Internet service providers (ISPs) have played an important role in China's internet regulation regime. This article illustrates how ISPs are governed to serve the government's regulatory goals. This involves examining some of the most extraordinary and profound insights concerning internet governance: the theories of the layers principle, the end-to-end argument and the generative internet. Chinese ISPs have been dependent rather than neutral regulatory intermediaries of the government. Moreover, in addition to telecommunication carriers, the radio and television networks affiliated to the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) are to become a new type of ISP that is capable of choking the free spirit of the internet, as recently demonstrated by the far-reaching policy of “network convergence.” This article argues that the policy has the potential to drastically alter the structure and ecology of the internet in China.

Although many state agencies in China are designated with a function of “representing” ordinary people's interests, they are poorly structured for that purpose. It is therefore puzzling why some of them have at times actively and effectively advocated the interests of ordinary people, even when such interests may conflict with state policies. To solve this puzzle, this article examines a recent campaign by the Chinese Disabled Persons Federation to resist a national trend to ban the use of three-wheelers for passenger transport by many local governments. Our analysis recognizes the importance of personal motivations and favourable political structure, but it emphasizes that forceful popular collective action can create both pressure and opportunity for active state advocacy. Such a pattern of mutual-reinforcement between mass organizations and their constituency has sometimes contributed to the dynamics of political change in the reform era.

Taiwan studies is confronting several challenges from within and outside the academy to its vitality if not viability. The growing attraction of mainland China to researchers, the encroachment of disciplines and marginalization of area studies, and the closing life cycles of several of the most salient research themes on Taiwan, have all contributed to the sense of a field in decline. This article seeks to provide a more concrete empirical basis for assessing the state of the Taiwan studies field. Drawing on content analysis of journal publications, combined with citation data and a survey of Taiwan specialists, the article addresses a number of key questions about the field.

In recent years China's national oil companies (NOCs) have proactively ventured abroad to look for more fossil fuel supply. Despite the divided views on their foreign energy quest, previous studies tend to consider the Chinese government and its NOCs to be a monolithic organism, and explicitly or implicitly presuppose that the Chinese NOCs' foreign energy quest could enhance China's energy security. This is, however, an untested hypothesis. To fill the gap, this article assesses the impact of Chinese NOCs' foreign energy quest on the country's energy security. Findings show that the Chinese NOCs have made some progress in their foreign energy quest, which contributes to their coffers and reserves, but that does not mean that China's energy security is greatly enhanced; in particular, the diversity and reliability of China's foreign oil sources are questionable.

Westernization is a pervasive modern phenomenon. Its impact is more pervasive and pernicious than many people are aware and/or willing to admit. The spread of the dominant Western culture has caused a gradual demise of many peripheral cultures. The incursion of Western agents into Naga soil, beginning with British military conquest and American missionary intrusion, has resulted in a significant influence and westernization of Nagas and their culture and worldview. Consequently, it is almost a cliché to assert that since colonial contact the long-evolved Naga traditional values are being replaced by Western values. Today, the literal colonization of Nagas by the imperial West has ended, but the process of westernization is continuing, thanks to the ongoing influence being exerted by modern media, technology and other trends of globalization. My objective in this paper is not to highlight the ‘form’ or ‘material’ aspect of the culture, such as clothing (although mimicry in this area is almost faultless among a large section of Nagas), rather, my goal is to discuss the current state of mindset and fundamental cultural structures of the Nagas that have resulted from the adjustments in the lives and minds of the people because of the imposition of westernization. In fact, it is more than merely a process of adjustment consequent upon conquest, it is an extensive overhauling of cultural institutions, values and practices. I will underscore the westernization of some basic social structures and the mindset of the people.

Covering one hundred years, this paper recounts the life stories of three generations of middle-class women of the New Delhi-based Kapoor family. By taking the methodological view that individuals born approximately at the same time, within the same class segment, and at the same cultural place will be shaped by the same historical structures so that their lives to some extent are synchronized into a gendered, generational experience, these three life stories are viewed as voices that reflect their respective generational class segments. In view of this, the paper uses the three life stories to discuss changes in women's agency within the urban, educated, upper middle-class. Agency is here understood as control over resources, and it is argued that in order to understand changes in women's agency, one should take into account the impact of both social, economic structures and cultural ideologies. When analysing the three life stories, the overall finding is that the granddaughter has had more control over her own life than her mother and grandmother. However, by acknowledging that cultural ideologies and social economic structures are not always synchronized, a nuanced and many-dimensional picture of twists and turns in these middle-class women's degree and type of agency over time emerges.

The English East India Company established a factory on the island of Condore, off the coast of southern Vietnam, in 1702 as part of its plan to maintain a settlement to direct shipping activities between trading ports in China and Southeast Asia and India. For three years, the settlement thrived and was an important part of the China trade network, especially as a stopping point for ships plying the China route. The island settlement also carried out trading activities with neighbouring ports along the Indochina coast and the Malay Archipelago. The setting up of the factory, however, coincided with the emergence of the new entity of southern Vietnam under the Nguyễn family who were expanding their power-base to the south. In the process, the Nguyễn had already subdued the Chams and were coming face-to-face with the Khmers when the English factory was established. This paper will trace the English venture on Condore Island and the reaction of the Nguyễn ruler towards this venture which culminated with the destruction of the factory in 1705. This paper will attempt to explore the following questions: the shifting importance of the islands in the Nguyễn's security and foreign relations vis-à-vis the English factory, and will also investigate the circumstances that brought about the massacre and destruction of the English factory on Pulo Condore—a historical event that has not been properly explained thus far.

This paper examines the relationship between ethnic configuration and state social policy in a Chinese context. Why did the Chinese communist government have to implement a preferential policy towards ethnic minorities, and to what extent has this policy come to reshape peoples’ consciousness of their group membership? As well as analysing the reasons and intents of the Chinese Communist Party when dealing with the minority issue before and after it attained power, this paper argues that categorizing of the population served to establish the state apparatus. Why the project of ethnic identification was first initiated in Fujian (a province best known for its overwhelming Han culture) is also discussed. By unfolding the process of searching for ethnic representation in Fujian in the early 1950s, this paper further argues that the major concern of the party-state regarding ethnic minorities is to hold onto its power. Finally, this paper documents how government agents, when investigating ethnicity, interacted with the local population. The Fujian case implies as well as exemplifies how ethnicity can be invented, constructed or reconstructed as a particular representation in relation to state formation.

Recent economic changes in India have coincided with a dramatic change in the concept of a ‘middle class’ in the south Indian city of Madurai. Whereas previous sets of class identities were overwhelmingly dichotomous (for example, the rich and the poor, or the ‘big people’ and ‘those who have nothing’), the middle class has now become a highly elaborated component of local class structures and identities. It is also a contested category; moreover, its indigenous boundaries differ from those most often used by scholars, marketers, or policy-makers. Drawing from research over the past decade, this paper examines local definitions of ‘middleness’ and the moralized meanings ascribed to it. Whilst being ‘in the middle’ is a source of pride and pleasure, connoting both achievement and enhanced self-control, it is simultaneously a source of great tension, bringing anxiety over the critical and damaging scrutiny of onlookers. For each positive aspect of a middle-class identity that emphasizes security and stability, there is a negative ramification or consequence that highlights the precariousness and potential instability of middle-class life. In exploring each of these aspects, I pay attention to the explicitly performative features of class identities. I conclude by considering the epistemological and experiential insights we gain into the construction of emergent class categories by focusing on self-ascribed identities and their performance.