權威學者稱中國Z世代過度自信，認為西方“邪惡”

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

China's Gen Z overconfident and thinks West is 'evil', top academic says

South China Morning Post - Yan Xuetong

Fri, January 14, 2022, 1:30 AM

China's Generation Z is displaying a high level of overconfidence in the country's power and hostility towards Westerners, a prominent Chinese academic on US affairs has warned.

"Post-millennial students usually have a strong sense of superiority and confidence, and they tend to look at other countries from a condescending perspective," Yan Xuetong, director of Tsinghua University's international studies institute, said at a conference in Beijing last Saturday.

"[They] look at international affairs with a make-believe mindset, thinking it's very easy for China to achieve its foreign policy goals. They think only China is just and innocent, while other countries, especially Western countries, are evil and thus have natural hatred towards Westerners."

He added that students tended to divide the world into China and the rest, viewing all other countries as the same.

Published by his university's website on Monday, Yan's remarks were made at a conference it hosted about political science and international relations education, attended by more than 100 professors and researchers from dozens of universities and institutes.

The warning from Yan - one of China's leading experts on American affairs - came amid intensifying political headwinds from the US and its allies and rising nationalism in China.

He said heightened nationalism among people born after 2000 was driven mainly by key opinion leaders on the internet, with students being heavily influenced by conspiracy theories and economic determinism.

Yan suggested that his fellow lecturers on international affairs should try to focus on hard facts so that students did not develop overconfidence in the country.

"[We should] help students recognize the diversity of the world and rid them of the assumption that the world is just divided into China and the outside," he said. "[We should] strengthen the students' logical and critical thinking to lower the influence of key opinion leaders."

Chinese internet regulators are strict on content related to China, but have generally turned a blind eye to conspiracy theories and fake news about foreign governments and societies.

Conspiracy theories, especially those related to the United States, had a massive audience online in China, not least among Generation Z, said Wei Xing, a Shanghai-based journalist and founder of China Fact Check, which focuses on fake international news on Chinese-language sites.

 "They tend to understand many issues through the lens of these conspiracy theories," he said. "Fact-checking doesn't work very well with them - it's like you can't wake a person who pretends to be asleep.

Negative views continue to dominate China's global image, survey finds

"These theories win good traffic, and are highly deceptive and difficult to debunk with fact-checking, and thus deemed safer to spread."

Nationalism has also grown against the backdrop of the state's considerable efforts to warn the country of espionage and infiltration, especially from Western nations.

A high level of skepticism towards the West is shared by Chinese leaders. In one speech in 2014, President Xi Jinping told the country's security officials that the West, led by the US, was "intensifying their efforts to Westernize and split China" after seeing the balance of power shifting in China's favour.

Public perceptions of China in developed economies have plunged to new lows in the past two years. A Pew Research Centre survey from March found that 89 per cent of American adults considered China a "competitor or enemy" of the United States.

Meanwhile, opinion polls also suggest a high level of distrust of the US among Chinese, especially among the young. In a survey published in November by the Carter Centre's US-China Perception Monitor, 62 per cent of Chinese held unfavorable views of the US, rising to 63 per cent among those aged 16 to 24.

In the same poll, 78 per cent of respondents said they believed China was viewed favourably internationally, with 84 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds expressing that view.

Translation

一位研究美國事務的中國著名學者警告說，中國的 Z 世代對國家的力量和對西方人的敵意表現出高度的過度自信。

清華大學國際研究所所長閻學通上週六在北京的一次會議上說,“後千禧一代的學生通常具有強烈的優越感和自信，他們傾向於以居高臨下的角度看待其他國家”。

“[他們]以無實據支持的心態看待國際事務，認為中國很容易實現其外交政策目標。他們認為只有中國是正義和無辜的，而其他國家特別是西方國家是邪惡的，因此自然地對西方人抱有仇恨。”

他補充說，學生傾向於將世界劃分為中國和其他國家，將所有其他國家視為相同。

閻的講話是週一由他所在大學的網站發布，是就該校主辦的一場關於政治學和國際關係教育的會議而發表的，來自數十所大學和研究所的 100 多名教授和研究人員出席了會議。

閻是中國在美國事務方面的主要專家之一, 在中國面對美國及其盟國日益加劇的政治逆風, 和民族主義抬頭之際，發出警告。

他說，2000 年後出生的人的民族主義情緒高漲，主要是由互聯網上的主要輿論領袖推動的，學生們深受陰謀論和經濟決定論的影響。

閻建議他的國際事務講師應該盡量關注確鑿的事實，這樣學生就不會對國家產生過度自信。

他說： “[我們應該]幫助學生認識世界的多樣性，擺脫世界只是分為中國和外部的假設”;  “[我們應該]加強學生的邏輯和批判性思維，以降低當紅意見領袖的影響” 。

中國互聯網監管機構對與中國相關的內容非常嚴格，但通常對有關外國政府和社會的陰謀論和假新聞視而不見。

專注於中國語的China Fact Check 的創始人, 上海記者 Wei Xing 說，陰謀論，尤其是那些與美國有關，在中國有大量的網絡受眾，不单只是 Z 一代。

他說, “他們傾向於通過這些陰謀論來理解許多問題”; “核查事實對他們來說沒有什么効用 - 就像你無法叫醒一個假裝睡著的人。

調查發現，負面觀點繼續主導中國看全世界

“這些理論贏得了好的流量，並且具有高度欺騙性，很難通過事實核查來被揭穿，因此被認為更可以安全地把它流傳” 。

在國家大力警告該國有間諜和被滲透，尤其是來自西方國家的間諜活動和滲透的背景下，民族主義也在增長。

中國領導人也對西方持高度懷疑態度。在 2014 年的一次演講中，習近平主席告訴該國安全官員，在看到力量平衡向有利於中國的方向轉變後，以美國為首的西方正在“加緊西化和分裂中國的努力”。

