[Asian-Currents] ASIAN CURRENTS, January 2008, Issue 42
valerie.shavgarova at anu.edu.au
valerie.shavgarova at anu.edu.au
Wed Jan 23 11:07:03 EST 2008
Asian Currents
The Asian Studies Association of Australia's e-bulletin
January 2008 | ISSN 1449-4418 | <http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/asian-currents.html>
for the plain copy (no images) of this issue please click here
Sponsored by ARC Asia Pacific Futures Research Network
http://www.sueztosuva.org.au
In this issue, brought to you by our new sponsor, the ARC Asia Pacific
Futures Research Network http://www.sueztosuva.org.au:
>From the PresidentAnalysis:
DEFORESTATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE: OUTCOMES FROM
BALI
ProfileStudent of the monthWebsite of the monthRecent article of interestDid you know?Diary datesFeedbackAbout the ASAA
The ARC Asia Pacific Futures Research
Network (ARC APFRN)
About
the ARC Asia Pacific Futures Research Network
Asian Currents is pleased to welcome a new sponsor for
2008 the Australian Research Council - Asia Pacific Futures Research Network
(ARC APFRN). The network’s goals are to provide stimulus for innovative
research that makes links across disciplinary and area boundaries to enhance
Australia's interactions with and knowledge of the Asia Pacific region.
Throughout the year the ARC-APFRN provides funds for
projects that enhance the network objectives with priority given to projects
that address the signature theme for the year. The 2008 signature theme
is Crossing Borders of Cultural Meanings in the Asia Pacific (culture
and religion). Round 1 grant applications are now open.
For more information please visit www.sueztosuva.org.au
Message from the President
Welcome back to Asian Currents! I am delighted to announce
that we are able to continue publication for a fifth year thanks to our
new sponsor, the ARC Asia Pacific Futures Research Network, convened by
Professor Louise Edwards of the University of Technology Sydney, and a
great supporter of the Asian Studies Association of Australia.
2008 is UNESCO’s International Year of Languages.
Both sides in Australian politics have recognised that Australia’s
Asian language capacity has been seriously depleted, leaving government
departments and the private sector scratching for competent bilingual
staff with a deep knowledge of both Australia and an Asian country. Although
Prime Minister Rudd has a strong personal record on the language issue,
and the new Rudd government has signalled that it will increase funding
for foreign language teaching, the direction these initiatives will take
is still far from clear, particularly in the higher education sector.
The ASAA will continue to argue for the imperative of maximising Australia’s
Asia knowledge.
Robert Cribb (robert.cribb at anu.edu.au)
Links:
Asian Studies Association of Australia: http://asaa.asn.au
Message from Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO,
on the celebration of 2008, International
Year of Languages http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.phpURL_ID=35559&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Analysis
DEFORESTATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE: OUTCOMES FROM BALI
by Luca Tacconi, Director, Environmental Management
and Development Program, Crawford School of Economics and Government,
Australian National University Luca.Tacconi at anu.edu.au
Indonesia was the focus of global media attention in December
2007 as it hosted the 13th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the
United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali.
One of the major items on the agenda of the Bali meeting
was the issue of deforestation and forest degradation. Deforestation accounts
for almost 20 per cent of global annual greenhouse gas emissions, while there
is significant uncertainty about the emissions from forest degradation. Deforestation
is mostly caused by conversion of forests to agricultural uses and, to a lesser
extent, as a result of timber and firewood extraction. Forest degradation
is due, to a significant extent, to logging.
Southeast Asian countries are major contributors to this
problem. A global ranking based on United Nations data sees Indonesia, Myanmar,
Cambodia and the Philippines among the top twenty deforesting countries. With
an annual deforestation of about 1.8 million hectares, Indonesia is second
only to Brazil in terms of areas being denuded of trees.
The Bali meeting agreed on the need to reduce deforestation
and forest degradation in order to lower carbon emissions and limit climate
change. This represents a significant step forward because deforestation and
forest degradation were not included in the Kyoto Protocol, the legal instrument
that supports the implementation of the current UN climate change process,
which will expire in 2012.
