Impacto y temporalidad.

Poco más de medio año fue el plazo que en julio de 1853 el comodoro Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794-1858) concedió al gobierno samurai para la firma de un tratado llamado a transformar explosivamente varios siglos de historia japonesa. Tras comprobar la potencia de sus cañones, las autoridades militares locales no demoraron mucho en convencerse. Sin embargo, lo más terrible de la tecnología armamentista estaba aún por aparecer y faltaban todavía algunos decenios para que el ruso Anatoly Georgievich Ufimtsev (1880-1936) inventara en 1898 un híbrido tan caprichoso, mezcla de gradualidad y explosión, como una bomba de relojería… 

Una página del libro
de Hosokawa

En 1796, año octavo de Kansei, cincuenta y siete años antes de la llegada a la bahía de Uraga de los cuatro navíos militares comandados por el norteamericano, un descendiente de los condestables de Tosa llamado Hosokawa Hanzō (1741-1796), quien ejercía las complejas funciones de tenmonkata (天文方) del gobierno de bakufu, como para cerrar con un acto inolvidable la página última de su vida, publicó en Edo un libro, insólito ya para su época, que guardaba más maravillas que una caja de sorpresas para la posteridad. La obra, compuesta de tres partes, contenía meticulosas descripciones verbales, ilustradas hasta el más mínimo detalle, de trece mecanismos: cuatro tipos de relojes japoneses y nueve muñecos mecánicos. Inicialmente Hanzō, el autor, había concebido su Kikōzui (『機巧図彙』) como un texto que compilaba exclusivamente las nueve descripciones de muñecos, pero después comprendió que resultaba desde todo punto de vista imprescindible incluir también una sección dedicada a los relojes, así que decidió anteponer a las dos partes que había elaborado previamente, otra dedicada por entero a los cuatro tipos de wadokei (和時計). Y conviene destacar que el hecho de que precisamente la parte tercera en el orden cronológico de elaboración, acabara por ser elegida como la primera en el orden lógico de la exposición, demostró tener a la larga un significado mucho más sugerente que el de una simple elección aleatoria de su autor referente a su concepción formal.

Inter-Asia think tank partners ranked among the best in the world

An important aspect of the Inter-Asia research group's current project The impact of East Asia in the Spanish context: Cultural production, politics/policies and society, funded by the Spanish government, is the role of our close cooperation with external entities that promote the project and observe its results (Entes Promotores Observadores; EPOs), including leading think tanks in Spain and in China.The International Relations Program of the University of Pennsylvania has recently published its Global Go to Think Tanks Report 2011, the fifth edition of its annual report, lead by Professor James G. McGann, and the only international ranking system for think tanks available to date. As part of the survey process, the Report contacted 6,545 think tanks, while producing the most authoritative list of high performance think tanks in the world.

Any nou xinès transnacional (I): Remeses o el “hongbao” electrònic

La presencia de Xina a l’Estat Espanyol – en les seves diverses variants- es cada vegada un fet més evident i tangible. Això es deu, entre d’altres factors, als processos interculturals inherents al fet migratori. 

Cada vegada és més clar que la presència de persones d'origen xinès a l’Estat Espanyol està comportant canvis en la morfologia i l’estructura de diverses ciutats i municipis però potser és menys coneguda la repercussió d’aquesta sinergia intercultural als llocs d’on provenen les persones xineses que viuen a l’Estat Espanyol. Com veurem a través d’aquest i el següent post, la celebració del denominat “any nou xinès” és un bon exemple d’aquest procés de doble influència. 