過去兩年，發達經濟體的公眾人仕對中國的看法跌至新低。Pew研究中心 3 月份的一項調查發現，89% 的美國成年人認為中國是美國的“競爭對手或敵人”。

同時，民意調查還顯示，中國人，尤其是年輕人對美國的不信任程度很高。卡特中心的美中認知監測機構 (Carter Centre's US-China Perception Monitor )11 月發布的一項調查顯示，62% 的中國人對美國持負面看法，在 16 至 24 歲的人群中，這一比例上升至 63%。

在同一項民意調查中，78% 的受訪者表示他們認為中國在國際上受到好評，其中 84% 的 16 至 24 歲的人表達了這種看法。

         So, a majority of the young people in China hold unfavorable views of the US, and nearly 80% of them believe that China has been viewed favorably internationally. As early as in 2014, CCP leaders believed that the West, led by the US, had been "intensifying their efforts to Westernize and split China". It seems that there is a cultural war going to decide which political system is better: democratic or authoritarian.

Note:

 According to its web-site, Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research.

余英時 - 激惱北京的歷史學家逝世 享年91歲

(Source: CUHK)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Yu Ying-shih, historian who irked Beijing, dies at 91

Thu., August 5, 2021, 5:31 a.m.

HONG KONG (AP) — Yu Ying-shih, a historian of China who taught at Harvard, Princeton and Yale Universities and whose books were banned by the ruling Communist Party in 2014 after he expressed support for pro-democracy activism, has died. He was 91.

 Yu died Aug. 1 in the United States, according to an announcement by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he taught and was vice chancellor in the 1970s. It gave no cause of death.

 Yu “made lasting contributions to the study of Chinese history and culture,” the university’s acting vice chancellor, Alan K.L. Chan, said in a statement.

 Yu was born in Tianjin, east of Beijing, in 1930 and graduated in 1952 from Hong Kong’s New Asia College, which later became part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1962.

Yu also taught at the University of Michigan and was a member of Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s national academy of humanities and sciences. His books included “Trade and Expansion in Han China” in 1967.

In 2014, bookstores and publishers in China said authorities ordered Yu’s books removed from sale after he expressed support for pro-democracy movements in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Others hit by the ban included economist Mao Yushi and constitutional law professor Zhang Qianfan.

“If you keep following the orders (by the Communist Party), don’t you become 100% slaves eventually?” Yu said in a 2014 interview with the Taiwanese financial magazine CommonWealth.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong gave no details of survivors or funeral plans.

 

Translation

香港（美聯社）- 曾在哈佛、普林斯頓和耶魯大學任教的中國歷史學家余英時已去世, 享年91歲。當年在他表示支持民主活動後, 他的書於 2014 年被執政共產黨禁止。

根據香港中文大學的一份聲明，余英時於 8 月 1 日在美國去世，他曾在中大任教, 並在 70 年代擔任副校長。中大沒有說明死因。

大學署理校長陳金樑在一份聲明中說，余英時“為中國歷史和文化的研究做出了持久的貢獻”。

余英時於1930年出生於北京東部的天津，1952年畢業於香港新亞書院，該書院後成為香港中文大學的一部分。他在1962年獲得哈佛大學博士學位。

於還曾任教於密西根大學，也是台灣國立人文科學院中央研究院院士。他的著作包括1967年的《漢代貿易與擴張》。

2014年，中國的書店和出版商說，在余英時表示支持中國、台灣和香港的民主運動後，當局下令他的著作下架。其他受到禁令影響的人包括經濟學家毛玉石和憲法學教授張千帆.

“如果你繼續聽從（共產黨）的命令，你最終不會成為 100% 的奴隸嗎？” 余英時於 2014 年在接受台灣金融雜誌天下雜誌 的採訪時說。

香港中文大學沒有透露他的在世家人或葬禮計劃的細節。

              So, one of the best scholars on Chinese history has passed away. Academi Sinica commenting on the death of Yu says that he was good at interpreting traditional Chinese thoughts with modern academic methods. As the most influential Chinese intellectuals in the contemporary era, his research on Chinese history, especially the history of thought and cultural history, has played a pioneering role, and is highly respected by Western academic circles. He is the master of Chinese historiography in the 21st century. (https://www.sinica.edu.tw/ch/news/6919)

              Also, about the news on the death of Yu, BBC has a good report on the matter. For details, please see its web-site. (https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-58107149)

An English study - Drinking alcohol has a negative effect on the brain regardless of amount

Recently CNN.co.jp reported the following:

量にかかわらず飲酒は脳に悪影響　英研究

2021.05.20 Thu posted at 16:55 JST

ロンドン（ＣＮＮ） 飲酒に「安全な」レベルというものは存在せず、アルコールの摂取が増えればそれに関連して脳の健康は悪化するとの新たな研究結果がこのほど発表された。

この未査読の観察研究では、英オックスフォード大学の研究者らが英国内の２万５０００人からアルコールの摂取量を申告してもらい、各自の脳の断層写真との関連を調べた。

オックスフォードの上級臨床研究者で論文の筆頭著者を務めたアニヤ・トピワラ氏によれば、調査の結果、飲酒が脳の灰白質に影響を及ぼしていることが分かった。灰白質とは、脳の中で情報を処理する重要な部位を構成する領域を指す。

トピワラ氏は電子メールで「酒量が増えるほど、灰白質の容量は小さくなる」「脳容量は年齢とともに縮小するが、その度合いは認知症でより深刻化する。脳が小さくなれば、記憶に関するパフォーマンスの低下にもつながる」と説明した。

