Internal security has been a governance priority under Xi Jinping. How does China’s budget reflect this prioritization? This research report presents updated data on China’s internal security spending, 1992–2022, revealing a mix of continuity and change. Domestic security expenditure continues to rise, more than doubling from 2012 to 2022, but has risen mostly in proportion to the People’s Republic of China’s overall expenditure. The balance between central and local expenditure has shifted further towards local spending, which, in the context of rising local fiscal constraint, may increase pressure on local public security bureaus. The Ministry of Public Security continues to receive the largest share of domestic security spending, while the proportion of internal security spending allocated to the People’s Armed Police (PAP) has decreased, probably reflecting the reorganization of the PAP in 2017–2018. Spending per capita and relative to GDP continues to be higher in locations that are politically sensitive, including Beijing, Tibet and Xinjiang.

This Forum focuses on the many and diverse smaller polities in a region spanning lands from Bengal and Assam in the west to Yunnan in the east, and from the eastern Himalayas in the north to Thailand in the south. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, these polities underwent dramatic transformations when they faced the impact of Chinese and European encroachments. The ambition of this Forum is to reconnect academic research across the region. Even though this may be a new field of study for contemporary scholars, it is one that the smaller polities actively shaped long before the imperial onslaught. It is diverse, yet tied together by a multitude of interconnections, mobility, and integration through kinship, exchange, shared experiences, and warfare. Scholars of this region, who still work mostly from separate area-studies perspectives, face a challenge. The task ahead is to reconnect their conversations.

This article examines the kidnapping and forced marriages of women under the Peshwas, investigating whether the state prioritized justice for victims or its Brahmanical credentials, given that the annulment of fully performed marriages was prohibited under the Shastras. Far from passively upholding the inherited order, the Peshwa regime actively leveraged intersectional dynamics of gender, caste, and religion to transform that order into a consolidated patriarchal Brahmanical system, reinforcing and totalizing caste-based customs, hierarchies, and governance through judicial and administrative interventions. The article also reveals a binary governance model, highlighting distinctive modes of justice between the capital city of Pune and the countryside. The article interrogates the ambiguity and fluidity of categories used to denote abduction, as well as the associated normative frameworks and penalties, showing how the discursive deployment of familial, communal, caste, ritual, pride, and political dynamics denied women’s agency and subsumed alternative narratives, such as elopement and/or consensual cohabitation. It demonstrates how coercion against women as well as women’s agency were viewed and conceptualized. Moreover, the government’s adherence to patriarchal Brahmanical ideology, derived from the Shastras, not only shaped legal responses but also actively contributed to the ongoing perpetuation of abductions and forced marriages.

This article approaches the 1886 British annexation of the Shan States in Burma from the perspective of small polities responding to British rule and border demarcation by European powers, the Qing empire, and Siam, a regional power centred at Bangkok. It investigates how Shan/Tai polities responded to changing allegiance from the Burman to the British Crown through the case of the Kengtung (Chiang Tung) polity. Britain’s demarcation of borderlines compelled polities originally feudatory to Kengtung to switch allegiance to the Siamese and the French. This response sprang from the traditional Shan/Tai tactic of strategic fluidity rather than actions founded in a clear understanding of the implications of fixed borders. Civil war in the Shan States lying west of the Salween River from the early 1870s uprooted large numbers of Shan people. The Kengtung ruler mobilized them as manpower to consolidate his polity and opened new land in the Mae Sai and Mekok river areas on the Chiang Saen plain, a frontier zone between Kengtung and the Lan Na polity of Chiang Mai. Kengtung’s frontier shrank due to two processes: first, aggression by Siam-controlled Lan Na, and second, by Britain’s choice of border demarcation points in Chiang Saen. By demonstrating the ability of Shan/Tai polities to manoeuvre through intense imperial rivalry for territory this article seeks to counter the assumption that only powerful empires played important roles in the formation of colonial states.

Vietnam’s foreign policy – centred on multilateralisation, diversification, and international integration – has transformed the country’s economic fortunes and elevated its international standing. Throughout the Doi Moi era, Vietnam has cultivated a strong network of bilateral and multilateral frameworks to further its economic aspirations and protect its national sovereignty. It has leveraged astute diplomacy to navigate challenges and seize opportunities. Since the Thirteenth National Party Congress, which set a goal for Vietnam to become a developed nation by 2045, these challenges have become increasingly pronounced. Protectionism, great-power politics, an undermining of the rules-based order, ever-present tensions in the South China Sea, as well as pandemic- and war-related disruptions to supply chains, have complicated Vietnam’s quest for national security and its effort to ensure peace and stability in pursuit of its economic targets. Amidst such a fraught environment, strategic autonomy has become a buzzword among smaller states that seek to maintain the benefits of interdependence while actively alleviating the risks associated with heightened geopolitical tensions and dependent relationships. Scholars of Vietnamese foreign policy likewise argue that Vietnam’s foreign policy seeks to bolster its strategic autonomy. However, little effort has been made to clarify what exactly this entails. The present study defines the concept in the Vietnamese context by asking, “Where and how does Vietnam seek to strengthen its strategic autonomy?” It argues that Vietnam’s pursuit rests on three core components, which it examines through Vietnam’s responses to US–China rivalry, the Russia–Ukraine war, and the country’s evolving approach to infrastructure development, energy security, and foreign direct investment.

