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A Reality between the Transcendent and Immanent in Early Chinese Thought
Get PDFThrough a variety of sources from various Chinese intellectual traditions, this paper attempts to prove that the transcendent-immanent dichotomy was not present in early Chinese thought
Sharp Power: China’s Solution to Maintaining the Legitimacy of its Non-Interference Policy
Get PDFSince the time of Mao Zedong, Chinese officials have promoted a foreign policy of non-interference. In the past, to obtain power internationally, Chinese officials coupled non-interference with soft power mechanisms. Soft power is influence through attraction. However, with the onset of the 21st century the stance of the international community concerning non-interference shifted as it has recognized the limits of non-interference and sacrificed it in favor of protecting and promoting human rights. China, however, has held firm to its policy of non-interference. However, neither has it been willing to accept diminished influence in the world. Therefore, China’s solution is sharp power, a term that describes the way in which authoritarian regimes, specifically China and Russia, perforate the media and political spheres of other nations to manipulate and influence public and governmental perceptions.
Firstly, in this paper I will analyze China’s policy of noninterference in foreign affairs. Next, I will detail how the change within the international community has threatened China’s influence in the world and thereby caused Chinese officials to develop new methods of influence. In the second part of this paper, I explain how China’s use of sharp power has been manifested in the political spheres of Australia and Argentina. I argue that China has developed sharp power methods of influence because it seeks to bolster its power in the world, while still maintaining its policy of non-interference. Since sharp power was only coined as a term in December 2017, very few authors have tackled the way in which the CCP uses sharp power. None have yet linked China’s foreign policy of non-interference to its current use of sharp power. To address this lacuna, this essay traces China’s foreign policy rhetoric and action in the international community to discover the contradictory and clandestine nature of its current foreign policy, which uses non-interference as a guide to carry out increasing methods of sharp power to shape and sway international political policies. 
China and LGBTQ+ Rights
No full textThis study presents a qualitative analysis of China’s engagement with international norms regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) rights. The evidence shows that China is a norm defender of heteronormativity. The study utilizes content analysis of UN speeches, discourse analysis of the Universal Periodic Review and two United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reports, and a case study examining the connection between Chinese philosophy and China’s compliance to international law. The research finds that China does not comply with SOGIE rights norms. China fails to mention SOGIE rights in UN speeches, participate in SOGIE rights meetings, support SOGIE-related documents and resolutions, or enact domestic policy regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. This project adds to research in the field of human rights and efforts to hold states accountable for protecting LGBTQ+ individuals
The “Motivation Hierarchy:” Japan’s Motivations for Imperialism in Late Meiji
No full textThrough the construction of a "motivation hierarchy" this work illustrates the relations between the motives that shaped Japan’s imperialism in the late 1800s. Despite a large number of differing scholarly works asserting a singular overarching theme for Japan’s imperialism, it is my assertion that Japan’s imperialism was poly-causal, with motives building on and strengthening each other. This momentum would result in Japan’s acquisition of the Korean peninsula by the early 1900s. By examining the relations among Japan’s imperialistic motives, we may reach a more thorough understanding of Japan’s imperialism past to present
The Essence of Non-duality in Zhu Ziqing\u27s “Wenzhou de Zongji”
No full textThough seldom translated, Zhu Ziqing\u27s essays have been included in every Chinese school syllabus and almost every anthology of modern Chinese prose since the 1930s. While he first made his name as a poet, his essays are often esteemed for their effective use of poetic prose and the vivid imagery that his writing employs. The essay of focus, “Wenzhou de Zongji” [Traces of Wenzhou], was published in his first collection of essays and poetry, Zongji [Tracks and Traces] in 1924. The paper first provides some contextual material for “Wenzhou de Zongji”: a brief biography of Zhu Ziqing; an exposition on the Chinese literary essay genre, sanwen; a history of translation theory in China; and a reflection on the translation theory I adopted for this essay. Finally, before analyzing the essay itself, my translation of the essay is offered. Through the analysis, I dissect the non-duality within the essay\u27s content and style
The Swords of Japan: a Window to Modernization
Get PDFThe year 1868 marked nationwide turmoil and unrest in Japan as civil war gripped the country by its core and forced it to change its ancient ways. With the young Emperor Meiji in place, a radical change of Japanese culture ensued as the country moved wholesale into western learning in the cultural, social and economic arenas. With the feudal system and samurai class virtually dismantled, Japan moved away from many of its old traditions and brought in everything that was new and modern. But those who have studied World War II Japan or even seen movies depicting that time period may have noticed that WWII-era Japanese soldiers believed they were acting like samurai in certain rituals and even carried government-issue samurai swords. It is curious how this came to be since only decades earlier the Meiji government had made it illegal to carry samurai swords under the Haitorei edit (1876) in an attempt to modernize. This modernization ultimately led to a rise of the Japanese nationalist fervor in the mid-1890’s which caused a return to and gross distortion of Japanese traditional values through concepts like “bushido.” Many scholars argue that the radical break away from Japanese culture, and subsequent interest in feudal Japan and the Samurai, was a response to the rapid urbanization and industrialization of their society. I will test this by examining the change in the primary weapon of the traditional Japanese warrior, the sword, from the Edo period to World War II and what this change can tell us about the development of the Japanese warrior and the nation he fought for during the late Meiji period through the Imperial era
Shanghai Re(defined): Puxi through the Centuries
Get PDFI invite you to consider The Shanghai Bund for your next magazine feature story. The Bund is a protected district running along the western bank of the Huangpu River. Composed of Neoclassical, Parisian-style villas, Art Deco and Renaissance architecture, The Bund exists in many ways as a beautiful paradox.