研究チームは特定の飲酒パターンや酒の種類、その他の健康条件によってアルコールが脳に及ぼす影響が変化するかどうかも検証した。

その結果、飲酒に「安全な」レベルは存在せず、どれだけ少量でもアルコールを摂取すればその分脳の健康は悪化することが分かった。また酒の種類で悪化の度合いが変わる証拠は見つからなかったとした。

一方で高血圧や肥満、大量飲酒といった特定の条件が加わることでリスクがより高まる可能性はあると付け加えた。

「飲酒は『適量』なら無害もしくは何らかの予防効果さえあると考える人があまりに多い」「認知症のような神経変性疾患の『治療法』がまだ見つかっていない以上、脳損傷を防ぎ得る要因について知ることは公衆衛生にとって重要だ」（トピワラ氏）

量にかかわらずアルコールの摂取には健康リスクがあることは過去の研究でも指摘されてきた。

ロンドン大学キングス・カレッジの客員臨床研究員で高齢者の精神医学を専攻するトニー・ラオ氏はＣＮＮの取材に答え、今回の研究結果について、サンプルの多さから偶然表れたものとは考えにくいとの見方を示した。

同氏は過去の研究にも共通する傾向がみられるとしたうえで、たとえリスクの低い飲み方であってもアルコール摂取は脳への悪影響という意味で従来の想定以上の役割を果たしていることが証明されたと分析。その度合いは喫煙など他の多くのリスク要因を上回ると述べた。

Translation

London (CNN) - There eas no "safe" level of drinking, and a new research had recently announced that increased alcohol intake had resulted in associated deterioration of brain health.

In this unpeer-reviewed observational study, researchers at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom asked 25,000 people in the country to report their alcohol intake and examined their connection with tomographic photographs of their brains.

According to Anya Topiwala, senior clinical researcher at Oxford and the lead author of the treatise, the study found that drinking affected the gray matter of the brain. Gray matter referred to the areas of the brain that made up important parts of the body that process information.

Topiwala said in an email explained that, "As the amount of alcohol increases, the volume of gray matter decreases”; "Brain capacity decreases with age, but the degree is more serious in dementia. When the brain become smaller, it leads to poor memory performance. "

The team also examined whether certain drinking patterns, types of alcohol, and other health conditions would change the influence of alcohol on the brain.

They found that there was no "safe" level of drinking, and that drinking alcohol in any small amount would worsen brain health. No evidence was found that the degree of deterioration woul vary in relation  to the type of liquor.

He added that certain conditions, such as high blood pressure, obesity, and heavy drinking, could increase the risk.

"Too many people think that drinking is harmless, or even has some preventive effect if it is at the 'appropriate amount'." "Because no 'cure' for neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia has not been found yet, knowing the factors that can prevent brain damage is important for public health. " (Mr. Topiwala)

Past studies had pointed out that alcohol consumption, regardless of amount, poses a health risk.

Tony Rao, a visiting clinical researcher at London University King's College who was majoring in psychiatry for the elderly, in responded to CNN's interview showed a point of view that it was unlikely that the research result appeared by chance as there were large number of samples.

On top of seeing a common tendency with past research, in analysis he proved that even if it was a low-risk way of drinking, there was an implication that alcohol consumption had play a negative role in affecting the brain beyond conventional expectations. He said the negative degree exceeded many other risk factors such as smoking.

              So, this study points out that alcohol consumption, regardless of amount, can pose a health risk. But I think that the habit for human to drink alcohol will probably continue regardless of this report.  The German will continue to drink beer, the Russian consume vodka, the Japanese enjoy sake, and the French love cognac.

Ming Dynasty encyclopedia "Yongle dadian" won a bid for 970 million yen

Recently CNN.co.jp reported the following:

明代の百科事典「永楽大典」、９．７億円で落札

2020.07.09 Thu posted at 11:20 JST

Jack Guy, CNN

中国の明代に作られた百科事典「永楽大典」が競売に出品され、予想を１０００倍以上上回る８００万ユーロ（約９億７０００万円）で落札された。

永楽大典は、明の３代皇帝の永楽帝の指示によって編纂（へんさん）された。永楽帝の在位は１４０２～１４２４年。

競売を行ったフランス企業によれば、１４０４年から１４０８年にかけて行われた編纂には２０００人以上の学者が携わった。

永楽大典は世界でも最大級の百科事典でもともとは２万２８７７巻からなる。

１５６２年には副本が作られたが、原本は戦争や盗難などのために散逸した。

今回出品されたのは副本のうちの２巻で非常にまれなもの。当時は印刷技術も発展していたが、分量の多さから手で記されている。ひとつは中国の湖について書かれており、もうひとつは葬儀について記されていた。匿名の買い手が手数料を含む８１億２８００万ユーロで落札した。事前の落札予想額は５０００～８０００ユーロだった。

大英図書館には２４巻が所蔵されている。

Translation

An encyclopedia "Yongle Dadian" that was made in China's Ming Dynasty was put up for auction, and it was sold for 8 million euros (about 970 million yen), which was 1000 times more than expected.

The Yongle Daidian was compiled based on the instructions of the third emperor of Ming, Yongle. The reign of the Emperor Yongle was 1402-1424.

According to a French auctioning company, more than 2000 scholars were involved in its compilation from 1404 to 1408.

Yongle Dadian was one of the largest encyclopedias in the world and originally consisted of 22,877 volumes.

A duplicate was made in 1562, as the original was lost due to war and theft.

Two of the duplicates that were exhibited this time were very rare. While printing technology had been developed at the time, but due to the large volume, it was written by hand. One volume was about lakes in China and the other was about funerals. An anonymous buyer won the bid for €8,128 million including fees. The estimated price before bidding was between 5,000 and 8,000 euros.

 The British Library held 24 volumes.

              I am interested in knowing who is the buyer of these two volumes.

