Culture Mandala: The Bulletin of the Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies

Book review: Writing as enlightenment: Buddhist American literature in the 21st century

Trevor Carolan — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:42:34 PST

Extract: If uneven in nature and scope, this compendium of essays, interviews, and literary speculations provides a still cogent look at how effectively Buddhism has been transmitted in the U.S. through literature. Whalen-Bridge and Storhof (eds. The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature, SUNY, 2009), contend here that Buddhism has become “an important cultural dimension of America” (2). With various contributors, including several from their previous volume, they advance this view convincingly in talking up the indigenization of Buddhism in the U.S.

Who has heard of the Faroe Islands?

Marius Thomassen — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:28:51 PST

Extract: The Faroe Islands are one of the smallest countries in the world. In fact, the country is so small that its neighbours barely know of it, and hardly know anything about it. What is more, the Faroe Islands are not defined as an independent country, and therefore have limited access to the international society. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing region under the Danish realm. The current Danish government, as well as the opposition, have declared their support for an independent Faroese state, as long as the Faroese people themselves want independence. Thus, the only barriers for Faroese independence are psychological, where the population is more or less divided half and half into those who want independence and those who want unification with Denmark, though the Faroe Islands have become ever more autonomous. Furthermore, the Faroe Islands have all the qualifications of a proper independent state, such as their own language, culture, history, flag, national anthem, and geographically-defined territory. This leads to the question of how would an independent Faroe Islands fit into the current system of global governance?

China's foreign aid policy: Motive and method

Sara Lengauer — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:19:25 PST

Extract: Foreign aid, also referred to as development assistance, is one of the most common instruments used by governments to achieve foreign policy goals, especially since the end of World War Two. Aid can attain many forms – mostly it comprises the transfer of money, goods or services from one country to another. Military assistance and food aid are among the earliest forms of foreign aid. In the last decades aid projects with the ultimate goal of improving the infrastructure in the recipient country have become increasingly common.

The world of development assistance is being shaken by the economic power shift occurring across the globe. Emerging donors, including China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Korea, India and Brazil, are inconspicuously beginning to change the rules of the game. These new donors have been able to increase their volume of aid to least developed countries on terms of their choosing, as none of them belongs to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).[1] The People’s Republic of China (PRC, China) is the most prominent in this group of emerging donors.

Sino-Indian soft power in a regional context

Rosita Dellios — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:09:46 PST

This article examines the possibilities of new ‘mandalas’ - or schemas - of cooperative power in the geopolitics of India and China as it affects their common Indo-Pacific region. As Asia’s two great civilisational states and reputed arch rivals, India and China need not be on a collision course as they rise to become the 21st century’s new global powers. There is much scope for cooperation in their mutual quest for resources, security and prestige via an understanding of the dynamics of today’s geopolitics and the role of ‘soft power’ embodied in aspects of the strategic cultures of both India and China. The study therefore entails a comparative analysis of the strategic cultures of China and India, and the prospects of sustained cooperation across the Eurasian landmass and surrounding maritime zones. The key concepts in this article are soft power (as the power of attraction rather than coercion), ‘strategic culture’ (a people's distinctive style of dealing with and thinking about the problems of national security), ‘mandala’ (from India's traditional strategic cultures) and ‘harmonious world’ (from Chinese strategic culture).

Tibet and Xinjiang: Their fourfold value to China

Franziska Elmer — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:59:19 PST

Tibet and Xinjiang are two of the five administrative divisions known as ‘autonomous regions’ within the People’s Republic of China (PRC, China) that are allocated for national minorities. Unlike the other three - Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and Ningxia - Tibet and Xinjiang are well known to the wider world which associates them with national independence movements. Tibet in particular has received major media attention with the prominence of its charismatic leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, the 14th Dalai Lama. The run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics was also a driver for continued awareness of the pro-independence issue and criticism of China’s human rights record in these regions.

However, this article is less concerned with providing yet another critique of Beijing’s policy towards Tibet and Xinjiang and more interested in exploring the value of these two regions to China. Their importance can be analysed under four areas: 1) territorial unity; 2) history and development; 3) resource security; and 4) geopolitics. To begin with, a brief overview of the two regions is needed.