[Asian-Currents] ASIAN CURRENTS, August 2008, Issue 49

[SHAVGAROVA,Valerie]

Asian Currents 
The Asian Studies Association of Australia's e-bulletin
Maximising Australia's Asian Knowledge 	 	
________________________________

August 2008 | ISSN 1449-4418 | <
http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/asian-currents.html
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/asian-currents.html> > for the plain copy (no
images) of this issue please click here
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Sponsored by ARC Asia Pacific Futures Research Network 
http://www.sueztosuva.org.au <http://www.sueztosuva.org.au/>  

In this issue:

*	Analysis:
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-08.html#2> 

	*	THE BEIJING OLYMPICS: CHALLENGING TIMES
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-08.html#2a>  
	*	CHINA-TAIWAN RELATIONS
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-08.html#2b>  

*	Profile
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-08.html#3>  
*	Student of the month
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-08.html#4>  
*	Website of the month
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-08.html#5>  
*	Recent publication of interest
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-08.html#6>  
*	Did you know?
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-08.html#7>  
*	Diary dates
<http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-08.html#8>  


THE BEIJING OLYMPICS: Challenging Times


by Tim Lindenmayer tim.lindenmayer at gmail.com who recently completed his
Honours year at Monash University and is interpreting at the Games

2008 has been a big year for China. After the winter snowstorms and the
devastating Sichuan earthquake, in August this year China was put under
unprecedented global attention and scrutiny, during arguably the most
significant event in its recent history - the Olympic Games.

I arrived in Beijing a week before the opening ceremony in order to
re-familiarise myself with the city. I found that astounding
developments had occurred since my last visit a year ago.China has spent
some $40 billion in its Olympic preparations, including constructing the
world's largest airport terminal, installing 19 new Olympic venues and
expanding its underground system by an extra 100kms of subway and light
rail lines. Throughout Beijing, thousands of the city's glossy new
buildings are on display, while the old ones have been restored,
repainted and plastered with bold welcome banners and colourful Olympic
murals. New parklands and reserves have been established throughout the
city, while millions of flowerbeds and pot plants were shipped in from
the countryside. Pristine taxis and tidy new buses travel between major
sites around the city, where troupes of uniformed 'foreigner-helpers'
are stationed, waiting to welcome and direct their Olympic guests.

These are the images Beijing wanted to display. A friendly, open,
naturally cosmopolitan city, embodying the very slogan of the Beijing
Olympics: "One World, One Dream". However, this official catchphrase
-seen throughout Beijing, carved into rock, spelled out in elaborate
garden designs and flashing on fluorescent billboards -smacks of irony.
Indeed, the "Harmony Games" propaganda the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
has striven so hard to present, obscures the grimmer side of China's
remarkable Olympic preparations.

Before the Games, migrant workers, beggars, prostitutes, disabled people
and other unsightly subjects were forced out of the city in a rigorous
government crackdown. Beijing spared no effort to remove anyone that
might cause a nuisance or reflect poorly on the government and the
nation.

Public awareness campaigns battled against spitting, swearing,
queue-jumping, littering, smoking and 'Chinglish' street signs.
Directions were given on how to act and what to say in the presence of
foreigners. Some of my Chinese friends who volunteered to don the
'foreign-helper' outfit were instructed on how to respond if confronted
by a foreigner with a thorny question: 'Tibet?' - 'No opinion.'
'Politics?' - 'All good/ uninterested.'

Beijing's pre-Olympic behaviour, as well as long-standing issues such as
human rights abuses, pollution, political and religious repression and
Beijing's unscrupulous support of various pariah regimes, have ignited
legitimate protest from both within and outside of China. Nevertheless,
the constant criticism China has recently received in the Western media
also seems to reflect certain censoriousness among Western observers.
China-bashing has become the norm for Western journalists.

While the Olympics inevitably and rightly calls attention to the serious
shortcomings of the Chinese government, the Games should also be
remembered for what they symbolise for China - the culmination of three
decades of impressive growth and a milestone in China's rapid emergence
as a global power.

