In 1981 Bangladesh celebrated its first decade of independence. This milestone was marked by a sharp increase in publications about the new nation. Authors are fascinated and not a little surprised that the “international basketcase” of 1971 has survived a vast array of economic, social, and political afflictions. The authors are also concerned about the continuing survival of Bangladesh. Current writing is concentrated on either its political history or problems of economic development and represents a major contribution to filling gaps in our knowledge of Bangladesh. Unfortunately, although most contemporary authors have limited experience in Bangladesh, they do have well-developed theoretical perspectives that guide their constructions of Bangladeshi reality. Current writing proffers Weberian, neoclassical economic, and Marxist interpretations of Bangladesh. Little fresh, in-depth, culturally sensitive, representative reporting of Bangladeshis' own interpretations of the present and aspirations for the future is being done. Academia is failing the majority of Bangladeshis by not taking seriously their ideas, aspirations, and abilities.

French Indochina is a union not only of different states bur of geographically diverse areas. Both the physical and cultural-geographic elements have variety in their distribution on the land. This lack of uniformity presents problems for those attempting to create national unity within Indochina. The present brief review can mention only some of the more important contrasts; thoughtful persons will wish to bear in mind these physical and the equally complex cultural-geographic elements in considering those economic and political situations that have arisen in Indochina in modern times.

In recent years, several empirically based studies of blue collar and white collar Japanese workers—notably by Taira, Hazama, Marsh and Mannari, Cole, and Evans—have resulted in a substantial “revision” of our understanding of Japanese labor markets.2 These studies have disputed previous claims that Japanese workers commit themselves irrevocably to their employers and have shown that familiar economic and non-economic incentives affect marketplace behavior. Moreover, while these studies recognize the importance of paternalistic practices in shaping employment relations, they prove that these practices are not simple reflections of traditional values.

Research into the reunification of Korea has focused on the governmental policies of North and South Korea, as well as the policies of countries involved with them. The views expressed within Korean civil society about reunification have not been given much consideration. It is difficult, therefore, to gauge what the Korean people themselves think of reunification and how opinions differ among discrete sociopolitical groups in Korea, such as the conservatives, liberals, and radicals.

Throughout eastern and southern Asia the village stands in a position of critical but often unacknowledged importance. It provides the residence and social focus for an overwhelming proportion of the people living in those parts of the continent lying east of Afghanistan and south of the Soviet borders—perhaps some 72 per cent of the total, or roughly 900,000,000 persons. Or, if only the regions specifically under examination in this symposium—Japan, India, Java, and the Philippine Islands—are taken into account, it will be discovered that some 62, 83, 80, and 75 per cent of their respective populations reside in villages.2 When one speaks of village government or politics in eastern or southern Asia then, a vast preponderance of the area's total population is involved.

One hundred years ago the patient efforts of Townsend Harris bore fruit and on July 4, 1859, Japan opened her doors to traders from the West. It was a small beginning, for Consul Harris' treaty allowed foreigners to live and trade at only three Japanese ports; two of which, Nagasaki and Hakodate, lacked the hinterland to make them much more than coaling or victualling stations. The third port was a small fishing village of twenty or thirty huts. It was built on a mud bank, backed by an odious swamp and commanded by surrounding hills. The Japanese called the place Yokohama.

During the years 1851 to 1864 a central feature of the Chinese political scene was the Taiping rebellion. This was a peasant movement led by disappointed candidates in the official examinations and unlettered men of native military and organizational genius who capitalized upon the economic distress of the time and the declining ability of the Manchu rulers to take the principal cities of the Yangtze valley and at one point to threaten Peking itself. The rebels maintained their capital in Nanking from 1853 until 1864. From this point they waged intermittent campaigns in the provinces from Hunan and Hupeh east to the sea and thus denied the ruling dynasty the rich lower-Yangtze revenue for more than a decade. The rebellion was active at one time or another in fourteen of the eighteen provinces of the empire. Antidynastic societies not part of the Taiping movement used the embarrassment of the dynasty to disrupt areas which the Taipings did not reach. From the military point of view the Ch'ing dynasty was probably threatened most seriously in 1853 when the rebels got to within thirty miles of Tientsin. But if the Taiping troops were never again able to invade Chihli, neither were the imperial soldiers capable of regaining the Yangtze basin. After 1853 it required eleven years of punitive expeditions, the training of a new type of provincial militia, and incidental foreign aid to put down the rebellion.

