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1. Public Interest and State Legitimation: Early Modern England, Japan, and China–Book Talk, Wenkai He

Author:
Wenkai He and Junyan Jiang
Publication Date:
12-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Wenkai He is an associate professor of Social Science in the Division of Social Science at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He conducts deep and contextualized historical analysis of state formation in England, Japan, and China from the 16th to 19th century. He will give a talk on his second book, Public Interest and State Legitimation: Early Modern England, Japan, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), which investigates the connections between state capacity, state legitimation and the expansion of political participation. He demonstrates how in each case a public interest-based discourse of state legitimation provided a common platform upon which state and society collaborated to provide public goods such as famine relief and large-scale infrastructural facilities. Each discourse of state legitimation entailed ‘passive rights’ that allowed subordinates to justify their demands on the state to redress welfare grievances. Conflicts between domestic welfare and other dimensions of public interest, however, could instigate cross-regional and cross-sectoral mass petitions for fundamental political reforms that were likewise justified by the state’s proclaimed duty to safeguard the public interest; these mass petitions might ultimately transform the state. Such a political ‘great divergence’ occurred in England (1760s-1780s) and Japan (1870s-1880s), but not in China.
Topic:
History, State Formation, Book Talk, and Public Interest
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Europe, Asia, and England

2. As Equals: The Oei Women of Java – A Book Talk by Daryl Yeap

Author:
Daryl Yeap, Lien-Hang Nguyen, and Jim Cheng
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
In this talk, Daryl Yeap presents her new book “As Equals: The Oei Women of Java”. The book tells the fascinating story of Oei Hui-lan (aka Madame Wellington Koo), Ida Oei and Lucy Ho Oei, daughters and wife of Asia's richest man at the turn of the 20th century -- Oei Tiong-ham. Born at the height of Sinophobic fears and at a time when the great majority of Chinese women continued to live under the Confucian veil, the three women defied social conventions and punctured through cultural stereotypes – showing to the world that they were the epitome of the modern woman - - sophisticated, educated, sexually aware, and above all, fiercely independent. The talk will focus on the early years and the circumstances that shaped their lives – from the elaborate social networks of the Chinese community in the Dutch East Indies to the colonial policies in South East Asia.
Topic:
Women, History, Colonialism, Book Talk, and Sinophobia
Political Geography:
China, Southeast Asia, and Rojava

3. Book Talk: The Dragon Roars Back: Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy

Author:
Suisheng Zhao
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Professor Zhao will draw on his new book, The Dragon Roars Back: Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy to trace the dramatic shifts in China’s foreign policy since its founding in 1949 and the key roles played by Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping. Each of these transformational leaders reshaped foreign policy to better fit their aims for China. His presentation will focus on Xi Jinping’s power concentration and its implications for Chinese foreign policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, History, Xi Jinping, Mao Zedong, and Book Talk
Political Geography:
China and Asia