Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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With the rapid proliferation of New Confucian studies since the mid 1980s, it has become an unquestioned dogma that one particular event at the beginning of 1958 marks a watershed in the movement’s...Show moreWith the rapid proliferation of New Confucian studies since the mid 1980s, it has become an unquestioned dogma that one particular event at the beginning of 1958 marks a watershed in the movement’s development. This event is the publication of the Manifesto that Mou Zongsan 牟宗三, Tang Junyi唐君毅, Xu Fuguan 徐復觀, and Zhang Junmai 张君劢 co-signed and published almost simultaneously in the two journals Minzhu pinglun民評論 (Democratic Tribune) and Zaisheng再生(National Renaissance) with the title “为中国文化敬告世界人士宣言─我们对中国学术研究及中国文化与世界文前途之共同认识” (Wei Zhongguo wenhua jinggao shijie renshi xuanyan –women dui Zhongguo xueshu yanjiu ji Zhongguo wenhua yu shijiewen qiantu zhi gongtong renshi; translated in English as “A Manifesto on the Reappraisal of Chinese Culture – our Joint Understanding of the Sinological Study relating to World Cultural Outlook.”). Its main purpose is to benefit Western intellectuals in 'aiding them to appreciate Chinese culture'. In order to do so, the authors employ a strategic terminology, which allows them to build a consistent cross-cultural dialogue between Western and Chinese philosophy by means of an unprecedented discourse on 'Chinese Rationalism' (中国心性之学 Zhongguo xinxing zhi xue). Interestingly, the latter is described by the authors as “the essence of Chinese Culture” and, beside its comparative value, it represents the most comprehensive configuration of Confucianism in the context of 20th century. Academic interest in Chinese Studies and Chinese Philosophy should take into account the articulation of Chinese Rationalism in the Manifesto of 1958 as representing a paradigm of post-comparative dialogue that exemplifies the underlying philosophical continuity beyond consistently different traditions of thought.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis analyses the development of Ryukyuan narratives of political legitimacy under the influence of the imperial Chinese tributary system. For centuries, the Ryukyu Kingdom, which was...Show moreThis thesis analyses the development of Ryukyuan narratives of political legitimacy under the influence of the imperial Chinese tributary system. For centuries, the Ryukyu Kingdom, which was annexed by Meiji Period Japan in 1879 and is today divided among Japan's Okinawa and Kagoshima Prefectures, formed an important linking bridge between China and Japan, East Asia's two dominant political entities. Based on a close reading and partial translation of relevant passages from several historical documents, most notably the kingdom's two official histories Chūzan Seikan and Chūzan Seifu, the thesis investigates the socio-political shift in succeeding conceptualisations of Ryukyuan kingship, the monarch's political legitimacy, and the country's state doctrine that occurred from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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Hong Kong, a former British colony and now Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, has a long standing tradition of well networked political protest. Particularly the pro...Show moreHong Kong, a former British colony and now Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, has a long standing tradition of well networked political protest. Particularly the pro-democracy movement had gathered wide ranging public support in the years following the 1997 handover. In recent years this movement and the spectrum of the political opposition split and diversified. This thesis argues that the responsibilities and the question of leadership in the activist network of Hong Kong are contested and that existing hierarchies complicate protest action. This became particularly visible during the 2014 'Umbrella Movement'. Based on this example this thesis takes on the question whether contemporary pluralist networks can overcome power hierarchies. Through an analysis of original interviews with activists from the 'Umbrella Movement' the contesting narratives of leadership in the movement are explored and mapped. This helps to understand how the activists position others and themselves within a broader network, and shows how existing hierarchies affect the image of leadership in the network. The analysis also highlights other factors that influence the activists' understanding of power. Eventually it is shown that a number of leaders existed in the movement, which processes were perceived as complication for equal participation opportunities for all activists, and that hierarchies were neither absent nor static.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis analyses the legitimation strategies of the Chinese authorities on social media platform Sina Weibo during the COVID-19 epidemic. Through a combination of computational and qualitative...Show moreThis thesis analyses the legitimation strategies of the Chinese authorities on social media platform Sina Weibo during the COVID-19 epidemic. Through a combination of computational and qualitative methods, it first highlights how Weibo’s digital design directly benefits central information control objectives. It then builds upon a theoretical model of disaster legitimacy strategies to demonstrate how official media make use of this design in their legitimation strategies. These strategies include age-old and highly familiar nationalistic frames, a recurring emphasis on positive energy, and strategic engagement and disengagement. This combination not only legitimises the authorities’ actions, but also delegitimises critical discourses. Nonetheless, this power is not absolute, and this thesis also presents instances in which actors “within” the system present challenges for the central authorities and force them to manage and re-frame ambiguous discourses.