Introduction

1. Themes in Asian Politics Introduction

2. Why Asia? • An Asian Century and 3 Billion New Capitalists • The problems of large societies can be examined by looking at China and India • Japan, India, and China are all important for understanding geopolitics • Historically rich traditions of governance as well as enduring worldviews that offer the possibility of wisdom as well as excellent case studies for comparative work.

3. Themes in Asian Politics: Culture and Tradition • Endurance and use of traditional culture in present political contexts • Intermingling and grafting of Asian traditions • Persia to India • Islam to South and Southeast Asia • Buddhism from India to South, Southeast, and East Asia • Confucianism from China to Korea and Japan and Southeast Asia

4. Themes in Asian Politics: Culture and Tradition • Intermingling of and grafting of Asian traditions • Asian Values and Lee Kuan Yew • Political problems of ethnic Chinese , Muslims, and Tamils • Political activists • Influence of Western Values and Institutions in Asia • European conquest and exploration in 15th to seventeenth century. • European penetration and colonization of the region during the 18th -20th centuries culminating in the dismemberment of China, the opening of Japan, and the subjugation of India. • Institutions of India mirroring English Institution, institutions of Japan echoing Western influence, and China embracing a dissenting Western ideology for the core of its state institutions.

5. Themes in Asian Politics: Development, State, and Nation in International Context • Socioeconomic development and political change • Relationship between individual and the institutions of state • National Identity and Nationalism • The importance of the international context

6. Lenses • Orientalism – Edward Said – The division of us and other creates a distortion of political understanding – dualistic mind set • Eurocentric • Brutality • Terrorists • Exotic • Anti-Orientalism – Bernard Lewis defended traditional scholarship.

7. Scholarship, Politics, and “Truth” • Chinese Communist Party controlled research programs • India bans objectionable films and books that could stir up communal violence • Thailand has a lesemajeste law that prohibits saying anything that may appear to insult the monarch • Tight controls and censorship in North Korea • China Watching and Cold War politics • Japanese Text book case study – Nanjing Massacre, MOE, InegaSaburo

8. Language • Contain meanings that can be hidden from outside observers • Meanings of words change over time within a culture • The question of what is kami – a God – a divine spirit – a remarkable event

9. Organization and Approach • People and Politics • Foundation of Politics • Government Structures: Form and Substance • The Individual and State