The market for carbon emissions (so-called carbon credits)
is expanding by several billion dollars a year. Asian countries could receive
significant financial benefits from reducing deforestation and forest degradation,
if the agreement that will replace the Kyoto Protocol allows them to sell
carbon credits rather than earning income from agricultural and timber industries.
There are, however, many challenges on the road to a reduction
in deforestation and forest degradation. First, it is highly uncertain whether
the market price of carbon credits will be high enough to justify different
business operations. Visitors to Indonesia and Malaysia are probably familiar
with the large expanses of oil palm and timber plantations that replace forests.
These are very profitable enterprises. The financial benefits from selling
carbon credits may not match those from plantations.
Secondly, those who rely on forest clearing may apply political
pressure to resist more environmentally sound projects because their profits
would suffer.
Thirdly, it is not obvious that rural people who rely on
forest clearing would benefit from avoided deforestation projects. These people
usually have traditional customary rights to the forests they clear for agricultural
purposes, but those rights are not often officially recognised. Projects aimed
at reducing deforestation could therefore limit the options available to rural
people to improve their livelihoods, with the benefit of these projects instead
flowing to those holding officially recognised rights to the land.
These issues are at the centre of research projects starting
in 2008 and involving Australian and Asian researchers. The projects will
provide critical information to governments on how to reduce emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation whilst providing development benefits
to the people who most need them. To monitor their progress, go to http://www.crawford.anu.edu.au/staff/ltacconi.php
Links:
United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali:
http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_13/items/4049.php
The Indonesian Forum for Environment (WALHI - Friends of the Earth
Indonesia) Forest Campaign: http://www.eng.walhi.or.id/kampanye/hutan/
Profile
This month we profile Hugh White, Professor of Strategic
Studies and Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National
University http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/whith_sdsc.php
and Visiting Fellow, Lowy Institute of International Policy http://www.lowyinstitute.org/StaffBio.asp?pid=447
Q: When did you become interested in studying Asia
and why?
A: I got interested in Asia twice. The first time was at
the age of 12, when on a whim I enrolled to study the Indonesian language
in my Melbourne secondary school. It was 1965, and we were proudly told that
ours was the first class ever to study Indonesian at secondary school in Australia.
My motives for this choice were driven more by a contrarian instinct to avoid
the standard Latin and French than a sense of strategic destiny. But as that
Year of Living Dangerously progressed, and the news from Indonesia impinged
dramatically even on the torpid brain of a pubescent public-school boy, I
began to realise just how interesting and important this place was ? and how
strange.
Alas my innate incapacities as a linguist were outweighed
by a fledgling interest as a strategist, and after three years Bahasa Indonesia
and I parted company. It was not until my late 20s that I got interested in
Asia for a second time, when I arrived in the Office of National Assessments,
with nothing but some philosophy under my belt, and began a career in strategic
affairs. There my lifelong interest in Asia was restarted.
Q: What are your current preoccupations?
A: My primary interest at present is in the way
in which Asia’s international order will evolve over the next few years
and decades as it adjusts to changing power relativities, and especially to
the rise of China. Asia’s peace over the past three decades has been
underpinned by a set of stable relations between China, the US and Japan,
which have in turn provided the setting for spectacular economic growth. But
that growth is now undermining the stable relationships on which it was based.
The way relations between the US and China work will have to change: but how?
Can the US learn to treat China as an equal? Will China settle for anything
less? If not, how can Asia’s peace be preserved? Will we find ourselves
in an Asia divided between a US bloc and a Chinese bloc? Are we already moving
that way? All these questions pose deep issues for Australia and its relationships
with Asia. Do we support the US as it struggles to retain primacy in Asia
in the face of growing power? Or do we accept that in future our great ally
will be only one among several voices shaping Asia’s order?
Q: What are your hopes for Asian Studies in Australia?
A: Australians grew complacent about our ability to work effectively
with Asians when we thought that American unipolar domination was going to
ensure that Asia would evolve in ways that suited us without us having to
make much effort on our own account. Now it is clear that Asia in the Asian
century is going to be a more complex and demanding place, and Australia will
need to work harder to find our way in it. The imperative for Asian studies,
so plain to Australia’s post-war generations, should be as plain to
us again today.
