China now faces a national identity problem, that is, sections of the national population do not identify with the Chinese nation-state in which they live. Tibetans, for example, endeavor to create their own political identity through the reconstruction of a Tibetan cultural and ethnic identity. China's national identity problem also involves the question of reunification with Taiwan. In Taiwan, both the Guomindang and the Democratic Progressive Party governments have refused to reunify with China. The question of Taiwan and Tibet are (...) different cases and require different treatment,1 but Beijing's response to the two questions—refusing to adopt a democratic approach—is the same. (shrink)

Chinese liberals have been searching for a just society, one regulated by democratic institutions and rules—a society where the human potential for evil is properly controlled. It is in this context that Chinese liberal intellectuals such as Yan Jiaqi, Hu Ping, and Liao Xun, drawing on their respective experiences of the tragedies in China, have taken the idea that there is always a potential for evil in human nature as a starting-point for a just society and for designing democratic institutions.

The failure to reconcile views of the past and to address historical injustice has damaged inter-state relations in Northeast Asia. Joint committees, dialogues and the participation of civil society have been used to address historical issues, but scholars in the disciplines of international relations and area studies have largely ignored these dialogues and deliberative forums. At the same time, there is an emergent theoretical literature on how deliberative democracy can address ethnic conflicts and historical injustice. There is a serious disconnect (...) or distance between the theoretical literature on the resolution of conflicts via deliberation on the one hand, and empirical studies of deliberative approach in East Asia on the other. This article aims to address this shortcoming in the study of the politics of historical dispute in Northeast Asia by proposing a deliberative approach to history disputes and highlighting the achievements, limits and dynamics of deliberation. Through mapping and comparative testing, we confirm that deliberation offers some potential for a departure from nationalist mentalities and a shift towards a consciousness of regional history in Northeast Asia. Our empirical test of the utility of the deliberative approach suggests that a new model for addressing regional disputes may be emerging.
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Australia has experienced difficulties engaging with Asia-Pacific regional integration. Despite Australian attempts to punch above its weight in regional forums and to be a regional leader, it is still not regarded as a full member or as quite fitting into the region. It is an in the Asian context, and has experienced the of being neither here nor there. The former Rudd government's proposal for an (APC) by the year 2020 was a substantive initiative in Australia's ongoing engagement with Asia. (...) It has, however, attracted a high level of criticism both at home and abroad. The main critical analysis of the proposal has focused on institutional building or architecture, or its relationship with existing regional institutions, but overlooks a host of often fraught questions about culture, norms, identities, and international power relations. The APC concept needs to be scrutinized in terms of these questions with a critical eye. This paper examines the cultural, cognitive, and normative dimensions of Rudd's proposal. It analyses four dilemmas or awkward problems that the APC faces. (shrink)

Influenced by the example of China, a literature is emerging that advocates a modernized version of Confucian meritocracy, often as an alternative to liberal democracy and even democracy itself. We...

Most of the current scholarship focuses on the functional aspects of regionalism such as economic and security issues, and the literature tends to be too focused on American or European concerns. Despite the early examination of varied ideas of Asian regionalism, there remains a substantive lack of critical scholarship that focuses on the study of Asian ideas, proposals, and visions of regionalism.

This volume assembles a group of leading regional experts to formulate the first rigorous and comprehensive consideration of multiculturalism debates in South and East Asia. Through close examination of pre-colonial traditions, colonial legacies, and post-colonial ideologies, this volume sheds new light on religious and ethnic conflict in the area, and presents a ground-breaking assessment of what role - if any - the international community should play in promoting multiculturalism.

Two existing models are used to conceptualize the constrained and limited participation in the communist system. The mobilization model suggests that participation was so mobilized by the party/state that it was largely meaningless, while the disengagement model supports the idea that many communist citizens adopted non-participatory behaviors such as non-voting as a means of protest. This paper attempts to demonstrate the importance of a third model – the emergent democratic culture model. The survey results show that the participation index is (...) in proportion to the number of elections in which a villager is involved; and a growing number of voters in Zhejiang are developing citizen-initiated participation, with rights consciousness. (shrink)

This paper is a detailed case study of China's first direct election of the township heads, examining the driving forces for and obstacles to direct township election, and Chinese utilitarian approach toward local democracy. The paper discusses the prospect of direct township election in China and highlights the Chinese paternalist model of democracy being implemented in practice.

