This paper examines the simultaneous use of the older handgun and the newer harquebus by Ming Chinese armies before and after the Imjin War (1592–1598), a conflict which saw the Japanese launch a destructive invasion of the Korean peninsula. Although the conflict foregrounded the value of the harquebus in the eyes of many Chinese, its aftermath saw a number of Ming Chinese civil and military officials continuing to affirm the value of the handgun vis-à-vis the harquebus and developing the designs and tactical roles of both types of firearm. Against the backdrop of their discourse on hand-held firearms, I will argue, in this paper, that the Eurocentric focus of modern military scholars has caused them to underestimate the advantages that the older handgun still held over the harquebus in the different Ming Chinese context. In Ming China, the harquebus was valued primarily for its accuracy, which led it to be assigned a different tactical role and undergo a different technological developmental trajectory compared to early modern Europe. Nevertheless, Ming designs tended towards a universal infantry firearm anticipating the solution eventually adopted by early modern European armies: a relatively accurate bayonet-equipped harquebus capable of high rates of fire.

The impact of imported firearms on Southeast Asian states has been a topic of much debate, but is often discussed in relatively general terms. This article uses the archive of the Dutch East India Company to analyse the importation of muskets into late seventeenth century Ayutthaya, which took the form of diplomatic gifting, as well as their intended uses. Muskets are found to have been used mainly for the suppression of internal popular revolts, which was aided by extremely strict gun control aimed at keeping firearms a royal monopoly. The importation of these guns was responsive to immediate need and stopped once revolts became less frequent. The volume of the trade between 1658 and 1709 is found to have been surprisingly low.

This article examines how, since the late 1980s, Hong Kong directors have reimagined China’s western frontiers in the wuxia genre through collaborations with the mainland amid a process of deepening cross-border integration. To contextualize these representations for English-language readers, this study employs a comparative lens. It first examines the cultural and historical significance of the American Old West and China’s premodern western borderlands and then analyzes how Hong Kong wuxia filmmakers construct particular forms of nationalism through mythic depictions of geopolitical peripheries in dialogue with Hollywood Westerns’ frontier portrayals. The analysis reveals that, as Hong Kong directors’ mainland coproduction has increasingly integrated into China’s film industry and cultural discourse, their depiction of frontier space has gradually shifted from an extralegal, anti-authoritarian martial world of cultural ambivalence and abstract nationalism – echoing the anti-establishment ethos characteristic of revisionist Hollywood Westerns – toward a symbol of state-centered nationalism and global cultural outreach, paralleling the golden-age Hollywood Western’s construction of the American frontier as a unified national myth reinforcing U.S. exceptionalism.

In the 1820s, the East India Company commissioned a steam-powered dredging vessel to be constructed and set to work on a series of rivers that connected their capital of Calcutta with the Ganges River, and thus major commercial and population centers in northern India. The vessel, however, was a failure. It could not float on the rivers it was meant to dredge. This hitherto untold narrative of early steam engines on the subcontinent argues that the ultimate failure and abandonment of the vessel was not due to insurmountable technical difficulties but rather to a failure of imagination by the EIC administration. They were limited by what they believed an imperial river should be and what were appropriate ways for humans and their technology to interact with that river. This illustrates how the British Empire in India conceptualized modern technology as European and therefore “naturally” in opposition to the Indian environment, as well as how such conceptualizations ultimately stymied their imperial ambitions.

The Rohingya refugee crisis, a major humanitarian tragedy in contemporary global politics, has gradually precipitated major security challenges to Bangladesh and other states. This paper employs the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory to examine how securitization, especially by the Bangladeshi government and media, has framed these challenges as existential threats. It makes two basic contributions to existing literature on the Rohingya crisis. Firstly, it provides a theory-informed analysis of the security dimensions of the crisis, considering the interplay between the refugee crisis and national and regional security dynamics. Secondly, the paper explores how the refugees securitize their current plight. Empirically, the study utilizes interview data from 60 local residents, law enforcement agencies, and employees of local and international NGOs. The discussion suggests the possibilities and limitations of the securitization theory in the field of refugee or forced migration studies in the Global South.

