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Watch ST Vodcast-good and rather detailed report on latest development in GE-Quite Balanced

Latest News from TODAY/My brother’s letter in TODAY

Why not be MPs full-time?

A good book on the Foreign Relations of East Asia by Warren Cohen

East Asia at the Center; Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World

Warren I. Cohen

“A superb and readable introduction to the region’s history.”
—Foreign Affairs

“Extremely ambitious . . . Cohen plunges right in with enviable bravado and scope.”
—China Quarterly

“Stimulating and informative.”
—Library Journal

“A detailed, general-reader overview of everything below Siberia and above the Himalayas, plus the offshore archipelagos and the march of Islam. With maps, time-lines and celebrity lists; without partisanship….East Asia at the Center is an intellectual feat.”
—James H. Bready, Baltimore Sun

“[Cohen] has attempted the impossible with East Asia at the Center and largely succeeded. His book is an absorbing corrective to the Eurocentric view that dominates most thinking about the world.”
—The Japan Times

“I recommend that all who are curious about or who have a professional interest in East Asia read this book.”
—Lewis Bernstein, Military Review

“An ambitious project that takes much courage, stamina, and intellectual acumen to undertake. It is evident that Cohen has all three.”
—Akira Iriye, Harvard University

“This is, in all respects, a truly amazing study! . . . Only a seasoned, talented—and audacious—writer would attempt what Warren I. Cohen has.”
—Robert J. McMahon, University of Florida

“Warren I. Cohen is one of the most perceptive, knowledgeable and prolific historians in the world today on the subjects of China and East Asia. He writes with the clarity of a journalist and the wide-ranging authority of a scholar.”
—James Mann, foreign-affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times, author of About Face

“A successful attempt to rpovide a useful aid to students in “area studies”.”
—Andrea Campana, Acta Koreana

A common misconception holds that Marco Polo “opened up” a closed and recalcitrant “Orient” to the West. However, this sweeping history covering 4,000 years of international relations from the perspective of China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia shows that the region’s extensive involvement in world affairs began thousands of years ago.

In a time when the writing of history is increasingly specialized, Warren I. Cohen has made a bold move against the grain. In broad but revealing brushstrokes, he paints a huge canvas of East Asia’s place in world affairs throughout four millennia. Just as Cohen thinks broadly across time, so too, he defines the boundaries of East Asia liberally, looking beyond China, Japan, and Korea to include Southeast Asia. In addition, Cohen stretches the scope of international relations beyond its usual limitations to consider the vital role of cultural and economic exchanges.

Within this vast framework, Cohen explores the system of Chinese domination in the ancient world, the exchanges between East Asia and the Islamic world from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and the emergence of a European-defined international system in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book covers the new imperialism of the 1890s, the Manchurian crisis of the early 1930s, the ascendancy of Japan, the trials of World War II, the drama of the Cold War, and the fleeting “Asian Century” from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s.

East Asia at the Center is replete with often-overlooked or little-known facts, such as:

• A record of persistent Chinese imperialism in the region

• Tibet’s status as a major power from the 7th to the 9th centuries C.E., when it frequently invaded China and decimated Chinese armies

• Japan’s profound dependence on Korea for its early cultural development

• The enormous influence of Indian cuisine on that of China

• Egyptian and Ottoman military aid to their Muslim brethren in India and Sumatra against European powers

• Extensive Chinese sea voyages to Arabia and East Africa—long before such famous Westerners as Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus took to the seas

East Asia at the Center’s expansive historical view puts the trials and advances of the past four millennia into perspective, showing that East Asia has often been preeminent on the world stage—and conjecturing that it might be so again in the not-so-distant future.

Feel like I am also presenting my own candidates..haha

Third “Candidate”: Singapore Wealth, Power and Culture of Control by Carl Trocki

Carl Trocki is widely recognized as a first rate Southeast Asia and international historian by most historians world wide. His previous book(s) on opium in the making of colonial Singapore/global political economy is very influential and thought provoking. He has come up with a masterpiece on Colonial history of Singapore. The post-independence history should be not be unfamiliar with Singapore watches. The gem is this book is definetly his writings on Colonial Singapore; first rate!

Review

by Yasuko Kobayashi (University of Melbourne)

The author of the present book is fully aware of this pitfall in narrating Singapore history. To avoid it, he demonstrates Singapore history through an interesting theme: the power of the Chinese masses pitted against an alliance of other powers. These powers comprise the local English-educated Chinese elites, and the forces of global Euro-American capital (p185).

The book can be broadly categorized into two sections. The first section (Chapters 1-3) narrates stories about Singapore from the pre-Raffles era until the Second World War. The second half of the book (Chapters 4-6) is about independent Singapore, from the time of transition after the Second World War until today.

The first chapter successfully explains the founding of Singapore by focusing on its geo-economic location. Singapore is located in a junction of three different trade routes, local trade, Chinese junk trade, and European trade by the East Indian Company. This geo-economic location of Singapore provides the conditions for it to become a secure base for the East Indian Company. Singapore was set as a free port, accessible by traders regardless of nationality; and as a base for the opium trade. The Singapore economy was constructed by global capital through the opium trade and by a system of labour organization and exploitation.

That economic structure created the population dynamics of colonial Singapore society. This rich texture of population is illustrated in Chapter 2. One element was Europeans as the supplier of the global capital and colonial masters. Another element was Baba Chinese with a command of English as mediators between Europeans and local connections, or as small shop owners. A third element was Chinese from mainland China as coolies to supply labour. Malays, too, continued to live in the urban areas of Singapore by engaging in fishing. Various Indian populations were also brought to Singapore, such as labourers for the rubber plantations, money lenders, and educated Indians as colonial servants. Singapore was a milieu of sub-ethnic divisions of dialect, region of origin and religion.