'Clash of Civilizations' Has No Place in U.S. Foreign Policy

Yahoo On-line recently reported the following:

Yahoo Finance

'Clash of Civilizations' Has No Place in U.S. Foreign Policy

Bloomberg  Hal Brands,Bloomberg Sat, May 4 8:00 AM PDT

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It isn’t often that high-ranking U.S. diplomats publicly invoke the ideas of ivory-tower academics. But earlier this week, the director of policy planning at the State Department, Kiron Skinner, used a controversial concept created by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington to describe America’s unfolding rivalry with China. Speaking at a Washington think tank, Skinner said that China’s rise constitutes a generational challenge that will require a generational response. She also argued that the rivalry represents a great “clash of civilizations,” the term Huntington, who died in 2008, coined in predicting what would take place after the end of the Cold War.

The Trump administration is undoubtedly right that competition with China will be a decades-long affair. Yet the Clash of Civilizations model won’t help the U.S win that competition, because it actually supports Beijing’s strategy better than America’s.

Huntington introduced the clash thesis in a famous Foreign Affairs essay written in 1993. He argued that, with the collapse of communism, ideological rivalries would no longer drive global affairs. Rather, conflict would occur between groups defined by culture, religion and identity. Among the clashing groups would be a Western civilization in Europe and North America, and a “Sinic” civilization made up of China and many of its Asian neighbors.

The clash thesis gained popularity amid bloody struggles between Muslim and Christian communities in the former Yugoslavia, and particularly after the eruption of the war on terror after 9/11. The U.S. government always rejected Huntington’s framing, though: the George W. Bush administration argued that the war on terror was a product of a clash within a civilization — between the tolerant and intolerant parts of the Muslim world — rather than a clash between the Muslim world and the West.

Today, there are profound cultural differences between the U.S. and China, in addition to myriad economic and geopolitical strains. But critics of the Trump administration will hear talk of a civilizational conflict as an echo of the idea, promoted by the controversial former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, that the world has reached a confrontation pitting the Christian West against the rest. And even leaving that loaded issue aside, the concept is ideologically and geopolitically counterproductive.

For one thing, “clash” rhetoric sacrifices the moral high ground in the U.S.-China competition. America has long claimed that democratic values and human rights are not distinctly Western ideas. Instead, they are universal ideas that people everywhere deserve to enjoy — and that no government has a right to deny its people.

This argument, although sometimes selectively applied, represents a fundamental foreign policy strength because it allows the U.S. to identify itself with the aspirations of people around the world — even in countries that are controlled by hostile regimes. Moreover, U.S. officials have used the idea that human rights and democratic values are universal as an ideological bludgeon against authoritarian governments, as it did to great effect against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The Chinese government, by contrast, has embraced the concept of civilizational difference as a means of autocratic self-protection. Beijing has long rejected the idea that it should liberalize its political system — or simply stop throwing dissidents in jail — on grounds that “Western” concepts of democracy and individual rights are incompatible with the traditions of China’s unique civilization.

The U.S. should not be supporting this idea, even implicitly; it should not be affirming the civilizational wall the Chinese regime has sought to build between its citizens and the democratic world.

The clash thesis is also geopolitically dangerous, because here, too, it plays into China’s hands. The Chinese government has long argued that the world should, in fact, be divided along civilizational lines: That Asians have more in common with each other than they do with the U.S., and that Washington should therefore leave Asia to the Asians — meaning that it should allow China to dominate that part of the world. This argument provides an intellectual underpinning for everything Beijing is doing to push the U.S. out of the Western Pacific: Undermining U.S. alliances, building up its military, and weaving webs of economic dependence around its neighbors.

The idea of drawing sharp boundaries between East and West is thus critical to China’s strategy — and it is lethal to America’s. To counter China, the U.S. will need to rally a coalition that cuts across civilizations. This includes, but is not limited to, the democracies of the Western Hemisphere and Europe and an array of Asian countries that are troubled by China’s rise. Yet talking about civilizational clashes merely highlights the cultural and racial differences between the U.S. and Vietnam or India, at precisely the moment when common geopolitical interests need to be brought to the fore.

To hold together a diverse balancing coalition against an ambitious China will be hard enough. American diplomats shouldn’t make that task any more challenging than it has to be.

(To contact the author of this story: Hal Brands at Hal.Brands@jhu.edu

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Most recently, he is the co-author of "The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order."

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.)

My translation

（彭博意見） - 高級別的美國外交官通常不會公開援引象牙塔學者的觀點。但本週早些時候，美國國務院政策規劃主任姫朗斯金納 (Kiron Skinner) 利用哈佛大學教授塞繆爾亨廷頓(Samuel Huntington) 所創建的一個有爭議概念來描述美國與中國正在展開的競爭。斯金納在華盛頓的一個智囊團發表講話說，中國的崛起​​是一代人的挑戰，需要一代人的回應。她還認為，這場競爭代表了一場偉大的“文化衝突”, “文化衝突”這一詞是已於2008年去世的亨廷頓所創出，用作是預測冷戰結束後將發生的事情。

特朗普 (Trump) 政府毫無疑問是正確的，與中國的競爭將會是一個長達數十年的事件。然而，“文化衝突”模式無助美國贏得這場競爭，因為它實際上支持北京的戰略多於美國。

亨廷頓在1993年撰寫的著名外交文章中介紹了衝突論點。他認為隨著共產主義的崩潰，意識形態的競爭將不再是全球事務的推動力。相反，在文化，宗教和身份所定義的群體之間會發生衝突。衝突群體中包括歐洲和北美的西方文明，以及由中國和許多亞洲鄰國組成的“中國”文明。

在前南斯拉夫的穆斯林和基督教社區之間的血腥鬥爭中，特別是在911事件後的反恐戰爭爆發後，衝突論文得到了普及。儘管如此，美國政府總是拒絕亨廷頓的框架：喬治布殊(George W. Bush) 政府認為，反恐戰爭是文化衝突的產物 - 是穆斯林世界的寬容和不寬容两派之間衝突 - 而不是穆斯林和西方世界的衝突。