In recent years, there has been a growing body of scholarship that distinguishes post-colonial and post-imperial migrations from other forms of migration. However, because this literature largely excludes non-European cases, it remains predominantly Eurocentric. This review article seeks to demonstrate how these studies can be further enriched by incorporating Ottoman migrations (muhacir) as a distinct form of post-imperial migration. To this end, the article evaluates four recently published works on Ottoman migration: İpek’s Migration in the Imperial Territories (Memalik-i Şahanede Muhaceret), Fratantuono’s Governing Migration in the Late Ottoman Empire, Hamed-Troyansky’s Empire of Refugees, and Oktay Özel’s Katamizes In Pursuit of the Blue (Kiske Kuşunun Peşinde Katamizeler). Through a comparative analysis of these works, the article explores the potential contributions of Ottoman post-imperial migration studies to the broader literature on post-imperial migration. In particular, it addresses issues such as the role of official historiography in shaping migration histories; debates over whether migrants were framed as returnees or repatriates; the effects of different imperial structures; and the ethnic and religious composition of both host societies and migrant populations.

Public opinion has become an increasingly consequential force in shaping international relations, with perceptions of China standing at the center of debates across East Asia. Notably, while youth in South Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia tend to hold more negative views of China than their elders, Japan presents a reverse pattern: younger generations display higher affinity toward China compared to older generations. This paper investigates the sources of this divergence using 2023 survey data from the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. Building on generational cohort theory and collective memory, the paper redefines Japanese generational groupings and applies regression analysis to identify the key drivers of affinity toward China. The results show that younger Japanese cohorts, though highly curious and actively consuming China-related information, exhibit limited knowledge of China’s political and social structures and display weaker attentiveness to political dimensions. By contrast, older cohorts anchor their perceptions in political memory and bilateral disputes, leading to increasingly entrenched disillusionment. These findings suggest that Japan’s generational gap reflects internal variations in cognitive socialization rather than an overall warming of bilateral relations, underscoring the need to closely monitor evolving youth perceptions in the years ahead.

This paper examines how well news articles reflect levels of interstate cooperation, focusing on cooperation between the Japanese and the South Korean governments. The study analyzes events from news articles on Japan–Republic of Korea (ROK) government cooperation from the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT) 2.0 Event Database, a global catalog of weighted interstate events. Results reveal that news articles reflect major events of Japan–ROK government cooperation from 2015 to 2024. A few examples of cooperation not represented were found when conflict or past cooperation was reported simultaneously. This study highlights the complexity of Japan–ROK government cooperation and reveals the challenges of using news articles for event data generation.

Despite the expansion of research on South Asian courtesans, there has been no attempt at a critical historiography on courtesans alone. Within this larger gap, the specific connections between travel, mobility, and female performers in South Asia have not been adequately theorised. By making a critical intervention into the historiography of courtesans, we hope to aid in the establishment of what could be termed ‘South Asian courtesan studies’ as a recognised field of scholarship. Foregrounding the historical method for research into courtesans, the articles here show that beyond conventional ethnographic sources, there is a rich textual, visual, and material archive, largely unexplored until recently. They reveal both the transnational and local, and the spectacular and quotidian circuits of female performers’ travels. These include religious sites and participation in rites of passage like weddings but also extend beyond South Asia into the theatre spectacles and exhibitions of Europe. In the context of empire, this volume maps how female performers travelled in local, regional, and transnational contexts, and whether they were able to transcend the hypersexualised colonial trope of the ‘nautch girl’. This special issue offers a sample of the new developments in this growing field to catalyse its further expansion.