Links:

*	
	See also Tracy Smart's recent essay, The human rights Olympics:
Beijing 2008 and China's security dilemma 
http://www.globalcollab.org/Nautilus/australia/apsnet/policy-forum/2008/
beijing-olympics/?searchterm=China
<http://www.globalcollab.org/Nautilus/australia/apsnet/policy-forum/2008
/beijing-olympics/?searchterm=China%20> 

*	
	And for a German perspective, see an article in Spiegel
magazine, Was Beijing 2008 a Mistake? 
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,571365,00.html

 


CHINA-TAIWAN RELATIONS: the election of President Ma Ying-jeou


by Bruce Jacobs, Professor of Asian Languages and Studies, Monash
University, Bruce.Jacobs at arts.Monash.edu.au, offers a glimpse into one
part of Chinese history that received little attention during the
Olympic opening ceremony

Chinese claims to Taiwan are very recent. In his famous 16 July 1936
interview with Edgar Snow, Chairman Mao Zedong clearly stated that
Taiwan should be independent (Snow 1961:96). A recent study by Alan
Wachman (2007) demonstrates that neither the Chinese Nationalist Party
(Kuomintang) nor the Chinese Communist Party claimed Taiwan as a part of
China until 1942. In fact, the only Han Chinese government ever to
control Taiwan from the Chinese mainland did so during the Civil War of
1945-1949, perhaps the saddest period of Taiwan's entire history.

During their two centuries (1683-1895) of rule, the Manchus made clear
they never exercised sovereignty in Taiwan's aboriginal highlands. They
also administered Taiwan differently from China, another colony in their
huge multi-ethnic empire. The Manchus ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895.
>From the time the Chinese Nationalists took over in October 1945, Chiang
Kai-shek and his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, systematically discriminated
against Taiwanese while emphasising the Chinese nature of their regime.
For example, although mainlanders accounted for only 15 per cent of
Taiwan's population, they always held a majority of seats in the party's
Central Standing Committee and in the government's cabinet.

This situation changed when Vice-President Lee Teng-hui succeeded
President Chiang Chiang-kuo upon the latter's death in January 1988.
Under Lee Teng-hui (1988-2000) and President Chen Shui-bian (2000-2008),
Taiwan democratised and the discrimination against Taiwanese ended. The
Chinese reaction was to refuse to speak to the Taiwan government. China
aimed more and more missiles at Taiwan until the number reached 1,400
earlier this year. The Anti-Secession law, passed by the Chinese
National People's Congress in 2005, formally threatened Taiwan with
"non-peaceful" measures.

When he ran for president in 2008, Ma Ying-jeou, the Nationalist
nominee, repeatedly emphasised his identity with Taiwan. Though born in
Hong Kong, he stressed that his parents had conceived him in Taiwan. He
also noted that Taiwan was an independent and sovereign country.

Taiwan's voters gave Ma a landslide victory primarily because the
previous government appeared inefficient and because economic growth had
slowed. Ma argued that more integration of the Taiwan economy with China
would be advantageous. After his inauguration, Ma also pushed hard for
better relations with China. Although the frameworks had been
established under Chen Shui-bian, the Chinese had refused to finalise
these agreements in an effort to help the presidential candidacy of Ma.
This support from the mainland saw Ma's promise of direct weekend
charter flights from China come to fruition on 4 July 2008. The Taiwan
government established a limit of 3,000 Chinese tourists per day and
expected earnings from this tourism to be about A$2 billion per year but
the fountain of wealth has yet to materialise. In the month since
Chinese tourists were welcomed, fewer than 300 a day have arrived and
these have spent considerably less than expected.

The Ma government has strived to show the Chinese that it is "friendly."
The Chinese response to this effort remains unclear, with considerable
infighting apparent over the Taiwan issue.

In the context of the Olympics, the official Chinese media often uses a
term for Taiwan that implies it is part of China, despite the 1989
agreement of Taiwan and China on how to translate the term 'Chinese
Taipei' into Chinese. And, notwithstanding many statements by Ma
Ying-jeou that no peace agreement would be possible without the removal
of the missiles aimed at Taiwan, not one missile has been removed.


References

*	
	Snow, Edgar (1961). Red Star Over China (New York: Grove Press,
Black Cat Edition). This version reprinted the original 1938 edition.