今天，除了無數的經濟和地緣政治壓力之外，美國和中國之間存在深刻的文化差異。但特朗普政府的批評者將聽到關於文明衝突言論的迴聲，這是具有爭議的前特朗普顧問史蒂夫班農 (Steve Bannon) 提出的這一想法，即世界已經達到西方基督徒對抗其餘所有的人。即使撇開其中付加意思，這個概念在意識形態和地緣政治上都會帶來消極效應。

一方面，“衝突”言論犧牲了美中競爭中的道德制高點。美國長期以來一直聲稱民主價值觀和人權並非西方的特有觀念。相反，它們是世界各地人民應該享有的普遍觀念 - 並且任何政府都沒有權利否認其人民應該享有。

這一論點雖然有時被選擇性地應用，但它代表了一種基本的外交政策力量，因為它允許美國認同世界各地人民的願望 - 即使在受敵對政權控制的國家。此外，美國官員使用的觀點是，人權和民主價值觀是普遍的，是反對威權政府的意識形態打擊，因為它在冷戰期間對蘇聯產生了巨大影響。

相比之下，中國政府已經接受了文明差異作為專制,自我保護手段的概念。北京長期以來一直拒絕接受它及應該放開政治體制這一觀點 - 或者只是停止將持不同政見者投入監獄 - 理由是 “西方” 的民主和個人權利概念與中國獨特文明的傳統不相容。

美國不應該支持這個想法, 就算在不经意之中; 它不應該認同中國政權在其公民和民主世界之間尋求建立一幅分隔文明的牆。

衝突論也具有地緣政治危險性，因為在這裡，在中國的手中它也會被發揮作用。中國政府長期以來一直認為世界應該按照文明的方式劃分：亞洲人彼此之間的共同點多於對美國的共同點，華盛頓因此應該把亞洲留給亞洲人 - 這意味著它應該讓中國主宰世界這一地區。這一論點為北京為推動美國脫離西太平洋所做的一切提供了知性的支持：削弱美國聯盟，建立軍事力量，並圍繞鄰國編織一個互相依賴經濟網。

因此，在東西方之間劃清界限的想法對中國的戰略至關重要 - 而且它對美國來說是致命的。為了對抗中國，美國需要團結一個跨越文化的聯盟。這包括但不限於西半球和歐洲的民主國家以及一系列受中國崛起困擾的亞洲國家。文化衝突論只會突出了美國與越南或印度之間的文化和種族差異。

將一個多元化的平衡聯盟與雄心勃勃的中國团结起来將是非常困難的。 美國外交官不應該讓這項任務變得更具挑戰性。

My comments

I think the present conflict could be understood as a regional conflict of interest between China and the US.  When China became the world’ second largest economic entity about a decade ago, it began to flex its economic muscle towards its Asia neighbors, and started to advocate its territorial rights in Asia in general, and in the South China Sea in particular. China’s leader is trying to realize its “China Dream” (中國夢) in bringing China back to a strong country (for more information on 中國夢 please see the same hashtag in my blog). China is challenging the US’s presence in the South China sea and causing the conflicts. There are little cultural elements in the present conflict, it is mainly about economic interests. Yet economic power of a country can easily be transformed into political and military power. To find out an answer on the cause of the present conflict, one may try to ask why this conflict sudden appeared starting a few years ago while cultural different between East and West has existed for over several hundreds if not several thousands of years.

While CCP practices ideological control inside its country on grounds that “Western” concepts of democracy and individual rights are incompatible with the traditions of China’s unique civilization, yet one could find it difficult to define what is meant by “the traditions of China’s unique civilization”. Tradition and civilization are cultural components of a nation which are always changing over time. It is absurd for a country to always adhere to its past tradition in charting its future course in development. For CCP, the only reason to advocate the uniqueness in tradition and civilization is to use it as a pretext to say no to freedom of speech and thinking etc. One way to understand the present conflict between the West (mainly the US and EU) is that it is a competition between two political systems: China that advocates state control for high efficiency at the expenses of democracy verses the West that advocates democracy at the expenses of efficiency. Chances are that usually a highly efficient political system could have a higher chance to win conflicts with other countries. For example, Nazi Germany in Europe before the US joining WWII.

Japan in late 1960s became the world’s second biggest economy. Its soft power was reflected in its high-quality consumer and household products, for example cars and cameras; and in cultural goods such pop music, cartoon and TV drama. Contrasting this, China’s present soft power is money, in the form of a huge consumer market at home and exporting construction projects abroad. This is further supplemented by its the ability to give out easy loans to other countries. China's  ambitions are wrapped in its  “One Belt One Road” thinking.

The only way for the US to check China is to use trading power; and to build up a strong alliance by outreaching to new friends such as Vietnam who has a worry over an expansive China. On the ideological front, the US should continue to advocate that human rights and democratic values are universal and to use it as an ideological tool against authoritarian governments, as it was done in fighting against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

So, a “clash of civilizations” is not relevant to the present conflicts between China and the US. Rather I love to liken the present confrontational situation to the national relationship between Imperial Japan and the US before WWII when Japan was under a totalitarian regime and tried to dominate Asia.  If there were no Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941 that dragged the US into a war,  I think Imperial Japan would continue enjoying a much longer prosperity by relying on its military superiority over its Asian neighbors.