Imagine you are walking along the Bund. The first thing you might notice is the juxtaposition between the European-style buildings lining the western bank, and with one glance eastward, its reflection made of glass and steel skyscrapers. Almost all Shanghai travel guides published today take note of this visual contradiction—Puxi, named after its western position to the Huangpu river, is described as the “historical heart of the city” whereas Pudong is “a glimpse into its future (Nauman Tripsavvy).” This depiction of Puxi versus Pudong is fascinating when looking through the lens of Puxi as a symbol of China’s modernization and Shanghai’s cosmopolitanism[1] mere decades ago. The rapid transformation of Pudong’s landscape and subsequent reversal of the Bund’s image from one of modernity to historical relic reveals the fluidity of time and human memory; perceptions of old and new are not informed by the actual passage of time but molded through their spatial relationships to the other.
Walking further along the bank, you are now approaching Lover’s Wall. This mile-long flood wall reveals another paradox about the Bund’s function in Shanghai—is Puxi an extension of the “Eastern adventurer’s paradise (Xiwen)” marked by leisure and culture, or a commercial center turned from shipping and finance to tourism? In the late 19th and early 20th century, for Britain, France, and the United States, Shanghai was a site of “extraterritoriality,” where rules of Chinese law did not apply to foreigners and they had free reign to reconstruct along the Huangpu bank an exotic playground for European culture.[2] The Western imagination of Shanghai claim that their intervention created a success story. For the Chinese workers who toiled under backbreaking conditions to construct their architectural projects, the reality of Puxi’s function was not quite so romantic. Nor for Shanghai people who looked towards the Bund’s bustling commercial developments as a needed source of revenue[3]. The Bund’s origins of Western imperialism have since been reclaimed, now centered as a symbol of national pride in guidebooks published by China.[4] This reclamation by the Chinese Communist Party raises another question too—what is full-throated acceptance of cultural heritage if it is de-historicized? The controversial history of Puxi informs its modern representations, which also captures salient questions of how spatial relationships shape time. The Bund is a unique place for expanding the imaginations of your readers.
[1] Henriot, C. (2010). The Shanghai Bund in myth and history: An essay through textual and visual sources. Journal of Modern Chinese History, 4(1), 1-27. doi:10.1080/17535651003779400
[2] Brook, D. (2012). Once Upon a Time in Shanghai. Foreign Policy, (The Cities Issue), 74-77.
[3] China Intercontinental Communication Cente, V. (Producer). (2019). The Bund in Shanghai 上海外滩 [Video file]. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHPgKRDM0Fw&feature=youtu.be
[4] Harte, D. (2020). Shanghai Cosmopolis: Negotiating the Branded City. Brand China in the Media, 97-112. doi:10.4324/9780429320224-7
 
A Woman’s Perspective: An Analysis of Didactic Medieval Japanese Buddhist Stories and Their Influence on Women
Get PDFThis paper explores Buddhist didactic texts from the medieval period of Japan and explains how these texts used portrayals of women as a way to influence and assert control over the choices of women. Its main arguments are that, first, Buddhist principles helped shape the negative representations of women’s sexuality. Secondly, these negative portrayals of women’s sexuality were intended to inspire fear and warn of the dangers of desire in women. Third, positive images of women exist, but portray women as asexual and spiritually pure to serve as models to emulate. These three things served to provide social control and helped create Japanese patriarchy
A Failed Mission in Liberation: Japanese Women’s Enfranchisement and American Occupation
Get PDFIn this work, I survey the discourse of Japanese feminists in the early twentieth century to understand the ways in which they were working to attain full enfranchisement. I employ this brief survey to argue that their work, while altered by the chaos of total war, was most severely undermined by the American Occupation and democratization effort. Ultimately, I advocate that, though American occupation effectively granted women legislative rights, this foreign allocation meant that widespread and meaningful social change on the practical level never occurred