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691. Russia in the Indo-Pacific: Perspectives from China, Russia, and the United States

Author:
Gaye Christoffersen, Ying Liu, Artyom Lukin, Elena Feditchkina Tracy, and Elizabeth Wishnick
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Russia’s role in the Indo-Pacific is an understudied topic—while much of the discussion of Russia in Asia typically focuses on its response to geopolitical rivalries, the volume addresses ideational factors in Russia’s relations with regional and global powers, the domestic drivers of Russia’s Asia-Pacific policy, as well as the complex iteration of regional identities in Asia-Pacific Russia and in the Sino-Russian partnership. Contributors to this volume are based across Russia, China, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the USA, drawing on a range of multinational perspectives and theoretical approaches. Panelists at this event will present views from Beijing, Vladivostok, and the United States.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Russia, China, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

692. How Transnational Education Transforms Privilege

Author:
Yingyi Ma and Yao Lu
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
This study examines two cohorts of Chinese international students studying in the U.S. whose privilege is challenged and sometimes upended before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research questions the dominant framing of privilege centering on the notion of ease, as informed by the western scholarship on elite education. Drawing from the power structure of international education and rising geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, this study concludes that transnational education infuses much anxiety and fragility into the lived experiences of international students, who have experienced the status loss from the privileged majority to the marginalized minority. COVID had exacerbated this loss. This study contributes to the scholarship on elites by interrogating the western-centric notion of privilege. This event is part of the 2021-2022 lecture series on “COVID-19 Impacts and Responses in China and Beyond” and is sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by Columbia's China Center for Social Policy.
Topic:
Education, Geopolitics, Students, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China and United States of America

693. Photo Poetics: Chinese Lyricism and Modern Media Culture

Author:
Shengqing Wu, Ying Qian, and Alexander Alberro
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Chinese poetry has a long history of interaction with the visual arts. Classical aesthetic thought held that painting, calligraphy, and poetry were cross-fertilizing and mutually enriching. What happened when the Chinese poetic tradition encountered photography, a transformative technology and presumably realistic medium that reshaped seeing and representing the world? This event is organized by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and the Center for Comparative Media, all at Columbia University.
Topic:
Arts, Culture, Media, and Buddhism
Political Geography:
China and Asia

694. We Uyghurs Have No Say: A Roundtable on the Writings of Ilham Tohti

Author:
Rune Steenberg, Abdürreşit Celil Karluk, and David Brophy
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Prior to his arrest and sentencing in 2014, economist Ilham Tohti was one of China’s leading experts on contemporary Xinjiang. His academic work and online writings voiced a rare perspective – that of an Uyghur intellectual working within the Chinese system - on the increasingly marginal and precarious position of his Uyghur community in modern China. Ultimately, this critique proved too controversial for the party, and he is now serving a life sentence in prison for “separatism.” We Uyghurs Have No Say (Verso 2022) is a collection of Ilham Tohti’s articles and interviews, translated from Chinese into English, which chart his scholarly interventions from 2007 until his silencing. To mark its publication, this event will assemble a panel of sociologists and anthropologists of Xinjiang – some of whom studied under Ilham in Beijing – to reflect on these writings and the wider significance of Ilham’s work for our understanding of social and political developments in Xinjiang.
Topic:
Human Rights, Prisons/Penal Systems, Political Prisoners, and Uyghurs
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Xinjiang

695. Long Odds Struggles in East and Southeast Asia, the 1910-1920s and 2010-2020s

Author:
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Manan Ahmed, Lien-Hang Nguyen, and Jeffrey Ngo
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
During the first decades of the last century, activists with ties to various parts of Asia embraced and then discarded different ideologies and found varying ways to connect with one another, sometimes in exile. What linked them were some shared grievances, such as a dislike of the way their community was being bullied or controlled by people in a distant capital and of the limits on their freedom to speak out on issues that concerned them and organize to bring about change. We have been seeing something similar in some ways but different in others take place now, as activists in and exiles from Hong Kong, Thailand and Burma take part in what is sometimes called "Milk Tea Alliance" struggles. There are obvious contrasts: importance of online connections now is novel; the Chinese state was a weak force a century ago, but is a strong one today; Vietnamese activists were a more central part of the earlier story than the current one; ties between South Asian and East Asian exiles were more notable a century ago; and there is no contemporary counterpart to the Comintern on the scene connecting radicals. And yet, this talk will argue, there are important echoes of the earlier period to be heard today, as well as much to learn about how different struggles in East and Southeast Asia influenced one another at other points in time, such as the 1980s. This talk will focus on Chinese activists of the early 1900s and Hong Kong ones now but place both groups in comparative and transnational perspectives, will move between the two eras with an eye toward reoccurrences, ruptures, and reversals.
Topic:
Protests, Ideology, and Activism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Burma, Thailand, Southeast Asia, and Hong Kong