In the Korean records, the relations between Korea and Japan are termed kyorin, meaning neighborly relations with a neighboring country. That term contrasts sharply with the term used for the relations between China and Korea usually called sadae, serving the great. Korea always demonstrated an attitude of great deference to the Chinese Empire, her communications being often almost servile in tone; whereas, in regard to the Japanese, the position was almost reversed. The Japanese were treated peremptorily; envoys were frequently scorned and their requests considered as coming from a suppliant.

The 1857 uprising, by shattering many of Britain's most cherished beliefs about India, introduced a decade of controversy and reappraisal in many fields. At the center of this controversy stood land policy, for the land revenue was the heart of the administrative system, and the form through which outside events made their influence felt most strongly upon the structure of society. In collecting the land revenue, the Government had of necessity to settle responsibility for its payment on some person, and in so doing to define the rights in land of the various classes of society. This had a profound effect on the distribution of power within Indian society. Whichever class obtained the land settlement, and the rights and privileges it entailed, was in effect proprietor of the land, able to reduce all others to dependence upon its generosity. The British could insure the dominance of either peasant or landlord simply by manipulating the Record of Rights and assessment rolls.

My country “is now wholly given over to a d—d mob of scribbling women,” goes one of the most frequently quoted gender-related adages. Japanologists might be tempted to attribute this uncourtly utterance to a learned nobleman of Heian Japan (794–1185) embittered by the outpouring of vernacular narratives from women's writing brushes that were eclipsing male endeavors to emulate Chinese classics, or to an exasperated modern Japanese novelist in reference to the neo-Heian phenomenon, namely, the renaissance of women's literature in postwar Japan. Actually it was Nathaniel Hawthorne (1855:141) who made the now infamous sexist remark in chagrin at American women who were churning out best-sellers in force. Thereafter, this phenomenon abated for a full century, but since the 1960s, Western women writers have made a glorious resurgence, marked by unprecedented degrees of output and worldwide market domination in a genre known as the romance fiction. The title of the first romance series and the name of its publisher, Harlequin, has become something like a generic term with multiple signification.

In January 1941 Guomindang forces crushed a New Fourth Army (NFA) column under Xiang Ying and Ye Ting, which had just missed a deadline to get north of the Yangzi River. The Guomindang and the Communist center in Yan'an both wanted Xiang in the north, each for its own reasons. However, Xiang put off leaving until the last moment for he was loath to give up his independent base in south Anhui. Xiang favored closer cooperation with the Guomindang than did Communists elsewhere in China. Ironically, Xiang's resistance to Yan'an's pressure to cross the river brought him into conflict with Chiang Kai-shek. Loyalist NFA units that did go north routed Guomindang armies there, and partly in retaliation, Chiang Kai-shek suppressed Xiang as a “mutineer.” Yan'an leaders called the Incident an act of fratricide, and afterward they radicalized their idea of the united front—always wider than one of mere collaboration with the Guomindang—still further. In Yan'an, Xiang was blamed for hesitating to expand northward and for entering a trap when he eventually did leave. However, Yan'an bore some responsibility, never acknowledged, for choosing Xiang's route to disaster.

“For forty years,” Sun Yat-sen said in March 1925 in the Tsungli's Will, “I have devoted myself to the cause of the people's revolution with but one end in view, the elevation of China to a position of freedom and equality among the nation.” “But,” he lamented, “the work of the Revolution is not yet done.” For forty years since, Chiang Kai-shek has been at the very center of the Chinese political limelight. During half of this period, from 1928 to 1949, he was to a remarkable degree China itself. But like Sun, he has also failed to consummate the Kuomintang movement and the work of the revolution.

Japan's actions during the Boxer crisis which resulted in the siege of. The foreign legations in Peking from June 20 to August 14, 1900, are the subject of debate among historians. Some argue that Japan's actions were “generally sound in dealing with the difficult international circumstances of the time; considering Japan's mission today as a bridge between east and west, they may be regarded as a historical fact of which the Japanese can be very proud.” Those who take this view would claim that Japan tried to balance her sympathy with China with her responsibilities to the powers and that she generally succeeded. On the other hand, others hold that while “Japan played a singularly conscientious role in the allied relief expedition to Peking to rescue the legation staffs in the summer of 1900, … the Tokyo cabinet was certainly not indifferent to its opportunities.” They would argue that, while Japan did not acquire territory in China during the Boxer disturbances, she thought of doing so and took steps to that end. The published archives of the Japanese ministry of foreign affairs show the extent to which she acted in line with the expansive temper of the powers in China at the time. This paper will consider the projects which were undertaken by the Japanese, the motives for them, and the reasons why they were not followed through.