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis has focused on the transition of the 798 Dashanzi factory from 'artist village' to 'art zone' to show the positive and negative effects of the implementation of creative industries in...Show moreThis thesis has focused on the transition of the 798 Dashanzi factory from 'artist village' to 'art zone' to show the positive and negative effects of the implementation of creative industries in the Chinese urban context. I traced its evolution from its origins as an electronics factory, to an appropriation of urban land by artists and workers of the creative field, to an institutionally-accepted and promoted centre for 'creativity' and innovation. This evolution is deeply intertwined with socio-economic factors which the Chinese government supported as vehicles of (urban) development since Deng's 1978 'Open-door Policy': the dismantling of the danwei (work unit) structure; urbanization; the emergence of a real-estate market, and the rise of an urban upper-middle class. In addition, since the mid-2000s and following the explosion of Chinese contemporary art in the global art market, the government has supported the implementation of Culture Creative Industries as a strategy to build Chinese soft-power and capitalizing on intellectual property. If, on the one hand, these policies had indirect positive effects, such as the preservation of former industrial structures and the incrementation of the local economy, on the other hand they had dramatic consequences on the social environments which were subjected to them. In particular, in the case of 798, the artist community that gave rise to the artist village has been dismembered in favour of commercialization and gentrification of the area. Contemporarily to 798, the Caochangdi artist village sprang up as an urban village on the fringes of Beijing and has constituted itself as an independent reality, taking advantage of the semi-regimented rural status and falling into the cracks of Beijing's residential administration system. Thanks to its semi-illegal configuration, it has managed both to take advantage of the new creative policies implementing local economy, and to maintain the local community somewhat untouched by top-down urban rehabilitation. By adopting a perspective from the theories of place-making and place-branding, the comparison among the two artist villages and the analysis of their transformations helped me to stress the importance of the role of communities in the management of these areas.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis explores how discourse of heritage has been constructed in Taiwan, under the great influence of the world-leading heritage organization, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational,...Show moreThis thesis explores how discourse of heritage has been constructed in Taiwan, under the great influence of the world-leading heritage organization, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and its affiliated international organizations. This thesis does not attempt to give a single definition of the heritage discourse being constructed, knowing there is no one discourse about “the heritage”, but focuses on the mechanism for making discourse and the power relations that underpin it. This thesis expects to answer three main questions as follows: to what extent can the definitions and values of heritage constructed by UNESCO be applied in the context of Taiwan? What actors can be identified in the process of discourse making? What are their motivations and interests? The discussion will be developed from three aspects: 1) the changes in heritage categories in the Taiwanese heritage preservation law, Cultural Heritage Preservation Act, 2) the reproduction of World Heritage system in Taiwan, and 3) the heritage discourse and power-relation shown in the text of the international declaration launched in Taiwan, Taipei Declaration for Asian Industrial Heritage (2012).Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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The term Manchu has always been a complex one. The Daiqing khans already struggled to define the Manchu community. After a century of silence, the Manchus are slowly crawling from under their...Show moreThe term Manchu has always been a complex one. The Daiqing khans already struggled to define the Manchu community. After a century of silence, the Manchus are slowly crawling from under their shells to form a new Manchu community in the contemporary world. By taking into consideration theoretical frameworks of imagined communities and transculturality, this thesis aims to define the cultural aspect(s) that help the Manchus imagine their community. It looks at different potential aspects and evaluates whether those are integrated within the social spaces (public, private, educational, occupational and virtual) of the Manchus.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
open access
The Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province is often seen as the success story of China’s reform policies that were initiated by Hua Guofeng in the late 1970s, and popularised by Deng...Show moreThe Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province is often seen as the success story of China’s reform policies that were initiated by Hua Guofeng in the late 1970s, and popularised by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. Shenzhen – China’s first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) – is also representative of the ideal of a new, modernized, and economically strong China. The communist ideals of the Maoist era have long been pushed aside to make way for newer ideologies such as ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’, or more recently, Xi Jinping’s ‘Chinese Dream’. These shifts in ideology have had a significant influence on the identity that the Chinese state wishes to convey to its citizens and beyond. This paper examines how national and regional identities and their subsequent narratives interact or conflict in the permanent exhibition of Shenzhen museum. Furthermore, I will look at how similar exhibition practices (Shenzhen Museum and the National Museum of China) are used to convey a different message. Shenzhen Museum plays an important part in communicating the city’s identity and its position in China as a model city both to the local population and beyond. Shenzhen illustrates that the way we perceive nationalism has to change in an ever-globalising world, where large cities within a nation can play as large a role in defining the nation as the country at large.