Search

UNESCO's relatively high prestige across East Asia has spurred intensifying efforts by governments to use its imprimatur to legitimate official narratives of the past and visions of the future. This article focuses on China's use of UNESCO as an arena for competitive national 'branding' in the education field, especially relating to STEM and AI. We analyse the Chinese state's engagement with UNESCO's education work in the context of shifts in budgetary and political influence within the organisation, and of a growing 'securitisation' of education within China itself. We show how Chinese engagement with UNESCO's educational agenda reflects both domestic political considerations and the 'major country diplomacy' of Xi Jinping, as manifested in the 'Belt and Road Initiative' and intensifying strategic competition with the USA. We conclude by discussing the implications of rising Chinese influence within the organisation for UNESCO's capacity for articulating a coherent and consistently humanistic vision for education.

A unit on China's ethnicities provides students rich opportunities to explore multiple themes in the social studies while helping them to develop a deeper understanding of recent events in western China. Studying China's ethnic minorities encompasses such topics as stereotyping, cultural diversity, the creation of ethnic identities, and key historical and geographic concepts. The rise to dominance of Han Chinese culture within East Asia, the nature of Han/non-Han relations, the emergence of nation-states and nationalism, and the development of ethnic and political identities are major threads in world history. Finally, a study of the modern period presents students with opportunities to examine questions of power, authority, governance, human and civil rights, and international relations. Regardless of which thematic vehicle students use, they should be able to demonstrate an understanding of these key points: (1) Definitions of diversity vary among cultures and change over time; (2) Ethnic identities are not immutable; they result from a variety of forces--self, group, other groups and the state--and are negotiated or evolve over time; (3) The development of the majority Han Chinese identity and its relationship with minority groups has a complex history; (4) The emergence of nationalism is a relatively new development in world history; (5) The roots of the current issues in Tibet and Xinjiang go back to the expansion of the Qing Empire, the emergence of European-style nationalism, and the conflict between "empire" and "nation-state" that began with European expansion; (6) The designation, "nationalities" ("minzu") in China is the result of influence from Soviet social science; and (7) Modern concepts of civil and human rights are understood differently in different settings, both by those engaged in struggles for them and by those accused of repressing them. Helping students to develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the events in western China is not the only reason for spending class time investigating minorities in China. Through a rigorous examination of the Chinese case, students also develop a better understanding of the complexities of ethnic and political identities, questions of sovereignty, and civil and human rights globally, while they develop and hone their skills in critical analysis, persuasion, reading, writing, and action. (Contains 5 notes and 7 online resources.)

China's rise has been accompanied by a rise in nationalism. But what are the characteristics of this nationalism now being witnessed? Does it support China's constructive engagement with the international order, or does it seek to assert China's supremacy? These questions lie at the hub of a rapidly expanding secondary literature on the emergence of nationalism in China and its impact on China's foreign relations. What is, however, absent from the academic discourse is the voice of the Chinese people themselves. What are their perceptions of the nation-state, and how do these beliefs shape their views of China's relationship with East Asia? To address this gap, we conducted a series of large-scale surveys in Beijing between 2011 and 2013 on the twinned topics of domestic nationalism and international relations. Our findings, as reported below, represent an initial attempt to answer this final and, arguably, most critical set of questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of China has led some commentators to claim that Asia will dominate the twenty-first century. In this article the author argues that, to the extent that countries in the region define and understand their politics in Western terms, the rise of Asia will simply continue the influence of modernity that had its origins in the West. In order to demonstrate this case, the author examines the character of political legitimacy in the region, which is founded on the concept of the state, an idea derived from the West. The modern state form has provided considerable advantages to countries in the region, bestowing international legitimacy on those that claim sovereignty, endowing smaller nations with increased political power in international negotiations, and allowing states to use the idea of non-intervention to shield themselves from international scrutiny. But the concept of the state has also defined new territorial boundaries superimposed on pre-existing political, ethnic and traditional sources of power, thereby creating new problems of legitimacy. In confronting and negotiating these challenges, Asian states have resorted to Western concepts of legitimacy, including democracy, nationalism and performance. Thus, an examination of the politics of legitimacy in Asia reveals the extent to which countries in the region are fundamentally shaped in their architecture of governance and their conception of legitimacy by Western ideas. The success of Asia in the twenty-first century will therefore not introduce a new type of ‘Asian’ global politics, or restore a more ancient kind, but simply confirm the dominance of modernity in shaping thought and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Typologies are widely used in the field of intercultural communication to explain cultural differences. Especially the typology ‘individualism versus collectivism’ (I/C) is a central theoretical construct in cross-cultural comparison. But are such typologies really suited for explaining cultural phenomena? Is their explanatory power limited because the theoretical underpinnings are based on a Western mindset? And is using typologies as scientific models appropriate to explain intercultural incidents and uncover cultural patterns from a non-Western view as well? Do such typologies meet the demands of a modern view on the field of intercultural communication? This article casts a critical light on the appropriateness and applicability of typologies. The aim is twofold. The first part examines the limitations of typologies from an East Asian standpoint, bringing out the hidden cultural mindset on which this bipolar construct is built. The second part presents a model meant to contribute to a more profound debate between East Asian and Western views on intercultural communication. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]