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.”

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.

Throughout the Russo-Japanese War, Lat Pau and Thien Nam Sin Pao, both based in Singapore, followed the war closely, fueling the nationalism of their readers. Far from portraying China as a passive non-belligerent, both newspapers drew attention to both China’s precarious international position and her self-strengthening efforts. Chinese nationalism was born out of an international outlook among the overseas Chinese, who were concerned with the fighting in Manchuria, even though the battlefields were distant from both their hometowns in southern China and Southeast Asia. To them, the Russo-Japanese War was not simply a localized conflict on East Asia’s periphery; China’s fate hinged on its outcome, and it threatened to escalate into a worldwide conflagration anytime. The keen interest displayed by overseas Chinese in the war is indicative of their international outlook, and the nationalism that partly resulted from this attention to the war ultimately fueled their participation in the 1905 anti-American boycott as well as revolutionary activities.

Many pressing riverine problems in Asia today can be traced back to the development of a set of new conceptualizations, technologies, and institutions of river management between roughly 1800 and 1945, a period moulded by the expansion of modern imperial powers on a global scale. This special feature investigates the multifaceted entanglements between rivers and imperialism in modern Asia by bringing together cases in Japan, India, China, and Vietnam. Building on the understanding of the dual potential of rivers to support and resist imperial ambitions, the articles in this special feature reconstruct the complicated human-river interactions across Asia that confounded anthropocentric expectations and show how imperial ethos, technologies, and institutions of river management were carried out, resisted, or transformed in varied local contexts by human and non-human actors alike. Understanding the unruly history of rivers in imperial Asia can help us to better understand the precarious future of rivers and their management on the warming continent.

This article examines the rice distribution network of the Japanese community in Guangdong during the Japanese occupation. It emphasizes the hierarchical patterns and exploitative nature of the rationing system established by the occupation authorities. Securing food was a daily struggle for most people during the Second Sino-Japanese War, as combatants competed for resources in wartime China. In the case of the Japanese Empire, Japanese forces in each occupied area and colony negotiated for external food supplies annually while also deciding to extract more food surpluses from their jurisdictions for local consumption. Food, primarily grains, was centrally controlled and redistributed by the Japanese occupiers. The unprecedented dominance the Japanese held over food supplies benefited certain groups but was detrimental to most local populations. This article focuses on the sources of rice in occupied Guangdong and the methods by which the Japanese collected and allocated it. The inability of the occupying authority to revive the local food economy and secure additional foodstuffs for the region unintentionally severed vital urban lifelines; it also strengthened the self-interested tendencies of the occupying authorities to create exclusive food-supplying networks and rationing systems. In this case, the food demands of certain groups, mainly the Japanese in occupied Guangdong, were met at the expense of others. This article argues that self-serving calculations on the part of the Japanese, rather than mere cruelty and incompetence, should also be considered when discussing the history of occupied Guangdong.

This study seeks to elucidate the historical development and transmission of the traditions associated with the ‘Seven Sets’ through a cross-textual analysis of Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, and Gāndhārī sources. The Seven Sets comprise the four establishings of mindfulness, the four right endeavors/abandonings, the four bases of success, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, and the noble eightfold path. The Eight-Set tradition emerged alongside the Seven-Set tradition by the second century, followed by the forty-one and forty-three dharmas contributing to awakening (bodhipakkhiya/bodhipakṣya) by the fifth century. However, the Seven Sets became the most dominant. Both the Vaibhāṣika and Mahāvihāra schools upheld the Seven Sets as the definitive framework for the dharmas contributing to awakening, rejecting any additional items. The Vaibhāṣika dismissed the forty-one dharmas as heretical, whereas the Mahāvihāra excluded the four meditations incorporated into the Eight Sets. After the sixth century, the Eight-Set tradition was subsumed by the Seven-Set tradition. No evidence supports the long-term survival of the other two traditions. The dominance of the Seven Sets reflects the transition in South Asian Buddhism from pluralism to doctrinal unity.