To understand politics within such a diverse society, the author conceives of Singapore as a type of “joint venture” (p77). This joint venture comprised a partnership or “condominium” between shifting groups of players or power brokers (p76). British colonial masters, powerful Chinese leaders, descendants of the Malay sultan, and English-educated locals all jointly negotiated their political space.

The second half of the book is about independent Singapore. Its narrative inevitably becomes about how the government established its power over the whole ‘package’ of Singapore.

After the Second World War, a certain group succeeded in gaining power: the English-educated Chinese. This group knew how to negotiate with the colonial masters and also how to negotiate with and utilize the Chinese masses. It was led by Lee Kuan Yew and several colleagues. Having gained power in the 1959 election, Lee carefully pushed the Chinese communists out of power by using the now- notorious Internal Security Act. This section of the book examines legalized violence by the state power – a topic glossed over or even ignored by most safe textbooks of Singapore history.

Lee Kuan Yew’s group controlled not only in politics but also the social space. Chapter 5 illustrates how the middle class was depoliticised by the state’s strategies. Two fundamental state ideologies designed a depoliticised mentality among Singaporeans. One is multiculturalism, which banned people from using ethnicity as a political vehicle. The other ideology was meritocracy. This created a merit-oriented culture through the education system, so that a politically indifferent technocratic elite was produced and placed at the top of the society. The government also controls the living space of Singaporeans by providing state housing (HDB flats).

Such control also encompasses the economic field. The government intervenes and controls every stage of Singapore’s economic development. From the protection of local industries in the early 1960s to the Strategic Economic plan of 1990, the government is actively involved in each step. It utilizes regulations and campaigns to mobilise and discipline a suitable labour force at each stage, while negotiating the flow of foreign investment. However, the author poses a doubt whether such strong state control over Singapore’s economy can be sustained, in the face of globalization.

While the author’s discussion of state control is useful, I did wonder while reading it whether it is still possible to draw such a clear-cut line between the state and the society. In line with his own theme of dynamic negotiation among players, ordinary Singaporeans should be recognised as active performers, rather than meekly controlled pawns. They are complicit in consolidating the state ideology or governance. They work hand in hand with the state to enact it through their everyday life, although perhaps largely unaware that they are doing so. Examining that complicity could reveal still more facets of the complex power structure in Singapore.

To sum up, this book is good reading for all readers who wish to know more about Singapore, and for scholars who want to gain critical insights in order to examine it.

One good recommendation today. Watch video podcasts (like news segments) of General election . http://vodcast.straitstimes.com/#>

The ST vodcast is surprisingly more balanced and longer than the ones on channelnewsasia.com. For news print, read todayonline. For vodcast, see ST vodcasts

See especially the vodcast about “Young Singaporeans cannot be blamed for being politically apathetic”.

Enjoy watching!

Japan’s Modern Myths (Paperback)
by Carol Gluck

An tour de force by the Queen of Japanese history from Yale University

If you google Prof. Carol Gluck’s book online, it has become a standard fest for japanese history classes. My own papers have been influenced by her ideas, especially about the making of ideology, where ideology is not merely an idea but an process in making. Not everybody subscribes to state ideology in reality and this tension played out in the Japanese polity as early as the Late Meiji era.

If you have JSTOR, you can see her book’s review by Professor Sheldon.

Japan Quarterly : The narration and analysis of every page of the work reflect the author’s brimming talent and make for extremely interesting reading. . . . This book . . . will become a lasting milestone in the study of the intellectual history of modern Japan.

Some interesting books by top academias that I read on East Asian History/Politics/Economics/Society

First Book:
From Comrade to Citizen
The Struggle for Political Rights in China
Merle Goldman (2006)

Merle Goldman is Professor of History, emerita, at Boston University and Associate of the John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University

A leading scholar of China’s modern political development examines the changing relationship between the Chinese people and the state. Correcting the conventional view of China as having instituted extraordinary economic changes but having experienced few political reforms in the post-Mao period, Merle Goldman details efforts by individuals and groups to assert their political rights.

China’s move to the market and opening to the outside world have loosened party controls over everyday life and led to the emergence of ideological diversity. Starting in the 1980s, multi-candidate elections for local officials were held, and term limits were introduced for communist party leaders. Establishment intellectuals who have broken away from party patronage have openly criticized government policies. Those intellectuals outside the party structures, because of their participation in the Cultural Revolution or the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, have organized petitions, published independent critiques, formed independent groups, and even called for a new political system.

Despite the party’s repeated attempts to suppress these efforts, awareness about political rights has been spreading among the general population. Goldman emphasizes that these changes do not guarantee movement toward democracy, but she sees them as significant and genuine advances in the assertion of political rights in China.

Amazon Purchase of Goldman’s book

Ten advice for the next two weeks

1) Read Todayonline instead of Straitstimes for English News/ Read Zaobao Election GE coverage

2) Attend Political Rallies for goodness sake, is once in four years lah

3) Check out the Channelnewsasia forum on GE

4) Listen to UFM 1003 every morning “Jia Shi Tian Xia Shi”

5) Read Academia books on Singapore current affairs and politics

6) Visit various parties website regularly

7) Check out the Young PAP forum

Thinkcentre.org, Talkingcock.com, Singapore Window

9) Write to the newspaper if you are interested

10) Eat Well and Sleep Well and Drink lots of water!

My letter in TODAY
Link: UK School Mock Poll