After the rural tax and fee reform in China in the 2000s, the increased administrative nature of rural governance weakened state–peasant connections, rendering local cadres’ traditional societal-oriented consent strategies ineffective. To gain peasants’ consent to state policies and reconnect with them, grassroots officials adopted a more complex, covert and naturalized strategy for constructing consent, integrating it into peasants’ daily lives. This study uses the “rural construction” initiative in Chuxi county, China, as a case study to explore the construction of consent. The findings indicate that constructing peasant consent is a process of continuous interaction between the individual actor and social structures. In the regularization phase, grassroots officials use institutional practices to facilitate consent, including winning the hearts and minds of villagers, solving “thought” problems, shaping behavioural norms and cultivating lower-level agents. In the mobilization phase, when consent is needed, grassroots officials flexibly adapt the pre-established institutional elements to elicit specific consent. They do this by fostering an atmosphere of consent, employing divide-and-rule tactics, and contextualizing rules. The study concludes that the party-state is building a broader form of peasant consent in the Xi era, which extends beyond consent to policies.

International law has been predominantly shaped by the West. Despite decolonization, insufficient attention has been paid to non-Western civilizations’ practices, including Asian civilizations. This article examines this insufficiency in relation to treaty interpretation and customary international law identification. To do so, it uses the notion of conscientious objection to military service as a case study. Despite particularly adverse state practice, chiefly in Asia, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) treaty body and UN organs began affirming in the 1990s that the Covenant includes a right to conscientious objection to military service. The first part analyzes whether such a right can be implied from the ICCPR, inter alia, by assessing the practice of Asian states. The second part endeavours to explain the gap between the international human rights machinery’s pronouncements and non-Western practice by discussing the Western-centrism and individual-centrism of interpretations adopted by human rights bodies and organs.

Revolutionary exports are essential to studying China’s relations with Southeast Asia during the Cold War, particularly regarding communist parties in neighbouring countries that received substantial logistical support from China, enabling them to sustain armed struggles. However, previous research has been limited due to the topic’s sensitivity and the scarcity of Chinese-language sources. This article seeks to uncover the logistical system centred on Mengla, Yunnan, designed to support Southeast Asian communist parties, mainly in Laos. By examining the development of Chinese logistics units and the extensive clandestine aid networks (including road construction) that linked China with Laos, this article argues that China’s integrated civil-military logistics support was pivotal in sustaining armed resistance in Southeast Asia and countering the influence of the United States in the region. Additionally, the article examines the dimensions of the Cold War in Asia from the perspective of the ordinary individuals who were direct participants.

The 1920s to 1950s was a period of significant transformation and conflict in South and East Asia, marked by the forces of (anti-)imperialism, nationalism, and militarism, eventually escalating into the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second World War. For a long time, internationalist initiatives hoped that de-escalation and peace could be achieved through diplomacy and exchange. Part of this approach included Asian Christians moving in the milieu of Protestant internationalism, a movement long dominated by American organizations and actors, which after the First World War saw a shift towards Asia—both in terms of representation from and interest in the region.

Between the 1920s and the 1950s, numerous international conferences, organized by missionary associations and organizations such as the World Student Christian Federation or the international Young Men’s Christian Association, debated the political future of Asia in a changing and increasingly belligerent world. The period also witnessed numerous exchanges of Christian delegations between individual countries. By analysing the interrelated histories of three Asian Protestant internationalists—T. Z. Koo of China, Kagawa Toyohiko of Japan, and Augustine Ralla Ram of India—the article offers an examination of the mechanics of Christian diplomacy before, during, and after war. It shows that Protestant internationalist diplomacy, fellowship, and solidarity were often overshadowed by national and political ideologies. However, the article further argues that, despite its shortcomings, which challenged transnational solidarity and fellowship, Christian diplomacy was characterized by a resilience and reach that allowed its Asian protagonists a remarkable international operating space by providing useful networks, opportunities, and resources.

This article presents additional data to better understand the history of intercultural communication between the Yenisei people and the Han Chinese. Although the mysterious history and isolated culture of the ancient Kirghiz (Chinese Xiajiasi 黠戛斯) tribes at the Yenisei River Basin are little known to the world, ancient Chinese books and the artefacts with Chinese characters, unearthed in the Yenisei region, present a vivid picture of the Yenisei people’s foreign exchange history. This article approaches the Yenisei–Chinese cultural interaction from the perspective of the Yenisei Turk-Runic language and the date of the E77 inscription. The research material for this study is the E77 Yenisei inscription that is engraved on a Tang Dynasty bronze mirror called the Sanlejing 三樂鏡 (Lobed Mirror of Three Delights). The authors’ interpretations of the local Runic language on the E77 Yenisei inscription reveal Yenisei people’s knowledge about the Chinese iconic figure of Confucius, which blends into the Tibetan Bon religion as Kong tse or Kong tshe. Therefore, this article confirms the culture contact between the Yenisei and Han Chinese people during the Tang Dynasty.

The present article focuses on two main topics. Firstly, it provides a general overview of Edward W. West’s travels in India, based on an investigation of unpublished documents preserved in London archives. It emerges that there may have been at least four such periods of residence, during which West developed his scientific interests. One of the main objectives of this investigation was to identify traces relating to the manuscripts of the Zoroastrian polemical treatise Škand Gumānīg Wizār. Secondly, it sheds light on the broader context of the first critical edition of the aforementioned treatise, co-authored by West and Dastur Hoshangji JamaspAsana, and published in 1887. The second part raises questions about the complete manuscripts of this treatise, which appear to have been lost. Particular attention is given to AK2.