Student of the month
Mandarin was always one of those gruesomely tedious first year
school subjects for Tim Lindenmayer (tim.lindenmayer at gmail.com
). If you had told him then that he would spend the next ten years engrossed
in an immutable fascination with China, he would have laughed in your face,
returned to Jimmy Hendrix blaring through his headphones and resumed his stirring
air guitar solo.
However, this all changed on a school trip to Beijing in
1997. For two weeks, Tim was ushered down bustling streets, between frantic
bicycle swarms and through museums and restaurants, gorging on a mixture of
ancient artwork and Peking duck. Tim was amazed at the sensory overload of
China, and returned to Australia an avid Sinophile.
In 2003, after a period of intermittent travel and study
in China, Tim began his Bachelor of Arts at Monash University, majoring in
Chinese and Spanish. In his third year he competed in the Chinese language
competition, “Chines Bridge”, and won first prize nationally.
Having completed his Bachelor’s degree, Tim was awarded
a Chinese government scholarship and spent a semester studying Mandarin at
Nanjing Normal University.
He developed a profound interest in Sino-Western cultural
parallels and travelled through southern China, interviewing young factory
workers, to inquire into their concepts of values, success and personal identity.
In June 2007, Tim’s uncle disappeared in the Minya
Konka mountain range in Western China. Under these tragic circumstances, Tim
once more returned to China to assist in the search for his uncle’s
body, translating between different parties and facilitating the bureaucratic
process.
Until he returns to Beijing next year to work as an interpreter
at the Olympics, Tim remains in Melbourne, completing his Chinese Honours
thesis. He breaks up his studies by playing the ‘guzheng’, a 21-stringed
Chinese harp and drinking jasmine tea. It’s not exactly the rock star
lifestyle he imagined for himself at age 15, but then again, the air guzheng
solos look much more impressive!
Links:
Chinese Studies, Monash University http://arts.monash.edu.au/chinese/about/index.php
Website of the month
http://blogs.odi.org.uk/blogs/main/archive/2007/12/20/5484.aspx
The Overseas Development Institute is regularly ranked among
the best think tanks in the world. It is based in Britain. Just before Christmas
it published a blog to introduce the subject of the Japan G8 in 2008 which,
it argues, looms large on the international development calendar.
Recent article of interest
The Crisis in Timor-Leste, Understanding the Past, Imagining
the Future, edited by Dennis Shoesmith. Charles Darwin University Press, 2007.
This volume brings together papers presented at a symposium supported by the
ARC-Asia Pacific Futures Research Network in late 2006. The symposium examined
the historical, social and political causes of unrest in Timor-Leste, and
discussed the challenges the tiny half-island faces in managing its petroleum
revenues and promoting agriculture, as well as building a cohesive nation
state. www.cdu.edu.au/uniprint
Did you know?
An Indonesian artist, Jumaadi, has won the Inaugural $5000
John Coburn Award for Emerging Artists in the 56th Blake Prize for Religious
Art. The judges said that to view Jumaadi’s work, Whisper, was ‘like
judging the Blake prize itself … like sitting in a gallery of restless
stories." See www.blakeprize.com.au
Diary dates
ASIA PACIFIC WEEK 2008: Building Australia’s
Asia Pacific Expertise, 29 January - 1 February 2008, Canberra. During
one week of activities graduate students from Australia and the region will
have a chance to present their research interests, meet with other students
and academics, participate in a wide range of training activities, be introduced
to the rich holdings on Asia and the Pacific at the ANU Library and at the
National Library and participate in a stimulating program of events including
cross-area workshops, keynote speeches, seminars and master classes, film
screenings, cultural performances and social events. See http://rspas.anu.edu.au/asiapacificweek
THE CENTRE FOR ASIA-PACIFIC SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
STUDIES (CAPSTRANS) fellowship applications close 4 February. CAPSTRANS
at the University of Wollongong is calling for applications from interested
scholars for its 2008 Senior Visiting Fellowship scheme and Postdoctoral Writing
Fellowship scheme. Applications are competitively assessed. Details can be
found at:
http://www.capstrans.edu.au/working/fellowship
-schemes.html
APPLICATION DEADLINE IS 4 FEB 2008.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF CLOSER CHINA-JAPAN RELATIONS,
lecture, 4 February, Melbourne. Asialink invites you to attend a
free public lecture by Emeritus Professor Peter Drysdale. With Japan and China
currently ranked No. 1 and No. 2 for Australian exports, Professor Drysdale
will consider what the warming of their political relations means for Australia,
the region and beyond. Monday 4 February 2008 from 6pm to 7pm at Theatre 3,
ICT Building, 111 Barry Street, Carlton, The University of Melbourne. RSVP
to events at asialink.unimelb.edu.au
with "China-Japan" in the subject line.
