Governance and its discontents

Governance and its discontents

Is Ma Yingjiu truly the son of Satan?

Read more: Got Beef with President Horse?

Governance and its discontents

“Romance of the Three Kingdoms”, written in the 14th century, is the most popular Chinese historical novel, based on the tumultuous history of the country during the second and third centuries. A cultural icon, it has lost nothing of its evocative power, revived through TV series, mangas and videogames. Throughout the centuries, its over-complex plot has also provided the Chinese political scene with endless analogies, helping politicians and commentators to assess power relationships, strategies and claims to legitimacy.

No wonder that the “Three Kingdoms” metaphor is still in use. And it serves today to describe the somehow subdued battle going on between the three main ideological forces that divide the Chinese intellectual...

Read more: Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Sequel

Governance and its discontents

Over the next few months we will be releasing videos of all the impassioned researchers based at the Taipei branch of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) to introduce their new research directions in Sinology and Taiwan Studies. Vincent Rollet is a researcher at The French Centre for Research on Contemporary China, Taipei branch based in Academica Sinica. His research is based around Identity, Security and Societal Dimensions of the Taiwan’s Foreign Policy against Infectious Diseases (2000-2008). Here, Vincent came to the Ricci Institute to introduce his research and reveals to us the role of public health and afflictuous diseases in international diplomacy, before looking at ways that Taiwan can have greater...

Read more: CEFC Files: One World, One Health

Governance and its discontents

North Korea’s recent sinking of the South Korean navy vessel ‘The Cheonan’ has generated a lot of buzz and I'm going to jump on the bandwagon. I got wind of an article by Ruediger Frank, a well-known Pyongyang watcher. He proposes the idea that someone in the chain of command ordered the attack on the Cheonan without first gaining permission from the proper authorities.  The notion that someone other than the Dear Leader (Kim Jong-il) ordered the attack has crossed my mind. With this possibility there are a few things to take into consideration.

There are three domestic powers in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: The Party, the Family, and the military. The phasing out of Juche (self-reliance) rhetoric in favor of...

Read more: The sinking of the Cheonan

Governance and its discontents

Global economic indicators are mixed at best; the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake has been the occasion of much generosity but has also been marred by painful polemics; war is still raging in Afghanistan; Iran’s nuclear program remains one of the main worries of the Western world; and - more generally - commercial rivalries, disputes on currencies levels, sharing of global duties or internet piracy nurture a new climate of distrust among the nations of the globe. Rising tension between the US and China is the most obvious example of this state of affairs. But distrust is gaining ground in all areas and on every level. The quarrel brewing between Northern and Southern Europe on public debt or increased tensions on the Indian...

Read more: A world of distrust