New Books in East Asian Studies Marshall Poe

Chinese philanthropic foundations navigate a uniquely challenging terrain shaped by authoritarian governance. The Governance of Philanthropic Foundations in Authoritarian China: A Power Perspective (Routledge, 2022) examines these complexities, delivering a novel multilevel analysis of the power dynamics that underpin the governance of nonprofit organizations within an authoritarian context.
Chinese philanthropic foundations, with their distinct democratic culture, grapple with a unique set of challenges. The government’s evolving methods of control often lead to stringent regulations that limit the foundations’ autonomy. Foundations that heavily rely on individual donations are particularly vulnerable to these pressures, potentially transforming into conduits of authoritarianism rather than champions of democratic values.
This book offers a comprehensive and, at times, bleak picture of the conditions under which Chinese foundations operate, offering critical insights into the future trajectory of the nonprofit sector in China.
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With the ever-greater shift of the balance of global power towards the Pacific region, what does this have implications for the geopolitics of the region? How should the rest of the world, especially Europe, address the growing power and influence of the Pacific region? How does the complex interplay of cultural, civilizational, economic, legal, environmental, and political factors affect the Pacific region? These and other questions are the subject of 21st Century as the Pacific Century. Culture and Security of Oceania States in Great Power Competition (Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2023) edited by Dr. Joanna Siekiera.
This publication, which is the result of a conference of the same title, aims to explain to the readers culture, political relations and climate conditions in the region of the South Pacific. The authors point to cause and effect relationships, provide figures and in-depth analyses of political, economic and social forces operating in Southeast Asia and Oceania and the influence countries of the region exert on the whole modern world.
Dr. Joanna Siekiera is an international lawyer, Doctor of Public Policy from Poland. She is a fellow at the United States Marine Corps University and works as a legal advisor to various military institutions, primarily NATO.
Dr. Siekiera did her postdoctoral research at the Faculty of Law, University of Bergen, Norway, and Ph.D. studies in New Zealand, at the Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
She is the author of over 100 scientific publications in several languages, various legal opinions for the Polish Ministry of Justice, as well as the book Regional Policy in the South Pacific, and the editor of 8 monographs on international law, international relations, and security. Her areas of expertise are Law of armed conflict (Lawfare, Legal Culture in Armed Conflict, NATO legal framework) and the Indo-Pacific region, Pacific law, Maritime Security.
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In China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century (Oxford University Press, 2024), authors Dr. John Keane and Dr. Baogang He, target a development of enormous significance: China's return, after two centuries of decline and subjugation, to a position of prominence in world affairs. The daring thesis is that China is a newly rising empire of a kind never before witnessed: a galaxy empire. The first to be born of the digital communications era, this young empire is economically and politically powerful, and heavily armed. Its gravitational, push-pull effects are impacting every continent--and even outer space, where China is competing with the United States, India, and Europe to become the leading power.
The galaxy empire interpretation rejects clichéd misdescriptions of China as a "big power" or monolithic "autocracy", and it explains why China defies older definitions of land, sea, and air-based empires. The book charts the developments that have made its rising empire so novel, including the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, the rapid rise of a global Chinese middle class, and internal colonialism in Tibet and Xinjiang. The book notes the protean, shapeshifting qualities of this young empire. It therefore warns against the political and military perils of simple-minded, friend-versus-enemy thinking and "Big China, Bad China" politics. But it also proffers a forewarning to China's rulers: while every rising empire aims to shift the balance of power in its favour, no empire lasts forever, and some are stillborn, because they indulge illusions of greatness and reckless power adventures.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
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Sidney Lu’s The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, 1868-1961 (Cambridge 2019) places the concept of “Malthusian expansionism” at the center of Japanese settler colonialism around the Pacific. For Japan’s imperial apologists and the discursive architecture they disseminated, alleged overpopulation―or more precisely, a critical imbalance between surplus population and insufficient land and resources―justified expansionism. Simultaneously, both population growth and expansion were signs of national power and prestige. From the colonization of Hokkaido to the realization of a “migration state” in the 1920s and into the postwar period, The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism challenges the conceptual division between settler colonialism and migration, with implications beyond Japanese history.
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After the end of the Maoist era in the People's Republic of China, the rise of queer communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has generated growing public and academic attention. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in northwest China, Casey James Miller offers a novel, compelling, and intimately personal perspective on Chinese queer culture and activism. 
In Inside the Circle: Queer Culture and Activism in Northwest China (Rutgers UP, 2023), Miller tells the stories of two courageous and dedicated groups of queer activists in the city of Xi’an: a grassroots gay men’s HIV/AIDS organization called Tong’ai and a lesbian women’s group named UNITE. Taking inspiration from “the circle,” a term used to imagine local, national, and global queer communities, Miller shows how everyday people in northwest China are taking part in queer culture and activism while also striving to lead traditionally moral lives in a rapidly changing society. The queer stories in this book broaden our understandings of gender and sexuality in contemporary China and show how taking global queer diversity seriously requires us to de-center Western cultural values, historical experiences, and theoretical perspectives.
Casey James Miller is Assistant Professor of anthropology at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He receives his PhD degree in anthropology from Brandeis University. His work focuses on the intersections between queer anthropology, medical anthropology, and the anthropology of Chinese culture and society.
Yadong Li is a PhD student in anthropology at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of the anthropology of state, the anthropology of time, hope studies, and post-structuralist philosophy. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.
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In this beautiful new book, Dr. Youngna Kim draws on her vast understanding of Korean art to provide an overview of the peninsula’s contemporary art scene. Korean artists have become increasingly active at an international level, with many being invited for residencies and exhibitions all over the world. Nonetheless, for various reasons, the general understanding of Korean contemporary art remains insufficient.
Korean Art since 1945: Challenges and Changes (Brill, 2024) is volume 9 in the series Modern Asian Art and Visual Culture. The book draws on primary sources to discuss the ideological stakes that affected the art world, modernist art vs. political art, and the fluidity of concepts such as tradition and national identity. Moreover, the book also has a chapter on the art of North Korea. The book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in Korean studies or contemporary art.
Dr. Youngna Kim is Professor Emerita of the Department of Archaeology and Art History at Seoul National University and was the Director of the National Museum of Korea from 2011 until 2016. Dr. Kim received her bachelor’s degree from Muhlenberg College and her Ph.D. in the History of Art from The Ohio State University. She has many publications to her name about Korea’s ever-evolving art scene.
Buy Youngna Kim’s new book about Korean art before independence (only available in Korean) here.
Leslie Hickman is a translator and writer. She has an MA in Korean Studies from Yonsei University and lives in Seoul, South Korea. You can follow her activities at https://twitter.com/AJuseyo.
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