US survey – American with "no religion", also Catholics and the like were in the majority

Recently the CNN.co.jp reported the following:

「無宗教」の米国人、カトリック教徒などと並んで最多に　米調査

2019.04.14 Sun posted at 15:34 JST

  （ＣＮＮ） 米国人の宗教観に関する調査で「無宗教」との回答がカトリック教徒やキリスト教福音主義派を上回って２３．１％を占め、初めて首位に立ったことが１４日までにわかった。

イースタン・イリノイ大学の政治学者でキリスト教バプテスト派の牧師でもあるライアン・バージ氏が、長年実施されている総合的な社会状況調査を新たに分析した結果となっている。調査の参加者は２０００人超で、個別での面談にそれぞれ応じていた。

同氏によると、カトリック教徒は２３．０％、福音主義派は２２．５％だった。ただ、これら３グループの数値は回答率の誤差の範囲内にあり、統計学的には同一の数字と見なしている。

同調査では４４年間にわたって信奉する宗教に関する同じ質問をしているが、今回のような数字の並びは初めてとした。

無宗教の層の激増は１９９０年代初期から始まった。９１年以降では２６６％も伸びたという。今後４〜６年間は明白な最大勢力になるだろうとも推測した。

無宗教と答えた層はさまざまなグループから成り、無神論者、不可知論者、心霊主義者や特定の組織的な宗教にはくみしないとする人々などが含まれる。

無宗教の層の増加の背景要因については専門家の間でさまざまな見方が出ている。無神論者の団体責任者はインターネットの存在が要因とも分析。ネットは無信仰者が同様の思いを抱く者を見出せる場所を提供していると指摘した。

１９８０年代以降生まれのミレニアル世代に独自な傾向との意見もある。この世代は、事実確認に貪欲（どんよく）で世界について好奇心を抱くとも分析している。

Translation

(CNN) In a survey on Americans' view on religion, those answered “with no religion" exceeded Catholics and Christian evangelicals to stand at 23.1% to become the majority for the first time, it was made clear on the 14th.

Ryan Burge, a political scientist of Eastern Illinois University and also a Christian Baptist Pastor, had the result of a new analysis of a long-standing, comprehensive survey on social conditions. There were more than 2,000 participants in the survey who responded individually to interviews.

According to him, 23.0% were Catholics and 22.5% were evangelicals. However, the figures in these three groups were within the error of response rate and were statistically regarded as the same figure.

The survey asked the same questions for 44 years about religions that one believed in, but this was the first time that the numbers were in such a sequence.

The proliferation of the non-religious layer began in the early 1990s. It increased  by 266 percent since 1991. He also speculated that in the next four to six years, it would be an obvious majority force.

The non-religious layer was composed of various groups, including atheists, agnostic, psychics, and those who did not want to be part of a specific organized religion.

There were various views among experts on the background factors of an increase in the non-religious layer. Atheist group leaders also analyzed the existence of the Internet was a factor and pointed out that the Net provided non-believers a place where they could find people with similar feelings.

There were also opinions on the unique tendencies of millennials born since the 1980s. This generation was also eager in analyzing the facts and had a curiosity about the world.

               I am always interested in knowing the role of religion in different societies in different historical period. Religion is a key component of the culture of a nation or a society. The development of a religion in a society could tell us a lot about a society’s situation socially, politically and economically. In the scholarly world, more than 100 years ago, as least two scholars have looked into the religion of a society in order to find out an answer for their research questions. The first scholar is Emile Durkheim. His research is contained in a book entitled “Suicide: a Study in Sociology”; it was translated by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson; edited with an introduction by George Simpson; printed in 1952 in London: Routledge. The other book is by Max Weber entitled “The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism”; it was translated by Talcott Parsons, with an introduction by Anthony Giddens and published in New York: Charles Scribbner's Sons in 1976.

A history of Anthropological Theory

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Paul Erickson and Liam Murphy.2003. A history of Anthropological Theory. Peterborough, Ont.; Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, c1998.

Main points:

Part II – the early 20^th century - 20^th anthropological theories represented a sharp break from that of the 19^th century. Anthropologist sought to distance themselves from the uni-lineal evolutionary and hereditation doctrines of their predecessors. (73) Under the influence of Franz Boas, anthropology in the US involved the cultivation of a distinctively holistic, ‘four-field’ approach to the study of human life. They helped to set the burgeoning field apart from its British and French counterparts as a distinctive expression of anthropological knowledge. (73)

- Ruth Benedict was interested in the relationship between culture and personality. According to her, each culture had its own personality configuration or gestalt. By studying three different cultures, she explained how the three cases illustrated the power of culture to shape divergent normative personalities. In typical Boasian fashion, she concluded that because what was deviant in one culture could be normative in another. Deviance was not determined by nature. (82)

- Sigmund Freud was a clinical psychologist who tried to help his patients overcome psychological disorders. He began to speculate on the origin of these disorders. (83) His central insight was that people in the present experience conflicts because humanity in the past experienced conflict. (84)

- for Freud, civilization was opposed to human biological nature because it tried to tame the animal instincts of people.(85) The story began with the primeval family, which, for Freud, was patriarchal and characterized by unrestricted sex. In the primeval family, sons desired their mother sexually, but their authoritarian father had priority of sexual access. (85)

- the theoretical foundation of 20^th century French anthropology could be found in Emile Durkheim. He influenced A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and his theory of structuralism. Durkheim was considered as the forerunner of French structural anthropology. (90) His theory developed in progression with the publication of four books. In his book ‘Division of Labor in Society’, Durkheim explored the diversification and integration of culture. (90)

- Durkheim’s central insight was that social solidarity could be achieved in two different, organizationally opposite ways. (90) His vision of society was very different from that of Karl Marx. For Marx, the state would wither away. For Durkheim, the government was necessary to regulate socially interdependent parts. (91)

- for Durkheim social facts were collective representation of the collective consciousness. Using suicide as a case study, he explained a particular social fact: suicide was an act that seemed to individualist yet, explained sociologically, could be shown to have a strong social dimension. (91)

- Durkheim in his fourth book, “The Elementary forms of the religious Life”,  exposed the societal origins of religion. For him the origin of something had its source in the group mind. (91)

- the intellectual transition from Durkheim to Claude Levi-Strauss was accomplished by Marcel Mauss. The most well-known elaboration of idea of the total social fact was expressed in his essay “The Gift”. One of the most important contribution was to shift focus from Durkheim’s’ ‘mind’ of group to the minds of individuals. (93)

(to be continued)

A history of Anthropological Theory

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Paul Erickson and Liam Murphy.2003. A history of Anthropological Theory. Peterborough, Ont.; Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, c1998.