This study focuses on the static output feedback control of nonlinear Markov jump singularly perturbed systems within the framework of Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy approximation. From a practical point of view, the phenomenon of asynchronous switching between the plant and the controller is considered and characterized by a finite piecewise-homogenous Markov process. Particularly, for facilitating the controller synthesis, the closed-loop system is transformed into a fuzzy Markov jump singularly perturbed descriptor system by adopting descriptor representation. In order to fully accommodate the system (...) features, an appropriate stochastic Lyapunov function is constructed. Afterwards, by combining Finsler’s lemma, the mean square exponential admissibility of the system is analyzed. The conditions ensuring the existence of the predesigned controller are given and further solved by designing a brief search algorithm. Finally, a typical circuit system is used to demonstrate the application potential of the developed control technology and the effectiveness of the control strategy. (shrink)

何定生是顧頡剛在廣州中山大學任教時的學生，早年即已有文章收錄於《古史辨》中，而享有古史辨學者的光環。一九四九年隨國民政府來臺，任教於臺大中文系。生前出版有《詩經今論》一書，收錄三篇《詩經》研究論文，為 臺灣學界所仰重。一九七○去世後，其弟子何寄澎、曾志雄整理遺稿，出版《定生論學集──詩經與孔學研究》，收錄四篇論著。《何定生著作集》即在此二書的基礎上，復廣泛蒐求其論著、書信與相關資料，編為二冊。第一冊 為《何定生著作集一：詩經、孔學及其他》，第二冊為《何定生著作集二：尚書與文法》，雖尚未能將何氏著作網羅殆盡，但已足將何氏學術的主要面向及研究精華充分展現出來。 何定生深受五四以來新文化運動的影響，繼承顧頡剛及古史辨的學風，將此學風在戰後的臺灣學界持續發皇。何定生的學問主要表現在《詩經》，強調復古解放的精神，他呼籲今日的《詩經》研究，應從清學的漢學壁壘中出來， 以復於原始的樂歌地位。他認為惟有站在《儀禮》的樂歌地位來讀《詩經》，從人性的同類意識來接觸人性，才有碰到詩人靈感的可能。.

“主体性”是哲学中一个十分重大的课题，在20世纪80年代至90年代，“主体性”观念在中国当代哲学的进程中产生了十分特殊的作用，对于推动思想解放、观念变革居功至伟。今天我们究竟应该怎样理解和评估“主体性 ”原则？马克思哲学的“主体性”思想在哲学史上所具有的重大意义究竟是什么？对我们今天重新阐释“主体性”思想有什么价值？本书正是试图围绕上述问题，在当代哲学的历史语境中对“主体性”观念进行专门研究和当代阐 释。.

Safeguarding public interest was vital to early modern state legitimacy in Western Europe and East Asia. Wenkai He identifies similar patterns in state-society interactions surrounding public goods provision and explores how conflicts over public interest led to calls for fundamental political change and to modern representative politics.

Spinoza est-il un adversaire de la religion? Rien n'est moins sûr. Dès la correspondance avec Guillaume de Blyenbergh, il admet l'existence de deux voies de salut hétérogènes : par la philosophie et par la religion, par l'intelligence et par la charité. Y a-t-il là quelque incohérence? Rien n'est moins sûr. Il s'agit dans cet essai de montrer pourquoi et comment coexistent ces deux voies de salut hétérogènes. Par là même, Spinoza s'avérera unique, un hapax dans la constellation des grands philosophes (...) du XVIIe siècle, et s'éclairera l'accusation d'athéisme prononcée de manière récurrente à son encontre. (shrink)

Dans la pensée pascalienne, la sagesse revêt plusieurs significations. Elle peut se définir comme la sagesse des philosophes, mais aussi comme la sagesse divine. La vraie sagesse est celle des saints et se situe dans l'ordre de la charité. En confrontant ces deux sortes de sagesse, l'ouvrage pose les questions suivantes : la sagesse des saints s'oppose-t-elle à la sagesse naturelle des philosophes ou bien peut-on accorder les deux? Comment définir le rapport entre l'amour de la sagesse et la sagesse (...) de l'amour dans la pensée pascalienne? Les études recueillies dans cet ouvrage traitent cette problématique. (shrink)

In this multidisciplinary book, mathematician Matthew He provides integrative perspectives of algebraic biology, cognitive informatics, and poetic expressions of the human mind. Using classical Pythagorean Theorem and contemporary Category Theory, the proposed matrix models of the human mind connect three domains of the physical space of objective matters, mental space of subjective meanings, and emotional space of bijective modes; draws the connections between neural sparks and idea points, between synapses and idea lines, and between action potentials and frequency curves.

Heideggers Philosophie stellt die Frage nach dem Sein. Das Sein betrifft das Seiende im Ganzen, es ist in allem Seienden durchgangig das allem Gemeine und so das Gemeinste, aber es ist zugleich auch das Leerste. Wenn Heidegger das Ganze bedenkt, bedenkt er zugleich auch das Nichts. Das Sein versteht er dementsprechend als Sein-lassen. Was aber ist der Sinn von Sein? Sowohl phanomenologisch als auch fundamentalontologisch entfaltet Heidegger eine Analytik des Daseins, in der Zeit als Horizont eines jeden Seinsverstandnisses leitend ist. (...) Von diesem Horizont her versteht sich das Dasein als Sein zum Tode und als Mitsein mit dem Anderen - bis hin zur vorausspringend-befreienden Fursorge. (shrink)