From the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, China gained infamy for widespread banditry across its territory, with Manchuria being one of the regions most affected. During this period, the emerging Japanese empire saw banditry as a ‘local specialty’ of Manchuria. However, the representations of Manchurian bandits in the Japanese media were not entirely negative; they were often depicted as masculine heroes fighting for justice. What did this fantasized image of Manchuria as a land of horse-riding righteous bandits signify? This article analyses the term bazoku (meaning horse-riding bandits), and the fantasy of Manchurian bandits in the Japanese popular media from the 1900s to the 1920s, exploring the politics shaping these representations. The image of Manchuria as a land of bazoku in the Japanese media reconceptualized it as a Japanese frontier, separated from China. The term bazoku came to embody a specific spatio-temporality—Manchuria from the nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries—demonstrating the epistemological construction of Manchuria as an outlaw territory outside of Chinese jurisdiction, thus justifying Japan’s intervention. The bazoku fantasy also shaped Japanese imperial masculinity, characterized by intellectual qualities such as rationality and leadership, cultivated through self-discipline, and thereby deemed fit to lead Asian nations. This construct established a hierarchy of nationally defined masculinities, with Japanese masculinity positioned at the top. In this context, imperial masculinity supported the Pan-Asianist ideology that legitimized Japanese expansion across Asia.

This article examines the distinction between dizi 弟子 and menren 門人 in early Chinese texts, with particular attention paid to the Lunyu 論語 (Analects of Confucius) and the broader Ru 儒 (“Confucian” or “Classicist”) tradition. Whether these terms designate identical or distinct groups of disciples has long been a matter of debate, beginning with early medieval commentaries and culminating in the interpretation that they refer to “first-” and “second-generation” followers. Advancing this discussion, the article offers a systematic analysis of menren across early Chinese sources and presents substantial, previously overlooked evidence supporting a meaningful distinction between the two designations. In doing so, it sheds new light on early conceptions of Confucius’s following and on the social organization of the Ru tradition more broadly. This article argues that menren are best understood not as “second-generation” disciples, but as “second-rank” students who, while occupying a formally subordinate position within an extended circle of adherents, nevertheless remained closely affiliated with their teacher.

The United States government sought to rehabilitate the devastated Philippines through a scholarship for Filipino youths at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Many Filipinos fought against the Japanese bravely and endured much hardship during the war on the side of the United States, including a significant portion of the cadets sent to the academy. Their stories were captured in a cadet corps magazine called Polaris, in which they described their experiences of war in gruesome detail, but in a way clearly influenced by the liberation narratives of the Japanese imperialists.

This article reconsiders three of the most iconic mushroom catalogues of classical China, which underscored the culinary value of local fungi, in light of indebtedness to medical and self-cultivation literature. Through this re-examination of mycological sources and the imbrication of discourses that they exhibit, mushrooms emerge as richer, more complex, objects of gastronomic interest.

This article examines the relationship between military organization and regional governance in the Western Zhou 西周 state (ca. 1045–771 BCE), focusing on the role that regional military bases directly administered by the Zhou royal court played in reinforcing the geopolitical cohesion of the Zhou realm. By analyzing inscriptional and archaeological evidence, it argues that Qi shi 齊師 was one such regional Zhou garrison in northern Shandong. In the decentralized political structure of the Western Zhou state, political and military power were shared between the Zhou king and the regional nobility, rendering the participation of regional auxiliaries essential for Zhou military operations. Within this framework, regional Zhou military bases served as enclaves of royal power that extended the range of central reach in regional governance and facilitated the coordination of the dispersed military resources in the Zhou realm for common defense, thereby fostering the geopolitical integration of the Western Zhou state.

This article discusses the localised provision of basic services (health, education, livelihood support) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia, by taking the case of SONJO, a digital mutual aid community in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Through a Foucauldian governmentality analytical lens, we argue that SONJO showcases contradictory ways in which a locally and digitally self-governed community supports citizens’ welfare and well-being during a crisis. On the one hand, the community facilitates redistribution of resources by its leaders and members, ensuring the delivery of social services to those most in need. On the other hand, the community’s activation of localised practices of sambatan—rural Javanese practices of mobilising common resources in time of need—normalises the neoliberal transfer of state responsibilities and decision-making for basic services to citizens. The case study helps unpack the intertwining of neoliberal ideas—which champion individuals as self-reliant actors—and Javanese principles of harmony that emphasise social togetherness, communality, and empathy. Together, they render acceptable the unpaid labour of community members in managing services for fellow citizens within a local context marked by pervasive precarious work, underdeveloped welfare support, and recurrent natural disasters that disrupt livelihoods.

