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Since the 1970s, a continuous exchange of information about conservation between Europe and East Asia has greatly influenced approaches to the treatment of paper objects as well as the tools and materials used. This knowledge is often disseminated and absorbed in a purely practical manner, stripped out of its wider cultural context. However, what is considered 'appropriate' treatment is closely linked to how a particular culture has historically interacted with artworks and arguably the lack of broader cultural perspectives can lead to misguided assumptions in the evaluation of those practices. This article reflects on the differences between European and East Asian cultures of paper conservation. By taking into consideration the relevant cultural, philosophical and historical contexts, the article aims to explore how approaches to conservation, as well as to the profession itself, have developed in these two different parts of the world. It further encourages paper conservators to reflect on their own training and practices while offering an understanding of how these approaches can sometimes be mutually exclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how East Asian states have regulated membership and migration through meso-level institutions. Specifically, we examine how states have used the household registration system (China's hukou system, South Korea's hoju/hojeok system, and Japan's koseki system) in the process of nation-state building in the early post-World War Two period, as a security measure to control movement throughout the Cold War, and as a tool to build or sever trans-border kinship ties in the contemporary era. Drawing on the literature on multi-level citizenship, the article contributes to the growing scholarship that unpacks the civic-ethnic divide in comparative citizenship studies by examining how meso-level institutions shape national-level membership in countries that are commonly characterized as having 'ethnic' citizenship regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their number in East Asia never exceeding 36,000 (currently around 10,000), Jews there are the subject of both distinctly strong positive and negative views. The presence of these attitudes is astounding not only because most of those who hold them have never come across a Jew, but also because the region misses most of the 'classical' motives for either philosemitism or antisemitism. An analysis of contemporary attitudes towards Jews in China, Japan and South Korea, including reactions to the still ongoing Israel–Hamas war, reveals that the distinctions between antisemitism and philosemitism are more blurred and nuanced than is often acknowledged. In East Asia, these two attitudes tend to reflect similar functions, and people often express both views without being aware of their historical and religious context elsewhere. Accordingly, this study by Kowner, Ainslie and Podoler calls for a reassessment of antisemitism beyond the Christian and Islamic spheres, to address this new and changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the affective power of the kawaii ("cute" in Japanese) aesthetic in politics by drawing from the successful "cute" campaign in Taiwan's vital presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. Based on field participation, interviews, and secondary sources, this study offers a historical-textual analysis of the ways in which cute aesthetics and fan participation alter the political communication process in postauthoritarian Taiwan. This study suggests that the prevalence of kawaii in protests and political campaigns, most salient in East and Southeast Asia today, indicates an ideological shift from masculine communication styles to an "effeminate" voice in politics. This study also exemplifies the significance of the "minor aesthetics" such as cute, zany, glamorous, and whimsical because they give voice to weak, silenced and marginalized groups. These minor aesthetic categories deserve the same level of serious attention that academics have given to the grand, the beautiful and the sublime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the history of state intervention in East Asia's varieties of capitalism through a case study of the electric power industry. The reasons for state intervention in China and Japan, their similarities and differences, and their relative importance are described and analysed. The origin and evolution of the different national models of state–business relations in the two countries are influenced by domestic factors such as national defence and internal unification, as well as external circumstances such as colonialism, occupation, and war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a historical and comparative view, we explore the long debated cause of the spectacular economic successes of East Asia using land reforms in China and Japan during the 1940-50s. Examining the approach to land reform embodied by technocrats such as Liu Shaoqi in China and Wada Hiroo in Japan in addition to the implementation mechanisms of the policies they adopted, we show that the land reforms developed characteristics of dynamic factor endowment according to the Engerman-Sokoloff hypothesis. Fairly equal land redistribution led to political power equality and improved agricultural productivity and income equality, which is conducive to long-term economic development and the prevention of the Kuznets effect ex ante. Nevertheless, factors such as initial exogenous shocks, insufficient scale of family farming, persistent government support and consequential interest groups obstruct sustainable development of the agricultural sector as well as the generalization of East Asian experiences. Equality or inequality is essentially a policy choice in addition to being a long-term ex post evaluation of the reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Christian-Muslim relations in East Asia during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through a description of the lives and journeys of three Roman Catholics - Petro Kasui Kibe (Jesuit), Nicholas the Iruman (Augustinian), and Bento de Góis (Jesuit) - to predominantly Muslim lands. Their journeys display the different ways in which Christian-Muslim relations and communication were viewed at that time, and the varying levels of impact that inter-religious dialogue had. Kibe appears to have placed little importance on Christian-Muslim relations and his journey to Jerusalem remains little more than an interesting historical footnote. Nicholas played a background role in the tale of his superiors and travel partners who helped to establish European-Persian relations. And de Góis, through his journey and interactions with Muslims, was able to contribute to a paradigmal shift in European geographical knowledge that changed contemporary understandings of East Asia. The article illustrates that, although Christian-Muslim relations at that time took an array of forms and had a variety of results, episodes from the East Asian mission field that have often been overlooked were highly influential in shaping the early modern world on a regional and global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]