Main points:

Introduction: anthropology was divided into 4 subfields. First was physical or biological anthropology which included paleoanthropologist. Second was the study of artifact. The third was linguistic anthropology. The 4^th was cultural or sociocultural, the study of human lifeways. (17) Arguably there was a 5^th subfield: applied anthropology. (18)

- in this book anthropological theory could be considered to be a branch of science, humanism, or religion. (19) In science, people and god were treated as secondary to nature. In humanism, god and nature are treated as secondary to people: “Man is the measure of all things.” In Religion, nature and people were treated as secondary to god. (19) God created ‘heaven and earth’. (20)

- anthropology could be seen as searching for answers to fundamental questions asked: “were did we come from?”, “why do we differ?” Therefore, all people had their own version of anthropology. This book derived from the western cultivation. (20)

- part one – the early history of anthropological theory - anthropology in Antiquity - in common with all western academic disciplines, the roots of anthropology lied in the intellectual traditions of the Greco-Roman “ancient” world.(21) Greco-Roman civilization produced several Classical intellectual traditions. Some traditions seem scientific, while others appeared more humanistic or religious. (21) The root of anthropology could be found in classical science. (22)

- the first group of classical thinkers was philosophers whose thought predated that of Socrates. The pre-Socratics were really cosmologist. Some of their speculations were materialistic, meaning that they invoked natural rather than supernatural cause. (22) Pre-Socratics philosophers saw people created by nature, not god. (22)

- in the 5^th BC, there was a major changed in Greek and shift in thought leading to new philosophical schools. One new school was Sophistry.  They taught practical skills (i.e. not for objective knowledge or absolute truth). Sophist Protagoras believed that human behavior was influenced by life circumstance. Behavior is a cultural convention, similar to the 20th century cultural relativism. (23)

- for some sophist relativism led to nihilism, the doctrine that nothing existed or was knowable. Feeling that knowledge was merely what was said to be true by people in power: an idea similar to the key part of Marxism. (23) (or Foucault) Some Athenian philosophers were opposing to sophistry. Socrates thought that there were universal values. Plato, his student, agreed that there was universal values existed because they were innate in the human mind. (23) (c/f. John Locke: clean paper human nature).

- Plato’s student was curious about the relationship among natural and social objects, his legacy included science. (24) Later Greek life and thought declined. (Shifted to Roman) Competing schools of thought emerged. Stoics believed that nature and society were highly orderly. This order was not created by people or god, but was a natural cosmic order. Sometimes called Logos. (25) A belief in a universals social order made it possible to compare and contrast particular social orders, a fundamental task of what today we called social science. (24) Contrary to Plato, Stoics believed in ‘blank state’, meaning that knowledge was not innate. (24)

- toward the end of the Roman Empire social conditions deteriorated. Several religions competed for appeal to the socially oppressed; all built on the Stoic idea of an overarching supernatural order in the universe.  They preached obedience to divine rather than civil laws. Outpacing competition, Christianity gained converts and became the state religion of Rome. (25) For anthropology, the most consequential Church father was Saint Augustine. According to Augustine, god was perfect and human nature was sinful. Human behavior was to be judged not by people or nature, but by god. (25) (saw the rise of god)

- the legacy of Antiquity to anthropology was the establishment of the humanistic, religious, and scientific intellectual outlook. These outlooks, especially the scientific outlook, had been preserved in anthropology ever since. (26)

- the Middle Ages: - in the period following Augustine’s death, Roman Empire was occupied by non-Christian ‘barbarian’. The Christian tradition flourished in the eastern Roman at Constantinople. (26) The interaction between Islam and Christianity occurred on the 8^th century when Islamic moors invaded Christian Spain. Christian theology became increasingly ‘rational’ meaning that human reason was brought to bear on theological issues. This trend culminated in the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas reasoned that people could, and should know god through knowing nature. (27)

- inevitably, cracks in the whole system surfaced, scholars began to choose. Once this happened the door was open for anthropology to develop. (27) Three complex events produced knowledge that, outside Thomas Aquinas circles, made the syntheses unravel. These events were the renaissance, voyages of geographic discovery, and the scientific revolution. (27)

- renaissance thinkers came to realize that the Ancients possessed a fuller and more satisfying grasp of human nature than the Christians. Renaissance interest in the ancient world produced a new sense of time which no longer was static, but capable of changes. This realization led to systematic contrast of ancient and medieval ways of life and, in turn, to question the authority of the medieval catholic church. This contributed to the protestant reform movement. (28) A paramount reason for the change of medieval into modern times was the scientific revolution, as a method of intellectual investigation. (34)

- epistemology was the branch of philosophy that explored the nature of knowledge. Two major epistemologies emerged. One is deduction. The most famous architect to deduction was Cartesian: ‘I exit, therefore god exit, therefore the real world exists’. (34) The second epistemology was induction, the process of discovering the general explanation. (34) ( facts led to the truth)

- the Enlightenment was the name given for the time period from Newton’s principle of mathematics to the time of the French revolution in 1789. Intellectual produced key concepts of social science, in anthropology the most important of these concept was culture. (37) “Newton believed that god has created the universe while, unlike a theistic philosopher, he did not invoke god to account for its day-to-day machinations. Metaphorically, the Newtonian universe was a clock, god the clockmaker.” (38)

