Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Skip to main content
Ching-Chang Chen
  • 67 Tsukamoto-cho, Fukakusa, Fushimi-ku, Kyoto 612-8577 JAPAN

Ching-Chang Chen

  • Ching-Chang Chen is Professor of the Department of Global Studies and Director of the Global Affairs Research Centre,... moreedit
  • Prof. Ken Booth, Prof. Hidemi Suganamiedit
For many, relations across the Taiwan Strait appears to be an unresolvable sovereignty-cum-security impasse in the Westphalian world. Drawing analogies and metaphors from East Asian medicine (EAM), we reconceive this apparent zero-sum... more
For many, relations across the Taiwan Strait appears to be an unresolvable sovereignty-cum-security impasse in the Westphalian world. Drawing analogies and metaphors from East Asian medicine (EAM), we reconceive this apparent zero-sum impasse as an inner imbalance of the China-Taiwan 'body' and investigate the possible healing effects of some Taiwanese Buddhist organisations. We identify three interrelated patterns in cross-Strait relations analogous to Spleen qi deficiency, Blood deficiency and yin deficiency. In EAM, the Spleen is associated with holding and its qi deficiency means poor digestion and/or Blood loss. Insufficient Blood is a type of yin deficiency, affecting all the fluids and lubrication of the body. While the cross-Strait movements of people, goods, services and capital have been increasing since the end of the Cold War, the 'body' fails to transform such 'food' into trust or a sense of 'we-ness' as 'Blood'. We argue that cross-Strait Buddhist exchanges are conducive to conflict transformation, although they do not amount to a cure-all. Specifically, Tzu Chi Foundation's charity work and Fo Guang Shan's cultural education in China have cultivated mutual understandings and goodwill at the grassroots level, resembling therapeutic responses that help to relieve some of the symptoms.
The dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is generally analysed as a Sino-Japanese competition over material and strategic interests, regional preponderance, and nationalistic symbolism. Yet, such explanations cannot fully explain the... more
The dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is generally analysed as a Sino-Japanese competition over material and strategic interests, regional preponderance, and nationalistic symbolism. Yet, such explanations cannot fully explain the endurance of the conflict and overlook its origin in the period leading up to the UN's derecognition of Taiwan's sovereignty in 1971. Drawing on the concept of ontological security, defined as 'security of the self', we contend that it was the looming loss of its sovereign self that prompted Taiwan (Republic of China, ROC) to assert itself as the true defender of Chinese interests by laying claim to the islands. This caused anxiety in China (People's Republic of China, PRC), which had to follow suit in order to secure its own sovereign self. China thus inherited the conflict with Japan when it took over the 'true China' mantle upon its entry to the UN in 1971. Extant explanations overlook the important factor of inter-Chinese competition over sovereign selfhood. In developing this argument, the article makes two contributions. First, it draws attention to a much-overlooked early phase of the dispute, and shows how the same dynamics of ROC-PRC status competition continue to inform the dispute between China and Japan today. Second, it contributes to the literature on ontological security by conceptualising the 'self' as sovereign state personhood, thereby further clarifying the distinction between self and identity, and highlighting the relational effects of ontological security-seeking.
The endurance of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute since the 1970s is indicative of the grip that the Westphalian narrative has on the political imagination of academics and practitioners alike. Both materialist and constructivist... more
The endurance of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute since the 1970s is indicative of the grip that the Westphalian narrative has on the political imagination of academics and practitioners alike. Both materialist and constructivist scholarship has so far struggled to explain the dispute given its limited strategic and unclear symbolic value. Yet recent work in ontological security studies (OSS) has pointed to the intrinsic connection between physical and ontological security, and highlighted how the Westphalian notion of sovereignty constructs territory as part of the state’s body, and therefore as part of its embodied self. While this explains why such tiny islets can become existentially important for states, it offers bleak prospects for solving sovereignty-related conflicts. It seems unlikely that the dispute can be mitigated within the confines of the Westphalian system. Yet the insight that the body is constructed and part of the ontological security-seeking self is still useful. Building on this insight, we draw on East Asian medicine (EAM) to propose an alternative way of constructing the body. EAM’s monist and relational cosmology helps to conceive a post-Westphalian social body shared by the claimants, making various proposed solutions ontologically possible.
This forum critically reflects on discrimination faced by earlycareer women international relations (IR) scholars in the Asia-Pacific region in their workplaces and beyond. By taking a self-ethnographic perspective, six contributors from... more
This forum critically reflects on discrimination faced by earlycareer women international relations (IR) scholars in the Asia-Pacific region in their workplaces and beyond. By taking a self-ethnographic perspective, six contributors from five countries provide an engaging overview of difficulties they face in their everyday lives. Against the backdrop of this diverse and globalizing region, the contributors are all academic migrants in search of employment and learning opportunities within the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. They lead migratory lives by frequently crossing ideational and material boundaries to contribute to a more diverse IR knowledge base, and they encounter numerous difficulties and forms of discrimination. This forum has two aims. First, in reflecting on the contributors' own lived experiences, it highlights the diversity of issues faced by early-career women scholars in this region. Second, it calls for novel, more inclusive forms of solidarity that appreciates diversity as plurality across any divides.
As an academic discipline, International Relations (IR) has built its meta-theoretical foundations upon various dualistic meta-narratives (e.g., identity v. difference, center v. periphery, civilization v. barbarism, and so on) and the... more
As an academic discipline, International Relations (IR) has built its meta-theoretical foundations upon various dualistic meta-narratives (e.g., identity v. difference, center v. periphery, civilization v. barbarism, and so on) and the Newtonian mechanics that pursues linear causation, treating global politics as a closed system of discrete, atomistic actors where their linear inputs are supposed to produce linear outputs. Against this backdrop, this article examines the efforts made by two leading scholars of the Chinese School of IR (hereafter Chinese School), Zhao Tingyang and Qin Yaqing, whose works claim to be informed by Confucianism. In order to see whether and how far Confucian cosmology has served as an alternative meta-theoretical resource to theorize global politics differently. While the potential (and limits) of Confucian cosmology may deserve further exploration in IR, this article finds that it does not constitute the meta-theoretical backbone of their respective theo...
This article examines competing narratives over belonging and authority at Japan's and China's margins by excavating the discursive practices employed by relevant state and substate actors in framing, contesting and (dis)assembling... more
This article examines competing narratives over belonging and authority at Japan's and China's margins by excavating the discursive practices employed by relevant state and substate actors in framing, contesting and (dis)assembling totalizing claims over Ryukyu/Okinawa and Taiwan since the late nineteenth century. Informed by the critical international relations literature on practices of statecraft and Foucauldian conceptions of power as productive and discursive, we suggest that the aforementioned 'margins' are sites central to the constitution, production and maintenance of Chinese and Japanese state identities, which have been repeatedly performed through violent material and discursive practices concealing these two states' lack of ontological foundation. We look at how the state-centric narratives employed by the Chinese and Japanese authorities have worked to limit, curtail and suppress their locally generated counter-narratives in such cases as the Taiwan Expedition (1874), the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute and boundary-making between Okinawa and Taiwan. However, these cases also show that efforts to contain resistance to the state's inscription of boundaries separating an 'inside/self/domestic' from an 'outside/other/foreign' cannot fully succeed, not only because where there is power there is resistance but also because the state would wither away should its identity formation be successful in the terms in which it is articulated.
A growing number of Asian scholars have been engaging in indigenous theory-building that seeks to gain wider recognition for their local experiences and intellectual traditions in an international relations discipline that is still... more
A growing number of Asian scholars have been engaging in indigenous theory-building that seeks to gain wider recognition for their local experiences and intellectual traditions in an international relations discipline that is still dominated by Western theories and methods. After examining recent attempts to develop a distinctive Japanese approach to world politics, I argue that such attempts should proceed with great caution, for their epistemological underpinnings remain Eurocentric. A close look at the Japanese conceptions of international society indicates that they reproduce, rather than challenge, a normative hierarchy embedded in the English school between the creators of Westphalian norms and those at the receiving end. To take seriously the agency rote of non-Western ideas in gearing the discipline in a truly international, less hegemonic direction , Japanese IR should recognize the plural origins and constitutional structures of international society and learn from social science and humanities communities in Asia and beyond.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The apparent difference between their respective national images notwithstanding, both Taiwan and North Korea have acquired a pariah-like status in post-Cold War East Asia. Moreover, their isolation points to the unsettled (and... more
The apparent difference between their respective national images notwithstanding, both Taiwan and North Korea have acquired a pariah-like status in post-Cold War East Asia. Moreover, their isolation points to the unsettled (and increasingly tense) security competition between the USA and the PRC. Given the deeply intertwined trajectory of these two regional hot spots since the onset of the Cold War in Asia, this chapter argues that the handling of these two issues cannot be entirely separated from each other. It consists of four sections. The first and second sections seek to locate the relationship between Taiwan and North Korea in its historical and contemporary contexts. On that basis, the third section examines Taipei’s typically low-key policy toward Pyongyang, analyzing the extent to which Taiwan represents a loophole in international sanctions against North Korea. In the concluding section, the feasibility as to how the USA and the PRC might “trade” their respective interests in Taiwan and North Korea will be evaluated. Source: Utpal Vyas, Ching-Chang Chen and Denny Roy (eds.) The North Korea Crisis and Regional Responses (Honolulu: East-West Center, 2015), ch. 10.
Research Interests:
This chapter illustrates why Taiwan's waiver of strategic hedging amid the US rebalancing to Asia cannot be adequately explained by materialist perspectives, pointing to the importance of its ontological security needs. Source: Yoichiro... more
This chapter illustrates why Taiwan's waiver of strategic hedging amid the US rebalancing to Asia cannot be adequately explained by materialist perspectives, pointing to the importance of its ontological security needs. Source: Yoichiro Sato and Tan See Seng (eds.) United States Engagement in the Asia Pacific: Perspectives from Asia (New York: Cambria Press, 2015), ch. 5.
Research Interests:
Chapter 10 in Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski (Palgrave 2014)
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper explores how and why China has been perceived as an economic threat in Taiwan through an examination of Taipei’s post-Cold War economic policy with respect to the mainland. While Taipei’s restriction on trade and investment... more
This paper explores how and why China has been perceived as an economic threat in Taiwan through an examination of Taipei’s post-Cold War economic policy with respect to the mainland. While Taipei’s restriction on trade and investment across the Taiwan Strait until mid-2008 was widely considered a failure by both opponents and supporters of closer cross-Strait economic ties, this analysis points to an overlooked function of Taiwan’s economic policy that was not just about tackling the problems of the security externalities or promoting the island’s economic development. What appeared to be an ineffective policy can be understood as a successful boundary-drawing practice that discursively constituted a vulnerable Taiwan under Chinese economic threat, hence conducive to the (re)production of Taiwanese national identity.
Research Interests:
My review of These Islands Are Ours by Alexander Bukh (Stanford University Press, 2020)
This is a book review of Danger, Development and Legitimacy in East Asian Maritime Politics: Securing the Seas, Securing the State, by Christian Wirth.
This is a book review of Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).
Research Interests:
China and International Theory: The Balance of Relationships 1st Edition Chih-yu Shih et al. Summary Major IR theories, which stress that actors will inevitably only seek to enhance their own interests, tend to contrive binaries of self... more
China and International Theory: The Balance of Relationships
1st Edition
Chih-yu Shih et al.

Summary
Major IR theories, which stress that actors will inevitably only seek to enhance their own interests, tend to contrive binaries of self and other and ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. By contrast, this book recognizes the general need of all to relate, which they do through various imagined resemblances between them.
The authors of this book therefore propose the ‘balance of relationships’ (BoR) as a new international relations theory to transcend binary ways of thinking. BoR theory differs from mainstream IR theories owing to two key differences in its epistemological position. Firstly, the theory explains why and how states as socially-interrelated actors inescapably pursue a strategy of self-restraint in order to join a network of stable and long-term relationships. Secondly, owing to its focus on explaining bilateral relations, BoR theory bypasses rule-based governance. By positing ‘relationality’ as a key concept of Chinese international relations, this book shows that BoR can also serve as an important concept in the theorization of international relations, more broadly.
The rising interest in developing a Chinese school of IR means the BoR theory will draw attention from students of IR theory, comparative foreign policy, Chinese foreign policy, East Asia, cultural studies, post-Western IR, post-colonial studies and civilizational politics.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Relating China to International Relations
Part 1: Balance of Relationships
1. Relationality vs. Power Politics
2. Relational Policy of Small States
3. Relational Policy of Major Powers
Part 2: Philosophical Resources
4. Relational Ontology
5. Buddhist State of Nature
6. Cyclical Perspective on History
Part 3. Processes of BoR
7. Cultural Memory
8. Psychological Efficacy
9. Institutional Style
Part 4. Identities of the Theory
10. Plausible Post-Western Theory
11. Plausible Chinese Theory
12. Plausible Western Theory
In Lieu of Conclusion. Four Caveats

Preface

During the development of the balance of relationships (BoR) as simultaneously a theory undergirding an international system and a strategic agency, we face the challenge of engaging in and contributing to two major dialogues at the same time––international relations theory in general and the relational turn in particular. Further complicating this challenge is the fact that the second dialogue involves a readership across the Anglosphere and the Sinosphere, with both spheres similarly focusing on why and how relations are necessary in international relations but from different cultural backgrounds. In this light, our intension is for our theory to transcend the familiar binaries of China and the West, great and small powers, rationality and relationality, as well as those reflecting political rivalries. Nevertheless, our prime purpose is to illustrate how Chinese intellectual resources can enhance the understanding of international relations and foreign policy practices everywhere. Through doing so, we hope to tackle the misreading and misconstruction of Chinese international relations. Consequently, our writing seeks to construct bridges across seemingly incongruent epistemological traditions.
This book accordingly offers a composite agenda comparing and reconciling relational imaginations of different kinds through the notion of the balance of relationships. We have opted to focus mainly on unpacking the concepts, ideas and epistemology that undergird BoR theory. Thus, we took out extensive case chapters. Nevertheless, we rely on examples to scope out its potential application to make sense of real-world phenomena that familiar IR theories struggle to explain.
Such a double-headed mission complicates not only the writing but also the coordination among authors. I am grateful to my eight younger colleagues who fearlessly agreed to join the collective writing of this book, which trespasses multiple fields and critically moves outside familiar scopes of thinking. Our professional teaching spreads over the disciplines of political science, postcolonial studies, modern Chinese history, intellectual history, philosophy, East Asian and Chinese studies, and ethnic studies. In terms of nationality, we come from Japan, the Netherlands, Taiwan, and Thailand. We have received doctoral training or taught in Australia, China, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Thailand, Taiwan, the UK, and the US for extensive periods respectively in our careers. All these factors meant parallel and long processes of negotiation and coordination. However, as the existence of this work now shows, in the end we managed to merge all these diverse perspectives together and establish our own balance of relationships among ourselves.
We realize that it is unconventional to have nine coauthors as opposed to nine authors of separate chapters. I rather enjoyed the processes of cooperation and coordination, however.
As I have always initiated the idea and the writing of a chapter, my coauthors joined at different points upon my invitation and yet inevitably contributed across the writing of different chapters. We interacted intensively. At least four of us participated in finalizing all chapters. Relying on our other collaborative projects or workshops, I was able to improvise meetings with coauthors every once in a while over the past few years. The major sponsor for the writing of the book was nevertheless a three-year writing grant I received from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan from 2014 through 2017. A few summer and winter camps specifically contrived to introduce the balance of relationships to younger generations were organized in the Center of International China Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Division of Area Studies at the University of Tokyo, the Department of Political Science of National Taiwan University, and the Institute of International Relations of Shanghai Tongji University.
With the support of the editors of the Worlding the West Series of Routledge and the publication of this book, we wish to engender likewise passion in the Anglosphere to reflect upon China and international theory in even more comprehensive and sophisticated ways.
Chih-yu Shih

Author(s) Bio
Chih-yu Shih, the primary author of this book, teaches international relations theory, anthropology of Knowledge, and cultural studies as National Chair Professor and University Chair Professor at National Taiwan University. Access to his current research—Intellectual History of China and Chinese Studies—is at http://www.china-studies.taipei/ Together, his writings on IR theory, intellectual history, and ethnic citizenship challenge familiar social science and humanity categories. His co-authors—Chiung-chiu Huang (National Cheng-chi University), Pichamon Yeophantong (University of New South Wales, Canberra), Raoul Bunskoek (National Taiwan University), Josuke Ikeda (Toyama University), Yih Jye Jay Hwang (Leiden University), Hung-jen Wang (National Cheng-Kung University), Chih-yun Chang (Shanghai Jiaotong University), and Ching-chang Chen (Ryukoku University)—have all published critically on Asia in IR in general and on China, Japan, Taiwan and ASEAN in specific. They have come cross each other through different joint projects involving critical IR, post-Western IR, homegrown IR, global IR, Asian IR and Chinese IR. Their careers include professional posts in India, Germany, Thailand, Japan, the US, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Australia, and China.
Chiung-chiu Huang is Associate Professor at the Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies, National Chengchi University, Taiwan.
Pichamon Yeophantong is Senior Lecturer at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Australia.
Raoul Bunskoek is a Ph. D candidate in the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University, Taiwan.
Josuke Ikeda is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Human Development, University of Toyama, Japan.
Jay Yih-Jye Hwang is Assistant Professor at Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University College, The Netherlands
Hung-jen Wang is Associate Professor at Department of Political Science, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.
Chih-yun Chang is a Research Fellow at the Department of History, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China.
Ching-chang Chen is Associate Professor at Department of Global Studies, Ryokoku University, Japan.

Routledge
April 8, 2019
Reference - 320 Pages - 3 B/W Illustrations
ISBN 9781138390508 - CAT# K399572
Series: Worlding Beyond the West