*	Wachman, Alan M. (2007). Why Taiwan? Geostrategic Rationales for
China's Territorial Integrity (Stanford: Stanford University Press.) 

Links: 

*	Dreyer, Edward L. (2008). 'The Myth of "One China."' In Peter
C.Y. Chow (ed), The "One China" Dilemma (New York: Palgrave Macmillan),
pp. 19-36. 

*	Jacobs, J. Bruce (2008). 'Taiwan's Colonial History and
Postcolonial Nationalism.' In ibid, pp. 37-56. orders at palgrave.com 

*	CIA World Factbook: Taiwan: 
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tw.html



Profile


This month we profile Professor Tim Lindsey, Federation Fellow,
Director, Asian Law Centre Director, Centre for Islamic Law & Society,
Faculty of Law, The University of Melbourne t.lindsey at unimelb.edu.au
<mailto:t.lindsey at unimelb.edu.au%20> 

Q: When did you become interested in Asia and why? 
A: I was lucky enough to be a schoolboy when Asian studies were booming.
It was the 70s and Australia has just begun to wake up to the fact that
it was located squarely at the southern end of Asia, not floating
somewhere in mid-Atlantic between England and the US (even if that is
where the national mental map usually places us). All over Australia,
schools and universities were busy building Asian studies and I was
direct beneficiary of this - admittedly, with some prodding from Mum and
Dad, who at the critical moment expressed disgust that I might even
consider a European language! The watershed moment for me came with a
school home-stay. Immersion in the life of small central Javanese town -
and living with some of the nicest people I have ever met - turned
Indonesia from a subject of study to a life-long obsession. Later, when
my PhD in Indonesian history, a biographical study, was published as
'The Romance of K'tut Tantri and Indonesia', I realised that if
substituted my own name in the title it would be a good description of
what the archipelago had done to me.

Q: What are your current preoccupations? And how do these fit into the
contemporary scene? 
A: Later, I was lucky enough to combine my training as a lawyer with my
preoccupation with our northern neighbour and emerge as a specialist in
Indonesian law. This was an area of expertise often dismissed as an
eccentric niche until Australians began to realise that sharing borders
means sharing problems. The Bali bombings, the Corby case and the Bali
Nine trials reminded Australia that, like it or not, Indonesia is now
part of the Australian experience. Unfortunately, they also showed that
we have a lot of work ahead if we are to make the most of the
extraordinary opportunities geography offers us: most Australians
haven't noticed that the post-Soeharto Indonesian democracy is in many
ways a completely a new state.

Q: What are your hopes for Asian Studies in Australia?
A: We urgently need to build better understanding of each other's
systems and create a more effective institutional infrastructure for
cooperation across the Arafura Sea. Sadly, this won't be easy. It has
been a great honour to me to be able work on second-string bilateral
diplomacy for over a decade through membership of the Australia
Indonesia Institute, but the grim reality is that Indonesian studies -
like Asian studies more generally - is in catastrophic decline across
Australia. It seems incredible to me that we now have fewer Indonesian
courses and fewer students than in the 1970s (and thus fewer young
people offered the opportunities I was lucky enough to have). The
dumbing-down of Australian Asia literacy as we enter the Asian century
is a national tragedy that will have dire consequences for decades to
come. It is way past time for government to realise that the national
interest - whether it be strategic and security concerns, trade policy
and the imperatives of globalisation, or cultural and social enrichment
- demand a major investment in Asia skills. We urgently need a
reinstatement and expansion of the NALSAS (National Asian Languages and
Studies in Australian Schools) scheme, which stood at $130 million per
annum when Mr Howard axed it. Mr Rudd, the $64 million over 3 years
you've promised won't even come close! 

Links:

NALSAS: http://www1.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas/about.htm


Student of the month


As an undergraduate at the National University of Singapore (NUS),
Ashvin Parameswaran had no intention of studying about Asia. His
interest in political science theory was cut short when he unexpectedly
received a failing grade at the end of his first semester. Six months
later, the university realised that his failing grade was the result of
a computer error and awarded him his actual grade - a high distinction. 

