Based on a variety of interviews with residents, farmers, scientists, journalists, and activists who have been affected by the Fukushima catastrophe, the authors underscore the personal, political, and humanitarian impacts in testimonies, science, and photos. The book engagingly addresses diverse issues that continue to haunt and persist and calls for collective responsibility to deal with the devastating environmental, economic, and social consequences of nuclear energy. The book offers a critique of the violent history of modernism and the supremacy of science that has been articulated into all forms of social injustice and ecological injustice.
This open access book contextualizes China’s 70 years of contemporary history against one coherent backdrop: a late developing country endeavoring at all costs to industrialize, whether it was in the name of socialism or capitalism. This path is even more complicated by China’s getting caught in the geo-political confrontation of two superpowers in the 20th century: the Soviet Union and the USA. The author argues that China could only cope with these costs by internalizing them. As one of the leading scholars of agrarian issues in China, the author emphasizes the role of rural sector having been a source of surplus extraction for industrialization and the receptor of cost of development being transferred by the urban sector. This book is the first volume of the Global University for Sustainability Book Series published with Palgrave Macmillan.
This open access book contextualizes China’s 70 years of contemporary history against one coherent backdrop: a late developing country endeavoring at all costs to industrialize, whether it was in the name of socialism or capitalism. This path is even more complicated by China’s getting caught in the geo-political confrontation of two superpowers in the 20th century: the Soviet Union and the USA. The author argues that China could only cope with these costs by internalizing them. As one of the leading scholars of agrarian issues in China, the author emphasizes the role of rural sector having been a source of surplus extraction for industrialization and the receptor of cost of development being transferred by the urban sector. This book is the first volume of the Global University for Sustainability Book Series published with Palgrave Macmillan.
Based on a variety of interviews with residents, farmers, scientists, journalists, and activists who have been affected by the Fukushima catastrophe, the authors underscore the personal, political, and humanitarian impacts in testimonies, science, and photos. The book engagingly addresses diverse issues that continue to haunt and persist and calls for collective responsibility to deal with the devastating environmental, economic, and social consequences of nuclear energy. The book offers a critique of the violent history of modernism and the supremacy of science that has been articulated into all forms of social injustice and ecological injustice.
Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this book provides a practical analysis of criminal law in Hong Kong. An introduction presents the necessary background information about the framework and sources of the criminal justice system, and then proceeds to a detailed examination of the grounds for criminal liability, the justification of criminal offences, the defences that diminish or excuse criminal liability, the classification of criminal offences, and the sanctions system. Coverage of criminal procedure focuses on the organization of investigations, pre-trial proceedings, trial stage, and legal remedies. A final part describes the execution of sentences and orders, the prison system, and the extinction of custodial sanctions or sentences. Its succinct yet scholarly nature, as well as the practical quality of the information it provides, make this book a valuable resource for criminal lawyers, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and criminal court judges handling cases connected with Hong Kong. Academics and researchers, as well as the various international organizations in the field, will welcome this very useful guide, and will appreciate its value in the study of comparative criminal law.
This is a comparative analysis of the micro and macro characteristics of self-help organizations of people with disabilities (SHOPs) in seven selected countries and territories in Asia, namely China Mainland, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Since the 1980s, SHOPs have prospered in this region and were given a major role in the United Nations' forum and the International Year of Disabled Persons in 1981. The analysis shows the differences among the SHOPs in terms of the complexity of their structure, government's affirmative policy, legislation, and leadership qualities. These differences are due to the complex interplay among factors at local, national, and international levels. SHOPs in this region present a rather homogenous perception in their organization, leadership, social inclusion, and globalization, despite the marked differences in their societies. SHOPs tends to be domocratic and consensual in nature, and led by elected members with assistance from paid professional and clerical support. The self-help organizations are positively regarded in these countries.