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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Studies have so far focused on China’s cultural tradition as the country’s soft power resource. However, to make the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative a success, Beijing is required to also have...Show moreStudies have so far focused on China’s cultural tradition as the country’s soft power resource. However, to make the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative a success, Beijing is required to also have an attractive set of political values. This thesis investigates how this need for political soft power translates to the realm of international education, in which the Party-state is pushing for closer cooperation among the countries along the Belt and Road. To this end, official Chinese documents and media reports are studied, with a focus on education initiatives in Kazakhstan. By arguing that soft power behaviour is central to soft power building, this thesis has come to several conclusions. First, Beijing is actively deploying educational cooperation within the Belt and Road Initiative as a means to strengthen its soft power. Second, alongside China’s cultural tradition, political values are relied upon to increase China’s attractiveness, indicating that Beijing attempts to specifically build up its political soft power. Remarkably, these political ideals are primarily related to China’s domestic governance and less to Beijing’s global governance principles.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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In this study, An Kuk-sŏn (also known as Chŏngang,1876-1926), a leading writer of the Greater Korean Empire period, is regarded as one prototype of Korean reformist intellectuals in the face of the...Show moreIn this study, An Kuk-sŏn (also known as Chŏngang,1876-1926), a leading writer of the Greater Korean Empire period, is regarded as one prototype of Korean reformist intellectuals in the face of the global expansion of imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Based on An’s Chŏngch’i Wŏnnon (政治原論, Basic Principles of Politics, 1907), the first modern political science textbook in Korea, the study explores the adoption of modern Western political science, which some of these intellectuals regarded as a means of national survival. This study also revalorizes Chŏngch’i Wŏnnon and the act of translation, the most common way of learning the West yet has been undermined in the discourse of nationalist historiography, by applying the frameworks of translation studies.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
open access
During the final years of the Yuan dynasty, a group of poets gathered in a district near the northern part of Suzhou’s city walls. This group became later known as the “Ten Friends of the North...Show moreDuring the final years of the Yuan dynasty, a group of poets gathered in a district near the northern part of Suzhou’s city walls. This group became later known as the “Ten Friends of the North City Wall” (Beiguo shi you 北郭十友). This thesis analyzes the friendship and social relationships of four of these friends. It challenges the significance of their literary gatherings in the north city wall district, while it focuses on the variety of other locations – estates, gardens, monasteries, scenic and historical sites - where their relationships were acted out. In the Yuan-Ming transition, when civil war and political instability greatly reduced opportunities for distant travel and social networking, these various places in and around Suzhou allowed them to maintain a social network through time and space.Show less
Beijeren Bergen en Henegouwen, Gabe Geert van 2015
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
open access
One third of the food worldwide goes to waste. This has an impact on natural resources such as water and energy resources. Research on underlying processes of food waste in specific contexts are...Show moreOne third of the food worldwide goes to waste. This has an impact on natural resources such as water and energy resources. Research on underlying processes of food waste in specific contexts are important as it will give insights on how to resolve this issue. Singapore is a country with an high GDP for its region. Because of this developed status, it may be an predictor for other surrounding countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia. In Singapore, approximately 158 kg per capita per year of food was wasted in 2014. In comparison to Malaysia, which wastes 177 kg food per capita per year, this is a lot: Malaysia is producing food itself, where food is lost. Singapore produces almost nothing itself yet almost equals the amount of food waste. The reasons behind food waste in Singapore come from the love for food and abundance from wealth, in combination with the reflection of government policies on clean and green Singapore. Through fieldwork and literature research, it is found that the Singaporean government is aware of the food wastage problem in Singapore. Not only because of the global impact, but also for reasons of local impact. First, as Singapore is small, limited space is available to use as landfill. Second, the government has, since independence in 1965, sought to show an image of clean and green Singapore, and food sustainability is seen as green. Paradoxically, this image of a clean and green Singapore may also be the pitfall for food waste in Singapore: as Singapore is promoted by the government to be clean and green, this may have its effect on the quality of food consumers want: high quality and no blemishes. However, the Singaporean government has recently started to introduce measures against food waste, in educational campaigns, but also at hawker centres by educating hawkers and introducing food waste recycling machines. The government stimulates other businesses in Singapore to also reduce food waste. Supermarkets and in the service sector have introduced measures to reduce food waste as well. Not only measures in existing business, new business opportunities and charities are found as well through reducing food waste. Rooftop farming, advice business on being green, but also charities. Willing Hearts, Food from the Heart and Food Bank are leading charities that reuse food waste to provide needy with food.Show less