While the social and political contributions of Iranian Shii émigré scholars to the early modern Deccan have attracted some scholarly attention, the actual contents of their intellectual production remain understudied. An important reason for this is the broader neglect of the corpus of commentaries and translations in the early modern Islamicate world. To address this gap, this article analyses the ways in which Ibn Khātūn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1059/1649) combines the genres of translation and gloss in his Persian rendition of a hadith collection by Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1030/1621). After providing an overview of translation projects of Shii texts in the Deccan and a biographical sketch of Ibn Khātūn, I examine the latter’s translation and commentarial strategies. I show how, by merging elements of translation and gloss into his text, the author addresses the needs of an intellectual milieu characterised by a high level of pedagogical engagement in the transmission of Shii knowledge.

This article analyzes the role the transnational and colonial legacies in Siamese collecting practices in the nineteenth century and twentieth century. Through the case study of a Ganesha statue (Phra Phi Ganet) from Candi Singosari near Malang, East-Java, in the Bangkok National Museum (Phiphitthaphanthasathan Haeng Chat Phra Nakhon), this article argues that king Chulalongkorn, on his second trip to Java in 1896, was an active actor who was able to benefit from the Dutch lack of professionalisation in Javanese collecting practices to gather a large amount of objects, which he utilised to foster the creation of Thai national modernity and identity. As such, it argues we must understand this dynamic not as pure Westernisation but rather a refraction of the colonial model of Java, where Thai national identity was built on objects from outside Siamese borders. Based on the diary of Chulalongkorn as well as Dutch, Indonesian, and Thai archival sources, it shows how Chulalongkorn collected objects of Hindu-Buddhist nature that fitted his interest and legitimacy for royal authority, cemented by 1926. By doing so, this research allows us to reconsider the colonial collecting practices outside the coloniser-colonised dichotomy, the transnational aspect of modern nation-building, and their implications for museums across Southeast Asia and Europe today.

This article examines the cyclical nature of monetisation and demonetisation in Taizhou (台州) during the Song and Yuan dynasties. By analysing local fiscal policies, taxation systems, and economic structures, it reveals a complex process of monetary evolution. The Song Dynasty saw significant fiscal monetization, driven by military needs and implemented through innovative tax systems. However, the Yuan Dynasty witnessed a partial reversal, with a shift towards physical taxation and reduced monetary demands. This research highlights the interplay between central government policies, local fiscal structures, and broader economic trends. It challenges linear models of economic development and emphasises the importance of regional variations in understanding historical monetisation processes.

How does the party-state exercise leadership over universities and manage the individuals embedded in the university system without restraining their capacity for excellence and innovation? I argue that the presidential responsibility system has resolved a fundamental agency problem in Chinese universities. The system is supported by a set of mechanisms designed to enforce loyalty to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. It can easily adapt to political changes and thus maintain authoritarian rule without compromising the overarching agenda of research excellence.

The Middle Persian Nāmagīhā ī Manuščihr “Epistles of Manuščihr”, the Zoroastrian high priest of Pārs and Kermān, written in 881 ce, are an important testimony of an inner-Zoroastrian dispute on orthopraxy in early Islamic Iran. They reflect Manuščihr’s efforts to preserve the extensive purification ritual Baršnūm against being substituted with a simplified ritual by his brother, the teacher-priest (Hērbed) Zādspram. Manuščihr wrote three letters to make his position clear. His second letter, addressed to Zādspram, is interesting not only for its theological debate but also for the personal relationship it reveals between two priest-brothers. Manuščihr argues on an elaborate scholarly level by quoting from the religious authoritative texts, and expresses his brotherly love and responsibility for leading his younger brother back to the correct path. This article focuses on his theological argumentation but also on the debate, how the family ties may have affected it and how he used linguistic expressions and style in this context.

This article reconsiders late Qing state building through the underexamined lens of ecological governance, moving beyond teleological narratives of imperial decline to reassess the regime’s resilience and institutional adaptability under conditions of mounting environmental, fiscal, and geopolitical strain. Drawing on a transregional synthesis of ecological, social, political, and economic historiography, it argues that the crises confronting the Qing in the nineteenth century stemmed less from institutional stagnation or state decay than from a profound mismatch between inherited governing capacities and intensifying socio-ecological pressures generated by population growth, commercialization, and environmental degradation. Employing R. Bin Wong’s analytical framework of Challenges, Capacities, Commitments, and Claims, the article traces how the Qing state recalibrated its governing priorities in response to these challenges and constraints. Through six case studies spanning agrarian cores and imperial borderlands, it shows how ecological governance took multiple, regionally differentiated forms. Across these settings, the state selectively retreated from labour-intensive, resource-consuming paternalistic commitments while expanding extractive, coercive, and territorial strategies aimed at dynastic survival. Rather than signalling simple state decline, these uneven and survival-oriented adaptations constituted a process of governing recalibration shaped by negotiation among state authorities, local actors, and non-human forces such as water, soil, and forests. By foregrounding the agency of ecological dynamics, this article situates the late Qing within broader debates on empire, sustainability, and state capacity, offering a comparative framework for understanding how premodern and modern states confronted environmental limits in moments of systemic crisis.