interrelated claims about the strengths and vulnerabilities of surviving communist regimes in Asia. First, these regimes’ resilience today has historical origins in the communist revolutions that founded not only the regimes but also modern nations and states. This foundation provided these regimes with ideological, symbolic, and organizational assets that are now deployed to continue their dominance. Second, these regimes have been evolving together, have come to each other’s assistance at critical times, and have continued special relationships today; therefore, their strengths and vulnerabilities must be examined historically and regionally. Finally, in contrast to much existing scholarship that focuses only on resilience, I argue that factors contributing to their resilience also contain the very seeds of their vulnerabilities. I highlight three such factors, including extensive state control of resources, ruling parties’ ability to manipulate ideologies, and their formidable organizations—these three together carry not only their strengths but also their specific vulnerabilities today.

Protecting Farmers and Workers in Socialist Market Transitions: Mass Attitudes Toward Imports in Asia

After decades of market liberalization in Asian countries, how do people see trade, mainly imports, as potentially hurting domestic production? Do they consider them a threat to their societies’ less privileged groups? Using survey data of China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and citing Thailand as a comparative case representing a liberal economy in the Southeast Asian region, we examine the effect of economic interests, collectivist ideology, and political trust on trade preferences. Empirical results indicate that economic optimism is only weakly related to attitudinal openness to imports, while income has a mixed effect. Collectivism and political trust in the central government and the elite stimulate antipathy against imports. The findings shed light on the sources of protectionist attitudes in Asian authoritarian regimes undergoing socialist market transition among the general public.

Reframing educational governance and its crisis through the ‘totally pedagogised society’

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the critical policy studies of educational governance and its crisis, through canvassing Basil Bernstein’s concept of the ‘totally pedagogised society’ (TPS). The TPS witnesses not only the growth of transnational private actors, but also the disjuncture between global and national agendas of reform, on the governance of knowledge and subjectivity. This argument is illustrated through a court case surrounding the invalidation of a history exam question in Hong Kong, which occurred after the 2019 social unrest. At the heart of this crisis is a dislocation of pedagogic discourse. The history exam can be considered as an indirect outcome of recontextualising the global policy imaginary of producing subjects of ‘critical thinking’ and ‘knowledge economy’, but it is incommensurate with China’s regulative discourse, that is, to govern the political consciousness of its postcolonial subjects and legitimise its rule through pedagogic means. The concept of TPS considers the other side of a high-performing regime in Asia: the crisis of reform, the return of a strong state, the evolving power and control relations inside/outside the education system, and the rising tensions between pedagogic agents/agencies, in a period of rapid social change as revealed in Hong Kong today.

The Post-Imperial Politics of Security and Depoliticisation: Comparing Discourses and Practices of Ordering Across Central Asia

In this essay, we build on earlier discussions on the insufficiency of labels such as ‘post-Soviet’ and ‘postcolonial’ for Central Asian regimes and propose a consideration of their particular post-imperial character. We illustrate the usefulness of this lens through an analysis of security and violent conflicts in Central Asia and how governments interpret and present these conflicts. Our discussion draws systematically on existing research on relevant processes in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, allowing us to identify key themes of a post-imperial politics of security and their implications in a comparative perspective.

Conceptual contours of migration studies in and from Asia

Conceptual contours of migration studies in and from Asia

New Silk Road Implications of Economic Development in Central Asia

The New Silk Road (NSR), one of China's most ambitious economic plans, was unveiled by President Xi Jinping in 2013 and is intended to act as the Central Asian component of the Eurasian Belt and Road Initiative (Belt Road) (BRI). By enhancing and expanding China's security arc westward, as well as developing them as a transportation corridor connecting China to Europe, Beijing is able to consolidate its current economic investments while also launching new projects in Central Asia and South Asia, as well as attracting new investment from other countries. The NSR, touted by China as simply a development project, is loaded with wide-ranging security implications. China's infrastructure security and investment concerns in Central Asia are examined in this research, which examines the interplay between these two issues. China's non-state retaliation (NSR) in Central Asia is investigated in three ways: With its securitization push, the Silk Road Initiative not only consolidates the power of the Central Asian regimes; it also grants China an important position managing safeguards; and it allows the ultra-rich to move between the lure of Chinese investments and the appeasement of popular fears about China's growing influence. According to this report, NSR aid and investment from China has received an overall favourable reaction in the area, with some countries concerned about the consequences of the project on their sovereignty and security, as well as the promise of connection and prosperity (a "win-win" situation). A look at China's growing security and economic commitment in Central Asia and the tight Sino-Russian friendship, as well as the areas of collaboration and complementarity between the two countries, is included in the article's concluding paragraphs.