RADICAL ELEGANCE EXHIBITION, 1 November - 17 February,
Perth. This is an exhibition of women's clothing by the renowned
Japanese couturier Yohji Yamamoto, whose garments have been a significant
influence on contemporary haute couture and prêt à porter clothes
since his Paris debut in 1982. Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Cultural
Centre, Perth. www.artgallery.wa.gov.au/exhibitions/Yamamoto.asp
KRISHNA - LOVE AND DEVOTION EXHIBITION, 6 October
- 16 March, Melbourne. Krishna is one of the most popular of the
Hindu gods worshipped throughout Asia and in particular India. The exhibition
will explore Krishna iconography, through approximately 70 works including
paintings, sculpture, textiles, photography, and jewellery. Asian Tempore
Exhibition Space, Level 1, National Gallery Victoria International, 180 St
Kilda Road www.ngv.vic.gov.au/krishna/index.html
THE COLD WAR IN ASIA: THE CULTURAL DIMENSION, 24
- 25 March 2008, Singapore. This conference will investigate how
Asian actors in the Cold War adhered to certain Cold War doctrines or ideologies
and how their cultural perceptions predisposed them towards certain policies
or to the political engagement between states and social forces on the cultural
front. Venue: Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/events_categorydetails.asp?
categoryid=6&eventid=732
Those interested in participating should submit a 300-word
abstract and 100-word autobiographical note by 31 October 2007 to Ms Valerie
Yeo at ariyeov at nus.edu.sg
CRITICAL HAN STUDIES SYMPOSIUM & WORKSHOP, 24-27
April 2008, Stanford University. Call for Papers. Han is a colossal
category of identity that encompasses ninety-four percent of the population
of mainland China, making it the largest ethnic group on earth. Participants
in the first-ever Critical Han Studies Symposium & Workshop will help
develop materials to be published in two path-breaking volumes: Critical Han
Studies, an edited volume, and the Critical Han Studies Reader, a collection
of primary source materials in translation. The deadline for paper and panel
proposals is 3 December 2007. For more information contact Professor Thomas
S. Mullaney at tsmullaney at stanford.edu
or James Leibold at Latrobe University: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/socsci/staff/
leibold/ leibold.html
IS THIS THE ASIAN CENTURY? 17th Asian Studies Association
of Australia Conference, 1-3 July 2008, Melbourne. The biennial Asian
Studies Association of Australia conference is the largest gathering of expertise
on Asia in the southern hemisphere. The theme for 2008 invites you to assess
how the regions and issues on which you are interested are faring. The ASAA
conference is multi-disciplinary and covers Central, South, South-East and
North East Asia and the relationship of all of these with the rest of the
world. See http://www.conferenceworks.net.au/asaa
BEIJING OLYMPIC GAMES, 8-24 August 2008 http://en.beijing2008.cn/
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. Enquiries can be addressed to wia at uq.edu.au
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
You are welcome to advertise Asia-related events in this
space. Send details to: fbeddie at ozemail.com.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 ozemail.com.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 Asia Studies Review
journal and holds a biennial conference.
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.
Return to Asian Currents home
page
(formely at coombs.anu.edu.au, now at http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/asian-currents.html)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/asian-currents/attachments/20080123/003c4045/attachment-0001.html
More information about the Asian-Currents
mailing list