China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) - CIDOB Foundation think tank seminar on the EU sovereign debt crisis

On 7 November 2011, Inter-Asia research group member Sean Golden helped organise the CIDOB Foundation of Barcelona think tank seminar requested by a visiting delegation of scholars from the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) to discuss the EU sovereign debt crisis and Sino-Spanish relations:

China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) - CIDOB Foundation think tank seminar on the EU sovereign debt crisis

On 25 November 2011, Inter-Asia research group member Sean Golden co-organised with the CIDOB Foundation of Barcelona and participated in a think tank seminar requested by a visiting delegation of scholars from the China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss the EU sovereign debt crisis, the role of municipal governments under globalisation and Sino-Spanish relations:

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) - CIDOB Foundation think tank seminar on the EU sovereign debt crisis

On 9 November 2011, Inter-Asia research group member Sean Golden co-organised with the CIDOB Foundation of Barcelona and participated in a think tank seminar requested by a visiting delegation of scholars from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), on the following topics: 

• The extent to which the European sovereign debt crisis has an impact on European Economic recovery, growth patterns, and relationships with trading partners;
• Rules and impact of EU economic governance vis-a-vis Spain;
• Spanish strategies towards EU governance measures;
• Spanish attitude towards IMF, World Bank, G20 and other international institutions;
• Spanish expectations of future bilateral relations with China and the role of Spain within the framework of EU China relations.

8th EastAsiaNet Research Workshop

Inter-Asia research group member Sean Golden spoke at the 8th EastAsiaNet Research Workshop organised by the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna (Austria) on 15-17 September 2011.

His contribution to Section A: The Future of Higher Education on East Asia: Concepts and Experiences was entitled Do East Asian Studies really exist?:

Abstract:

I have been actively involved in setting up East Asian studies at university level in Spain since I arrived there from China in 1984 and found that they did not yet exist at that time. The process was long and laborious. By the 1988-1989 academic year we were able to introduce the study of Chinese and Japanese into an official undergraduate degree course and we created a Chinese Studies Centre and a Japanese Studies Centre. It took another 10 years to create an undergraduate degree in Area Studies that included a specialisation in East Asian Studies form a multidisciplinary point of view, still concentrating on China and Japan but also introducing Korean language studies. Five years later the Spanish government formally created an official undergraduate degree in East Asian Studies. During this entire process I was involved in university administration as a Dean of a Faculty and as a member of the Governing Board of the university. I also acted as an adviser to the regional and national governments and published studies of how to organise East Asian Studies. On the basis of this experience I would like to comment on the question “Do East Asian Studies really exist?” By this I mean to ask whether or not it is possible to carry out coordinated studies of an area recognised to be “East Asia” from a variety of humanistic and social science disciplines, or whether what we call East Asian Studies is simply the sum of a various uncoordinated academic offers based on Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, etc. A debate on this subject might make it possible to formulate some basic EastAsiaNet guidelines for the organisation of East Asian Studies.

First Asia-Europe Forum on Methods and Perspectives of Risk Analysis

Inter-Asia reserach group member Sean Golden spoke at the First Asia-Europe Forum on Methods and Perspectives of Risk Analysis co-organised at the City University of Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Advanced Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Studies of City University and by the In-EAST: Institute of East Asian Studies of Universität Duisburg-Essen (Germany) in collaboration with EastAsiaNet on 17-18 November 2011. His topic was Discourse and Risk in Chinese Strategic Thinking:

Abstract

Discourse has been a focus for Chinese thinking on risk and strategy from ancient times until the present. After presenting some examples of discourse analysis in the context of risk in classical Chinese politic and military thought, his presentation proposed that reading between the lines of official policy statements today in order to identify underlying issues of conflict and political struggle can be a valuable instrument for risk analysis in the context of contemporary Chinese studies. Discourse analysis can be applied equally well to the official policy statements of the USA or the EU in order to gauge the state of their relations with China or their mutual relations. The presentation was based on a brief selection of case studies.

Polítiques d’immigració a Catalunya i respostes als problemes de comunicació amb la població immigrada (I)

Al llarg dels últims anys, l’arribada a Catalunya d’immigrants que desconeixen les llengües oficials ha posat a prova la societat catalana. De l’any 2000 al 2010, la població d’origen estranger a Catalunya va passar de 181.590 immigrants censats a un total de 1.198.538 a finals del 2010, un augment que equival al 15,95% de la població total (dades extretes de l'Institut d'Estadística de Catalunya, IDESCAT). En el cas de la immigració xinesa, de 4.461 ciutadans xinesos el 2000 es va passar 46.333 ciutadans el 2010, amb una distribució en el territori cada cop més dispersa (vegeu Beltrán Antolín, 2009).

Font: Dades del padró continu (Idescat)