By then, however, the newly established South Asian Studies Program had
captured his undivided attention. Headed by Professor Peter Reeves, a
highly respected South Asianist from Australia, this program introduced
Ashvin to the great diversity in the region. It also taught him two
important lessons that remain fundamental to his development as a
researcher and teacher.

First, never be afraid of doing original research. At NUS, then doing
his honours in anthropology at Curtin University of Technology, and now
his PhD at the Australian National University (ANU), Ashvin has engaged
in fieldwork in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australia. His research
on diverse topics - including religion, caste, tourism, business, and
education - have resulted in the publication of nine refereed journal
articles.

Second, recognise and nurture the potential of students. A succession of
dedicated teachers and mentors at all three of the institutions
mentioned above have been crucial to shaping Ashvin's thinking about
Asia. They have also instilled in him the sense that teaching well is an
important professional responsibility. With McComas Taylor at the ANU,
Ashvin has designed, lectured, and tutored in three different courses -
on epics, religion, and independence - related to South Asia. In the
process he has also been nominated for a number of teaching awards.

After completing his dissertation in the next six months, Ashvin hopes
to begin a new project examining the role of science in Indian new
religious movements. This project will combine an intellectual history
approach with ethnographic fieldwork methods. 


Website of the month


http://www.eaber.org <http://www.eaber.org/> 

The East Asian Bureau of Economic Research is a forum for high-quality
economic research focussing on issues facing the economies of East Asia.
It comprises representatives from Japan, China, South Korea, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and
Australia. One of its later offerings is an article, Financing Higher
Education in East Asia by Bruce Chapman and Peter Drysdale.


Recent publication of interest


Doha's demise by Mark Thirlwell/The Interpreter, Lowy Institute. This
blog was posted on 4 August and considers the recent failure in world
trade talks and outlines the three important sets of issues that have
been raised by this latest collapse in negotiations. Thirlwell says the
immediate cause of the breakdown seems to have been failure to reach
agreement on the operation of a so-called special safeguard mechanism
for developing countries. This would have allowed them to raise
agricultural tariffs in response to sharp movements in prices or
imports. See 
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2008/07/Doha%e2%80%99s-demise.aspx


Did you know?


The 2008 Ramon Magsaysay awardees have been announced: 

Grace Padaca is recognised for empowering voters in the Philippines.
Therdchai Jivacate is honoured for his dedicated efforts in Thailand to
provide inexpensive, practical and comfortable artificial limbs even to
the poorest amputees. The Center for Agriculture and Rural Development
Mutually Reinforcing Institutions (CARD MRI), from the Philippines,
received a public service award for their successful adaptation of
microfinance in the Philippines, providing self-sustaining and
comprehensive services for half a million poor women and their families.
Prakash Amte and Mandakini Amte, from India, are being recognised for
enhancing the capacity of the tribal Madia Gonds to adapt positively in
today's India. Ahmad Syafii Maarif, from Indonesia, is honoured for
guiding Muslims to embrace tolerance and pluralism. Akio Ishii, from
Japan, is recognised for his principled career as a publisher, placing
discrimination, human rights, and other difficult subjects squarely in
Japan's public discourse. Ananda Galappatti, from Sri Lanka, receives
the award for emergent leadership in bringing effective psychosocial
services to survivors of war and natural disasters in Sri Lanka. 

The Magsaysay Award was created in 1957 to commemorate late president of
the Philippines and to perpetuate his example of integrity in
government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism
within a democratic society.http://www.rmaf.org.ph
<http://www.rmaf.org.ph%20/> 


Diary dates 


PICTURE PARADISE - THE FIRST CENTURY OF ASIA-PACIFIC PHOTOGRAPHY
1840s-1940s 11 July - 9 November, Canberra. This exhibition is the first
survey of the history of photography from India and Sri Lanka through
Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific to the west coast of North
America National Gallery of Australia Parkes Place, Parkes, Canberra. 
http://nla.gov.au/pict/photofestival.html.
<http://nla.gov.au/pict/photofestival.html> 