This article reconstructs and contextualizes two inscriptions commemorating the Aqquyunlu occupation of Mardin in 835/1432 at the newly built main gate linking the town to the citadel. Inscription 835 Mardin was formerly displayed on three courses of stones in a framed area surmounting the gate facing the town. The gate collapsed at some point in the twentieth century. Due to the inclusion of its former location in the active military base inside Mardin’s citadel, it is unclear whether some of the stones displaying inscription 835 Mardin still exist among the rubble below its former location. Even before the collapse of the gate, the stones of inscription 835 Mardin had been reset out of their original sequence as documented in a unique photograph taken in 1911, which enables the reconstruction presented in this article. The gate surmounted by inscription 835 Mardin was closed with an inscribed monumental lock that was commissioned immediately after the Aqquyunlu occupation of Mardin. This lock was formerly held as #378 in the collection of the Çinili Köşk of the Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi in Istanbul. Notwithstanding repeated inquiries via email and on site with the administration of the museum, it cannot currently be located and appears to have been lost. Accordingly, the edition suggested in the present article builds on an earlier edition by Halil Etem [Eldem] as checked against additional photographs published in other scholarly publications until 1952 and the reconstructed historical and epigraphic context presented in the present article. Together, both inscriptions constitute a unique and coherent epigraphic programme declaring the commitment of the newly established Aqquyunlu administration to rule in accordance with Islamic normativities and the supra-regional standard of the Timurid ruler Shāhrukh, who is named as qara ʿUthmān’s overlord in both inscriptions.

This article examines how during the 1970s, state, media, and research institutions transformed bōsōzoku – the contemporaneous label for cohorts of motorcycle-riding youth – into an object of governance. Between 1972 and 1979, national news media, police bureaucracies, and legislative authority aligned to transform scattered riding practices into a unified phenomenon. Drawing on police white papers, newspaper databases, and research archives, the article reconstructs the recognition infrastructure through which bōsōzoku moved from journalistic trope to legally actionable population. Preemptive authority did not arrive as a leap but formed the endpoint of a system that had already taught officials what to see, how to count, and when to intervene. Checklists, roadside predicates, and standardized forms aligned across organizations and persisted even as youth practices shifted. The anxiety surrounding bōsōzoku reflected not merely concerns about traffic safety but alarm at working-class youth visibly rejecting corporate-loyalty paradigms of Japan’s “enterprise society.”

While the world has been undergoing a global wave of welfare retrenchment since the turn of the 21st century, China’s spending on welfare provision has grown remarkably. Through a comparative study of the public housing provision programmes in two districts within the same municipality, this paper explores models of fiscally oriented public housing provision and their underlying driving forces. Drawing on data from archives, interviews and intensive fieldwork conducted in south-west China from 2014 to 2018, we identify two prominent public housing models: the entrepreneurial model and the extractive model. We propose that the choice of different welfare provision approaches is linked to local fiscal pressures and the target responsibility system. This paper sheds light on the structure of political incentives within China’s local governments in relation to public service provision and explores how local leaders improve public welfare in a non-Western setting.

Village India, edited by McKim Marriott and included in a series on cultures and civilisations edited by Robert Redfield and Milton Singer, was a widely read and influential book published in 1955 at the beginning of the ‘village studies era’ in modern Indian anthropology. For Redfield and Singer, the two main questions were whether the Indian village as a ‘little community’ was ‘isolable’, and how Indian culture and civilisation could be understood through village studies. But for several of the eight contributing authors to Village India, especially M. N. Srinivas—who edited India’s Villages, also published in 1955—the principal subject matter was the structure of the village community itself, together with its unity and autonomy, and most readers tended to take the same view. There were various reasons for this, including Redfield and Singer’s failure to explain the book’s aims and objectives clearly in their foreword. Moreover, only Marriott seriously discussed their question about understanding Indian civilisation. Also important was Louis Dumont and David Pocock’s article reviewing both Village India and India’s Villages. Dumont and Pocock’s insistence that the village is not a crucial ‘social fact’ in India, together with Srinivas’s later response, strengthened the belief that the village’s ‘sociological reality’ and unity, rather than its relationship with Indian civilisation, was the key question discussed in Village India. This retrospective analysis of Village India sheds new light on its production and reception, and on its role in the development of modern Indian anthropology.

This article analyses the fifteenth-century Arabic panegyric for Sultan Jaqmaq (r. 1438–1453), Taʾlīf al-ṭāhir fī shiyam al-Malik al-Ẓāhir (The pure composition on the character of the King al-Ẓāhir), by the Syrian poet-historian Aḥmad ibn ʿArabshāh (1389–1450). It focuses on how the author engages with the Dulgadirid and Aqquyunlu Türkmen in the context of the new sultan’s attempts to repair fraught, decades-long relationships with these groups. Challenging the expectations of a highly literary text praising the ruler, Ibn ʿArabshāh’s writing offers sophisticated engagement with the political tensions of the time and provides insight into how the Cairo Sultanate navigated the complex networks of its northern frontier through rhetoric and realpolitik. By examining layered political commentary on the former rivals, allies, and antagonists of fifteenth-century Cairo—the article argues that Ibn ʿArabshāh utilised the previous 60 years of Türkmen–sultanate relations to stage a narrative of closure and reconciliation, in the wake of Barsbāy’s disastrous frontier campaigns, to better present Jaqmaq as a sovereign capable of reversing past missteps and ushering in a revitalised and prosperous geopolitical order.