The Politics of Higher Education: The Imperial University in Northern Song China uses the history of the Imperial University of the Northern Song to show the limits of the Song emperors’ powers. At the time, the university played an increasingly dominant role in selecting government officials. This role somehow curtailed the authority of the Song emperors, who did not possess absolute power and, more often than not, found their actions to be constrained by the institution. The nomination mechanism left room for political maneuvering and stakeholders—from emperors to scholar-officials—tried to influence the process. Hence, power struggles among successive emperors trying to assert their imperial authority ensued. Demands for greater autonomy by officials were, for example, unceasing. Chu Ming-kin shows that the road to autocracy was anything but linear. In fact, during the Northern Song dynasty, competition and compromises over diverse agendas constantly altered the political landscape. “The scholarship of this book is exceptionally sound. Chu’s command of both primary and secondary sources is breathtaking in its scope. This will be the standard treatment of Northern Song higher education for many years to come. The pages that describe how the university functioned as a cynical vehicle to facilitate upper class entry into the jinshi system are fascinating and an important contribution to the larger scholarship on Song culture.” —Charles Hartman, University at Albany, State University of New York “This work highlights in arresting detail a heretofore neglected area of higher education under the Northern Song, the Directorate of Higher Education, with particular focus on student activism at the peak of the institution’s political clout. There is nothing comparable either in China or the Western World. The book is ambitious in the use of sources, while nuanced in interpreting them. In sum, it is a work of rare erudition, particularly for a young scholar.” —Richard L. Davis, National Taiwan University
Much has been written about globalization and the challenge of preparing young people for the new world of work and life in times of complexity and continuous change. However, few works have examined how globalization has and will continue to shape education in the East. This volume discusses education within the context of globalization and examines what is occurring in schools and systems of education in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and Australia. Closer examination of recent developments and current trends reveal the same turbulence and a range of common issues in areas such as assessment, curriculum, leadership, management of change, pedagogy, policy, professional capacity and technology. This volume demonstrates the commonalities and differences and offers tremendous insight into the way things are done in places where student achievement is high but there is also a sense of urgency in continuing an agenda of change.
This book studies the cultural framework of the connections between homeownership and social stability in Hong Kong. In the post-war period, homeownership became the most preferable housing choice in developed societies, such as Australia, Britain, Japan, Spain, and the United States. In the financialization era, its proliferation aggregated enormous wealth and debt in the housing and mortgage markets, affecting social stability by creating inequality and housing unaffordability. Hong Kong is the most extreme example of this among developed societies – in recent years, the city has made international headlines both for its housing problem and its social instability. By studying the history of homeownership in Hong Kong over a period of four decades, Chung-kin Tsang proposes that homeownership is inseparable from the social imagination of the future, conceptualizing this framework as "hope mechanism". This perspective helps trace the connections between ‘House Buying’ as a hope mechanism – one which is central to subject formation, life goals, and temporal mapping for socially shared life planning – and social stability. Given its unique approach, specifically its use of "hope" as an analytical category, this book will prove to be a useful resource for scholars in economic culture and financialization, and Asian Studies, especially those working on the cultural, sociopolitical, and economic history of Hong Kong.
In The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora, Kin-Yan Szeto critically examines three of the most internationally famous martial arts film artists to arise out of the Chinese diaspora and travel far from their homelands to find commercial success in the world at large: Ang Lee, John Woo, and Jackie Chan. Positing the idea that these filmmakers' success is evidence of a "cosmopolitical awareness" arising from their cross-cultural ideological engagements and geopolitical displacements, Szeto demonstrates how this unique perspective allows these three filmmakers to develop and act in the transnational environment of media production, distribution, and consumption. Beginning with a historical retrospective on Chinese martial arts films as a diasporic film genre and the transnational styles and ideologies of the filmmakers themselves, Szeto uses case studies to explore in depth how the forces of colonialism, Chinese nationalism, and Western imperialism shaped the identities and work of Lee, Woo, and Chan. Addressed in the volume is the groundbreaking martial arts swordplay film that achieves global success-Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon- and its revelations about Hollywood representations of Asians, as well as concepts of male and female masculinity in the swordplay film tradition. Also investigated is the invigoration of contemporary gangster, thriller, and war films by John Woo, whose combination of artistic and historical contexts has contributed to his global success. Szeto then dissects Chan's mimetic representation of masculinity in his films, and the influences of his Chinese theater and martial arts training on his work. Szeto outlines the similarities and differences between the three artists' films, especially their treatments of gender, sexuality, and power. She concludes by analyzing their films as metaphors for their working conditions in the Chinese diaspora and Hollywood, and demonstrating how through their works, Lee, Woo, and Chan communicate not only with the rest of the world but also with each other. Far from a book simply about three filmmakers, The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora investigates the transnational nature of films, the geopolitics of culture and race, and the depths of masculinity and power in movies. Szeto's interdisciplinary approach calls for nothing less than a paradigm shift in the study of Chinese diasporic filmmakers and the embodiment of cosmopolitical perspectives in the martial arts genre.
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