Family policies and care regimes in Asia

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Why Asian states cooperate in regional arrangements: Asian regionalism in comparative perspective

Regional cooperation in Asia takes place in formal Regional Organizations (ROs) as well as in less formal Regional Fora (RF). In addition, unlike in other parts of the world, Asian regionalism mainly developed in one instead of two waves. Especially after the end of the Cold War, Asian countries created numerous ROs and RF. Over time, Asian states became members of several ROs and RF at the same time, thereby contributing to Asian regime complexity. Given that multiple memberships in regional cooperation agreements can place high demands on diplomatic and financial resources of member states, the fact that Asian states became members in between one and 17 ROs and RF is puzzling. This article investigates why Asian countries join regional cooperation agreements. Based on a theory-guided empirical analysis that combines quantitative and qualitative methods, it argues that hedging and economic interests are the main driving forces behind Asian regionalism and that these motivations are often interlinked.

Productive engagement and ageing in productivist welfare regimes: questing for an age-friendly city in Hong Kong

AbstractThe population aged 65 years and above in Hong Kong is projected to rise from 15 per cent in 2014 to 38.4 per cent in 2069. Therefore, the quest for creating age-friendly conditions and the promotion of active ageing has become a priority for the Hong Kong Government and stakeholders in the city. Using a cross-national comparative framework for productive engagement in later life, this article examines the predictors of productive engagement (perceived voluntary engagement) in two districts (the Islands and Tsuen Wan) of Hong Kong – a typical productivist welfare regime in Asia. Data were collected through a social survey to ascertain the perception of an age-friendly city and active ageing in 2016 and 2018 from 1,638 persons aged 60 years and older. The results indicate some differences in the perception of the key determinants in both districts, but the factors associated with productive engagement were consistent, namely social atmosphere, social provisions and the built environment. The findings are discussed within the broader discourse on social gerontology, age-friendly cities and productivist welfare regimes.

Cognitive Dissonance and Fertility Rates: A Comparative Analysis of Attitudes toward the Gender Division of Labour in East Asian and Western Industrial Societies

Based on data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), this study examines the extent to which cognitive dissonance regarding egalitarian attitudes toward the gender division of labour are associated with fertility rates in sixteen societies, representing Anglo American, Northern European, Western European and East Asian regimes. The findings show that although levels of support for gender equality in the realms of the family and the market are positively associated with fertility rates, an even stronger relationship to fertility emerges when weighing the differences between the levels of support for gender equality in each realm. The findings lend some corroboration to McDonald’s hypothesis, which suggests that declining fertility rates are influenced by contradictory expectations between gender equality for women in the home and market.

Contemporary Issues in Business and Economics in Vietnam and Other Asian Emerging Markets

This Special Issue publishes high quality papers on contemporary issues in business and economics in Vietnam and other Asian emerging markets. These papers were accepted and presented at the 2019 Vietnam’s Business and Economics Research Conference (VBER2019) organized by Ho Chi Minh City Open University, Vietnam in July 2019. Emerging issues in business and economics from Vietnam and other emerging markets in the Asian region have been addressed from various angles, from economics, finance, and statistics to management science. Five out of the 14 studies in this book were conducted to investigate various issues in relation to the Asian region such as the exchange rate regime in Asia, financial inclusion, and financial development and income inequality in Asian emerging markets. Seven studies were conducted in response to emerging business and economic issues in Vietnam such as fiscal decentralization, urbanization, foreign direct investment, and corporate financial distress. Other papers even considered various relevant aspects from the United States and Europe to the Asian region including double taxation treaties and agricultural shocks to the oil price. The findings from these papers are useful for practitioners, policymakers, and academics.

Beyond the anti-racist reason: a postcolonial perspective on pandemic politics

ABSTRACT This article interrogates the politics of the COVID-19 pandemic from a postcolonial perspective. One alarming concern during the pandemic is the rise of racism against Asians all over the world. However, little explored behind media reports are the legacies, tensions and challenges left by imperial domination inherited from the past, especially within the postcolonial regimes in Asia, such as Hong Kong and China. Drawing upon postcolonialism as a critical lens, this article makes perceptible the intractable issues of health politics. Postcolonial challenges shown by COVID-19 include immigration, changing politico-juridical definitions of identity, the legacy left by the Soviet era which poses an obstacle to modernising China's healthcare system, and the boom of birth tourism welcomed by the marketised turn of health and tourism policy in Hong Kong in the post-SARS era. A postcolonial perspective invites health sociologists to scratch beneath the surface of political problems such as racism, and attend to the complex heterogeneity of health politics in the pandemic.