696. A conversation with Loden Sherab Dagyab Rinpoche

Author:
Loden Sherab Dagyab Rinpoche, Pema Bhum, and Riga Shakya
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
This event was co-hosted by the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University and The Latse Project, with funding and administrative support from the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. Dagyab Rinpoche, one of the few living Tibetan witnesses of the 1950 advance of the People's Liberation Army into Chamdo, was just nine years old when Chinese Communist authorities urged him to participate as one of the high-ranking dignitaries (zhuren) for their first conference in the region. He then went on to study at Drepung Loseling Monastery in Lhasa until his escape to India in 1959. In this talk, Rinpoche describes his experience of this important historical juncture.
Topic:
Religion, History, and Memory
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Tibet

697. China's Colonial Boarding Schools in Tibet

Author:
Lhadon Tethong, Freya Putt, Jia Luo, Tenzin Dorjee, and Andy Nathan
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Chinese government policies are forcing three out of every four Tibetan students into a vast network of colonial boarding schools, separating children as young as four from their parents. According to a recent report by Tibet Action Institute, the schools are a cornerstone of Xi Jinping’s campaign to supplant Tibetan identity with a homogenous Chinese identity in order to neutralize potential resistance to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. The report, “Separated From Their Families, Hidden From the World: China’s Vast System of Colonial Boarding Schools Inside Tibet,” finds that an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 Tibetan students aged six to 18, as well as an unknown number of four and five-year olds, are in these state-run schools. This panel will discuss how the schools function as sites for remolding children into Chinese nationals loyal to the CCP.
Topic:
Education, Culture, Children, Colonialism, and Boarding Schools
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Tibet

698. Financial Cold War – A Book Talk

Author:
James Fok and Shang-Jin Wei
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
James Fok will give a talk regarding the publication of his recent book, Financial Cold War, where he addresses internationalizing China’s capital markets: the geopolitical realities; China’s financial challenges: implications for the global financial sector; China-US geopolitical tensions: challenges for international financial institutions; and implications and opportunities for US-China relations.
Topic:
Bilateral Relations, Geopolitics, Finance, and Capital
Political Geography:
China and United States of America

699. Inflamed Publics: Social Media, Violence, and Resistance Panel 1

Author:
Wanning Sun, Radhika Gajjala, Daniel Mann, and Jinsook Kim
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
From online troll armies to digital warriors, camouflage to infiltration, the techniques and affects of war pervade global digital cultures today via social media platforms such as Whatsapp, WeChat, Twitter, and TikTok. As trending hashtags on Twitter become a statistical measure of the ebbs and flows of mass political sentiment, this symposium seeks to understand the relation between everyday digital media technologies, image-making practices, and violence in the 21st century. Over 3 consecutive days we will meet with film and media scholars, digital activists, ethnographers, and communications theorists to initiate a collaborative exploration of research methods to address the role of social media today with an eye to questions of aesthetics, sentiment, and sensory experience. This event focuses on three geographical locations: China, India and Palestine/Israel, based on the three co-organizers' areas of research. Speakers are scholars working on media cultures in one of the above regions. This event is sponsored by the Humanities War and Peace Initiative, Columbia University and co-sponsored by the Center for Comparative Media, South Asia Institute and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Social Media, Violence, and Resistance
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, India, Israel, Asia, and Palestine

700. Chinese Mining Companies and Local Mobilization in Myanmar

Author:
Xue Gong
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Since the 2010s, China has invested enormous amounts of capital in major infrastructure construction projects in developing countries around the world, including in Southeast Asia. Many argue that China aims to export its development model to the world, but Chinese actors have also at times sought to address project concerns at least to some degree. The question is this: how are Chinese business actors adapting to the local contexts, legal and regulatory requirements, technical standards, and community norms in the places where they operate? To answer that question, it is important to focus on the interactive dynamics between Chinese players and local civic actors (such as local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), faith-based organizations, community groups, government-owned NGOs, activists, associations, and other networks in exile) in Myanmar that can collectively be termed local societal actors. By tracing Chinese local engagement activities involving a major Chinese-backed resource-extraction project, the Letpadaung copper mine, this paper argues that the past few decades of China’s deep embeddedness and interests in Myanmar’s political economy forced Chinese businesses to adapt to Myanmarese societal demands, by way of a local community-based approach. Beijing knows that projects supported by Myanmar’s government today might not have the same traction tomorrow. Therefore, when pressure has built, Chinese actors have paid greater heed to demands from local residents in projects’ host countries, even at times integrating these demands to adjust existing Chinese strategies, choices, and behaviors. That said, these concessions have not caused these disputes to entirely disappear, and the staying power of these Chinese adaptations is open to question, particularly amid the political upheaval Myanmar has weathered since the 2021 coup. A key variable in these changes is the power of the local societal actors: when they are strong and supported by local institutions, Chinese business actors often are more adaptive to local demands and take greater steps, including with local partners, to win support from local societal actors. Because the interactions between local institutions and local societal actors vary by place and time, Chinese responses to local actors and practices also do vary in different periods. In sum, it is clear that Chinese actors are making progress at the local level by showing their adaptability not just in terms of the Letpadaung copper mine case but also on other shared development projects in Myanmar. Nonetheless, Chinese actors’ approach to local community engagement is subject to the local context and specifically to what extent local institutions have the capacity and will to support local societal demands.
Topic:
Civil Society, Infrastructure, Institutions, Coup, and Mining
Political Geography:
China, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar