Ching-Chang Chen
Ryukoku University, Global Studies, Faculty Member
- International Relations Theory, Critical Security Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Critical Discourse Analysis, Foreign Policy Analysis, and 9 moreNational Identity, Territorial Disputes, Northeast Asian Security, Korea (North and/or South), Taiwan, Japan, China, Traditional East Asian medicine, and Ontological Securityedit
- Ching-Chang Chen is Professor of the Department of Global Studies and Director of the Global Affairs Research Centre,... moreChing-Chang Chen is Professor of the Department of Global Studies and Director of the Global Affairs Research Centre, both at Ryukoku University. Before joining Ryukoku, he had taught at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, running various field study programmes to China, Korea and Taiwan. His research interests include international relations theory, critical security studies, and East Asian medicine. Prof. Chen has published articles with Issues and Studies, Journal of Chinese Political Science, International Relations of the Asia Pacific, Asian Perspective, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, International Studies Perspective, Pacific Review, and Third World Quarterly. He co-edited The North Korea Crisis and Regional Responses (East-West Center, 2015) and co-authored China and International Theory (Routledge, 2019). He is a graduate of National Taiwan University and received his PhD in International Politics from Aberystwyth University. In 2019-2020, Prof. Chen was appointed as a visiting research fellow by the New School. He served as a guest editor for Third World Quarterly vol. 45, no. 6.edit
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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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My review of These Islands Are Ours by Alexander Bukh (Stanford University Press, 2020)
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This is a book review of Danger, Development and Legitimacy in East Asian Maritime Politics: Securing the Seas, Securing the State, by Christian Wirth.
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This is a book review of Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).