INAUGURAL AUS - CSCAP FORUM 4 & 5 September, Melbourne. Supported by the
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Asialink is proud to host the
inaugural AUS - CSCAP National Security and Regional Issues Forum with
the Hon Stephen Smith, Minister for Foreign Affairs, as keynote speaker
and other panellists from government, business and academia, panels will
include: security aspects of resource ownership in Australia; contesting
security architectures in Asia; promoting nuclear non-proliferation; the
state of the "War on Terror"; Indonesia: security issues update To
register your interest in attending this Forum, please contact Bernadine
Fernandez by email at b.fernandez at asialink.unimelb.edu.au.
<mailto:b.fernandez at asialink.unimelb.edu.au> 

XINRAN XUE - CHINA WITNESS: VOICES FROM A SILENT GENERATION, 13
September, Canberra. China Witness is the personal testimony of a
generation whose stories have not yet been told. Here the grandparents
and great-grandparents of today sum up in their own words for the first
and perhaps the last time the vast changes that have overtaken Chinas
people over a century. Saturday 13 September at 4pm; Asia Bookroom,
Lawry Place, Macquarie RSVP: Friday 12 September to 6251 5191 or 
books at AsiaBookroom.com.

OzASIA 14-28 September Adelaide. The OzAsia Festival showcases and
explores Australia's increasing cultural interaction with our northern
neighbours. http://www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/ozasia/.

EPHEMERAL BUT ETERNAL WORDS: Observations on Contemporary Japanese
Calligraphy 15 September, Sydney. Dr Fuyubi Nakamura, Postdoctoral
Fellow, Research School of Humanities, Australian National University
will talk about the search by contemporary calligraphers for a role and
place for their art. 5.15 pm to 7pm The Refectory, Main Quadrangle,
University of Sydney 
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/asianstudies/news/index.shtml. 

INDONESIA UPDATE 2008, 19-20 September, Canberra. Indonesia is the
world's largest archipelagic state. More than half its share of the
earth's surface is sea, and the marine frontier presents Indonesia with
economic opportunity and political and strategic challenges. This
conference examines Indonesia's response to that challenge.
Presentations will address maritime boundaries and security, marine
safety, inter-island shipping, the development of the archipelagic
concept in international law, marine conservation, Indonesian
sea-farers, illegal fishing, and the place of the sea in national and
regional identity. See http://rspas.anu.edu.au/economics/ip/IU08.
<http://rspas.anu.edu.au/economics/ip/IU08> 

A YEAR IN TIBET, 24 September, Canberra. Sun Shuyun, author of 'The Long
March' and 'Ten Thousand Miles without a Cloud' explores in intimate
detail the lives of a shaman and his family, three monks, a village
doctor, a Party worker, a hotel manager, a builder and a rickshaw
driver. Through them she captures the Tensions between Chinese and
Tibetans, between an ancient and an alien culture, between faith and
science, tradition and modernity. 6pm, Asia Bookroom, Lawry Place,
Macquarie, RSVP by Tuesday 23 September to 6251 5191 or 
books at AsiaBookroom.com.

CHALLENGES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE & PROMOTION OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE
PHILIPPINES 26 September, Sydney. Mayor Jesse Robredo, Naga City,
Philippines will present this seminar in the Asian Studies Lecture
Series @ Sydney University from 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm Education Seminar Room
325, Education Building, Manning Road 
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/asianstudies/news/index.shtml.
<http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/asianstudies/news/index.shtml> 

TRANSITION AND INTERCHANGE Ninth Women in Asia Conference, 29
September-1 October 2008, Brisbane. The University of Queensland is
hosting the ninth Women in Asia (WIA) Conference, to be held from 29
September-1 October, 2008. Call for Papers: Contributions are invited
from various disciplines on a large number of themes concerning the
lives of women in Asia. Participants are encouraged to submit proposals
for panels (with 3-4 papers per panel). Individual proposals are also
welcome. http://www.freewebs.com/womeninasia.
<http://www.freewebs.com/womeninasia> 

ARTSingapore, 9-13 October 2008, Singapore. This contemporary visual art
fair is both a trade and consumer fair, and thus a platform for art
dealers and galleries to network and foster business relationships, and
for art collectors to acquire new works 
http://www.artsingapore.net/index-as.html.