This article explores how memories of Muslim-Tibetan alliances predating Communist rule still shape social dynamics in Amdo. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Northwest China, it analyzes narratives about relationships between Muslim Xidaotang merchants and Tibetan religious or secular institutions. These accounts reinterpret the past to make sense of present relationships, reshaping the meaning of historical interactions. The paper examines the emblematic case of the offering of a large cauldron to a Tibetan monastery – an act of alliance rooted in local conflict-resolution practices. This tradition of gift-giving is traced within a broader inter-institutional economy sustained by reciprocal hospitality and protection. The Tibetan designation of Xidaotang merchants as Chösoma (“new religion/teachings”) highlights the role of ethical reputation and technical skill in building trust. The paper concludes by examining the evolution of Xidaotang’s Tian Xing Long commercial label amid China’s ongoing economic reforms. The narratives reveal a trading culture grounded in moral valuation, shared responsibilities, and economic collaboration.

Scholarship on overseas Chinese and modern Chinese diplomacy often centers on nationally recognized leaders and officials with prominent global roles. However, a fuller understanding of the diaspora requires examining lesser-known diplomats and local leaders who often had a greater impact on their communities than distant official policies. The transnational life and evolving identity of Yü Shouzhi (1907–1999) – a grassroots Chinese diplomat, community organizer, and small business owner in Mexico – exemplifies this dynamic. Initially trained and appointed by the Chinese Nationalist government, Yü’s diplomatic work extended beyond official channels to foster transethnic, transnational, and intergenerational networks within the Chinese-Mexican community. His transition from formal diplomacy to community leadership and commerce reflected how individual migrants successfully navigated transnational and national politics, community relationships, kinship, and transethnic relations and gained social power. In the process, Yü adjusted his sense of belonging and developed diasporic nationalism, transforming from a representative of the Nationalist government to a deeply rooted Chinese-Mexican community member. This article argues that Yü’s ability to adapt his role as a Chinese diplomat and cultivate a Chinese-Mexican identity was shaped by the interplay of formal state affiliations, grassroots networks, transnational and cross-ethnic relationships, and his personal initiative.

This study examines how the blind Russian poet Vasily Eroshenko (1890–1952) was visually constructed in 1920s China through Chu Baoheng’s photography, transforming him from political exile to transcultural icon during the May Fourth Movement (1919–1924). Through formal visual analysis of six key photographs taken between 1921 and 1923, this research reveals how these images functioned simultaneously as documentary evidence, cultural allegory, and philosophical “metapictures” – images that reflect on the process of pictorial representation itself. The investigation proceeds through four analytical dimensions: the strategic framing of Eroshenko through translations and media following his 1921 expulsion from Japan; his photographic documentation at Stopani’s memorial in Shanghai as revolutionary allegory; his intimate portrayal in Zhou Zuoren’s traditional courtyard house and Beijing’s social spaces, revealing visual evidence of cultural integration and domestic harmony; and the iconic “poet on a donkey” image that crystallized the dialectical tension between these photographs of social belonging and the Zhou brothers’ textual accounts of “desert-like” loneliness. This contradiction illuminates May Fourth intellectuals’ complex negotiation between cosmopolitanism and nationalism. Eroshenko’s evolving portrayal from revolutionary exile to literati scholar reveals how transnational figures become screens for local intellectual projections about modernity. By examining how these photographs gained new significance across changing political contexts – particularly in Zhou Zuoren’s post-1949 reinterpretations – this study contributes to our understanding of visual media’s role in constructing cultural memory and articulating intellectual identity during China’s pivotal engagement with global modernity.