- the most important part of Locke’s epistemology for anthropology was his idea, resurrected from the ancient Stoics, that the mind of each newborn person was a ‘blank stage’. (38)

- aping the accomplishment of Newton, some enlightenment intellectuals sought to discover ‘laws’ of human history (universal historians). According to Locke, human experience was understood to have accumulated as culture. (39)

- Vico described how humanity had passed through the three stages of god, heroes, and man. Turgot described the passage of humanity though the 3 stages of hunting, pastoralism, and farming. (39)

- the French revolution overthrew the upper-class privilege, unleashing a new middle class, the bourgeoisie. (40)

- the revolution was fought on the basis of enlightenment ideals that insisted on the human capacity for moral and intellectual progress and, ultimately perfection. When the revolution turned out badly, European intellectual turned their backs on these ideals. The result was a rise in conservative attitudes. (40) (c/f similar to pondering over science after the Titanic sinking) (or science and the brutality of the WWII)

- conservatism appeared in a number of guises. One was fundamentalist Christianity. Many new Christian denominations develop, espousing ‘Evangelical’. Newton’s clockmaker god was replaced by god of divine intervention. (41) Another guise of conservation was romanticism that glorified non-rational, emotional side of human nature, and denied the primacy of Cartesian thought. Finally there was the racism (c/f nationalism). (41)

- conservatism also affected social science. Social scientists also felt that it was time to put more emphasize on stability. The result was the all-encompassing philosophy of Positivism. Positivism was the creation of Augustine Comet.  He described how almost all branches of knowledge had passed through three stages: theological, metaphysical, and positive. Theological was to explain thing in terms of deities, metaphysics on abstract concepts, and in the positive stage, in terms of science. (41)

- in 1859, British geologist Charles Lyell marked the first scientific consensus about the great time depth of prehistory and was the symbolic birth of the science of prehistoric archaeology. (58) Like cultural evolutionist, archaeologist used the comparative method to reconstruct the prehistory past. (58)

(to be continued)

Regionalizing Culture: the Political Economy of Japanese Popular Culture in Asia

Recently I have read the following book. The main arguments are as follows:

Book title: Nissim Kadosh Otmazgin. 2013. Regionalizing Culture: the Political Economy of Japanese Popular Culture in Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Main augments:

The book points out that currently little attention had been paid to the economic and industrial aspect of cultural production. The available literature so far mainly focused on contextual analysis or on the process of consumption, for example Iwabuchi’s Reentering Globalization in 2002. (162)

Otmazgin also asserts that currently three major aspects were missing from the existing literature. First, not enough information was given about the organizational aspects of Japanese pop culture in East Asia. Second, existing literature mainly endorsed globalization, and the global-local relations was the only possible frame-work for analysis, missing out the importance of region. Third, the available studies did not systematically analyze the region transformation and their contribution (163).

Building on the work of Castells etc. on media industry, the book favors an integrative political economic approach to study pop culture. This approach studied pop culture by focusing on, and analyzing the cultural industries by using the economic model. (5)

Several key features distinguished the political economic approach from earlier ethnographic and interpretive studies. This approach related popular cultural product as a commodity. It ignored messages and meanings encoding, merely viewed the product in economic terms, such as in monetary value. For example in analyzing TV drama, it payed little attention to its social and cultural message, just focused on the cost, the organization of production, and the distribution etc. (6)

This book looks into the relation between the organization of pop culture and the process of regionalization.  It provides a study on the production, market expansion cum circulation, and the reception of Japanese cultural industries in East Asia. (163)

The central argument of this study was that the activities of cultural industries were underpinning regionalization in East Asia. Regionalization through pop culture was a bottom-up, market-led process.(180) In order to understand how Japanese pop culture reached foreign markets in a massive scale, the book looks at the ways the culture was commodified and organized inside Japan.(89)

The book suggests that internationalization of pop culture was contributing to region building through the impact on business and institution that involved in the production and transfer of cultural products due to the appearance of a regional market. (182) It further argues that other than at institutional level by connecting companies, at personal level regionalization was achieved through offering shared experience that could lead to the cultivation of common lifestyle and conception.(22). Regionalizing involved harmonizing people’s cultural sensibilities and creating shared experience. (181) People saw themselves as members of a wide region that was defined by their appreciation/consumption of the same popular culture. (182) Such a sharing of pop culture created a sense of ‘we-ness’, a word borrowed from Andrew Hurrell (49).

The book suggests that pop culture was a powerful engine that helped make East Asia into a region. The circulation of commodified culture in the region encouraged the creation of shared pop culture markets. (49) Therefore the research done by Otmazgin was to analyze the creation of a regional market for pop culture by focusing on the spread of Japanese music and TV programs. The analysis started with a review of the macro politico-economic conditions that contributed to the spread of Japanese pop culture. (92) It also examines how piracy had help promoting the dissemination of Japanese pop culture, and looks at the relationship between censorship and bootleg markets. It proposes a new framework to see the dynamism of these Asian markets. (92)

The importance of Japanese culture industry’s regionalization was not only in creating new markets but also for Japan to serve as a model for propagating a region-wide transformation. (125) Otmazgin makes a distinction between “content” and “format” in popular culture and focuses on the externalization, adaptation , and reproduction of Japanese “formats” in East Asia. (128) He also asserts that Japanese cultural industry impacted regionalization through its influence on diplomatic polices adaptation within East Asian governments. (183)

“Format” in the context of this book was the wider technologies, capital and marketing that surrounded the production. (130) One famous Japanese format was the production of idols. Japanese style idols were young; usually appeared in certain configuration, such as three-girl bands, or five-boy singing group. (131) J-pop represents another format constructed in Japan. (135)

The book asserts that in East Asia, Japanese format for pop culture production had been adopted and emulated. To-day Japan was still a major source of learning on how to make and handle commodified culture. (158)