OPEN HANDS, CROSSED FINGERS, POLITE SMILES AND FURROWED BROWS: The
Tokyo-Beijing-Washington Strategic Triangle and the Future of East Asian
Regionalism 14 October, Sydney. Dr Malcolm Cook, Lowy Institute and
Professor Rodney Tiffen, Asia Pacific Program, Sydney University will
discuss this subject from 4:30 - 6:00 pm Education Seminar Room 459 as
part of the Asian Studies Lecture Series @ Sydney University 
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/asianstudies/news/index.shtml.
<http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/asianstudies/news/index.shtml>  

AUSTRALIAN MEDIA AND INDONESIA, 29 October, Sydney. Professors Rodney
Tiffen and Adrian Vickers present this seminar at 4:30 - 6:00 pm
Education Seminar Room 325 as part of the Asian Studies Lecture Series @
Sydney University 
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/asianstudies/news/index.shtml.
<http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/asianstudies/news/index.shtml>  

RESEARCHING THE GARMENT INDUSTRY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC, 5 November,
Sydney. Professors Adrian Vickers and Elspeth Probyn discuss this issue
from 4:30 - 6:00 pm at Education Seminar Room 325 as part of the Asian
Studies Lecture Series @ Sydney University 
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/asianstudies/news/index.shtml. 

VIETNAM UPDATE 2008, Labour in Vietnam, 6-7 November 2008, ANU,
Canberra. The 2008 Vietnam Update takes up the timely issue of labour in
Vietnam. It will explore the theme of labour broadly, including
Vietnam's position in regional labour markets; the socialist legacy in
the globalised workplace; everyday working conditions and experiences;
the regulatory framework; the changing industrial relations system; the
politics of labour; the protection of labour rights; and the
internationalisation of labour standards. Convenor: Anita Chan,
Contemporary China Centre, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies,
The Australian National University: anita.chan at anu.edu.au.

GLOBALISING RELIGIONS AND CULTURES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC, 1-5 December
2008, Adelaide. This conference is the 2008 Signature Event for the
Asia-Pacific Futures Research Network. With religion and culture as the
key themes, the conference covers areas central to understanding the
current state, diffusion and evolution of religious beliefs in the
Asia-Pacific as well as their cultural and other consequences. In
addition to its academic conference, the Event features three major
public forums, link-ups with Australian media, side events and tours.
The culminating event, the conference banquet, will be held under the
direction of one of Australia's most famous chefs, Simon Bryant. If you
wish to attend, give a paper, organise a panel or know more, please feel
free to contact the organisers at the University of Adelaide via email
at: sigevent08 at adelaide.edu.au or go to 
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/sigevent08/.

You are welcome to advertise Asia-related events in this space. Send
details to: fbeddie at infinite.net.au


Feedback


What would be useful for you? Human interest stories, profiles of
successful graduates of Asian studies, more news about what's on,
moderated discussions on topical issues? Send your ideas to 
fbeddie at infinite.net.au.


About the ASAA


The Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) promotes the study of
Asian languages, societies, cultures, and politics in Australia,
supports teaching and research in Asian studies and works towards an
understanding of Asia in the community at large. It publishes the Asian
Studies Review journal and holds a biennial conference. ASAA and the
Centre for Language Studies at National University of Singapore also
co-publish an annual supplementary issue of the Centre's fully
peer-reviewed electronic Foreign Language Teaching Journal (e-FLT). See 
http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg <http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/> 

The ASAA believes there is an urgent need to develop a strategy to
preserve, renew and extend Australian expertise about Asia. It has
called on the government to show national leadership in the promotion of
Australia's Asia knowledge and skills. See Maximizing Australia's Asia
Knowledge Repositioning and Renewal of a National Asset 
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/ASAA/asia-knowledge-book-v70.pdf

Asian Currents is published by the Asian Studies Association of
Australia (ASAA). It is edited by Francesca Beddie. The editorial board
consists of Robert Cribb, ASAA President; Michele Ford, ASAA Secretary;
Mina Roces, ASAA Publications officer; and Lenore Lyons, ASAA Council
member.

________________________________

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