From early 1965 to June, armed conflict between India and Pakistan broke out over the Rann of Kutch. Amid mounting international concerns over the spread of the crisis in the subcontinent, the two countries reached an agreement on a ceasefire through Britain’s good offices. Shortly after, both governments submitted the border dispute to the international arbitration tribunal. After two years of deliberation, in February 1968, the arbitration tribunal awarded the final decision for border demarcation and settled the dispute.

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the development of resolving the historical and territorial disputes between two countries over the Kutch-Sindh border problem. In particular, focusing on the course of the ceasefire agreement of Rann of Kutch dispute in 1965 and the process of border demarcation by the subsequent arbitration award, this study analyzes how the international relations surrounding the two parties, as well as Indo-Pakistan relations, influenced the final settlement of this border dispute. What was the reason that led to an agreement without expanding the historical confrontation into a massive war? What was the factor that brought the two countries to a territorial conclusion? In response to these questions, this paper addresses the accumulation and its influence of border negotiations between New Delhi and Rawalpindi in the late 1950s, international involvement and its impact, the intersection of international politics of Cold War and regional politics in South Asia, and the domestic acceptance for the award of the arbitration tribunal.

In conclusion, the decision of border demarcation had the political process of de-escalating conflict and drawing boundaries through consensus building. Under these circumstances, the two governments had worked hard on tough negotiations for border agreement, based on the consideration of lawyers, international organizations, and sometimes its allies.

The ceasefire agreement in 1965 was a turning point in the history of the Kutch-Sindh border problem. In this background, the efforts of the two countries to negotiate a series of government border agreements since the late 1950s, the possibility that the US-Pakistan alliance had worked to curb the Indo-Pakistan conflict, the information sharing of some military personnel who intended to restrain the expansion of fighting, and the influence of the third country’s mediation ware observed. Also, the strategic decision of political leaders such as Shastri’s sense of crisis for communal disturbances and Ayub’s calculation to favor negotiations in the context of the international community strongly influenced the attitudes of the two countries towards a ceasefire.

The international arbitration tribunal, which based on the ceasefire agreement, was the judicial manner in nature. Nevertheless, the procedure of the tribunal showed that they played an active role in the political solution with careful consideration of the balance between the two party’s claims. When the UN Secretary-General appointed a chairman of the tribunal, the United Nations formally guaranteed it. Furthermore, India, who was reluctant to confirm the award, did not reject it. It appeared that the government emphasized the standing position of India in the world despite being criticized by the domestic opposition. These points had become crucial prerequisites for the final settlement.

The award was legally the final decision, but in reality, its implementation required domestic acceptance. Indeed, it was a controversial matter in public opinion. In India, some groups contested the award and attempted to bring a case to the court. All groups are not necessarily accepted diplomatic negotiations for conflict avoidance. The conclusion of the dispute received domestic criticism.

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Since the introduction of the Reform and Opening-up Policy in 1978, social inequality and instability in Chinese cities have reemerged. Conflicts between individual urban residents, private enterprises, social organizations, and local authorities over wealth and opportunities created by the rapid economic development have intensified. Moreover, frustration among those who failed to benefit from this competition is also on a sharp rise. Social tension, along with social diversity, has made it very difficult for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to maintain social stability in urban China. In order to cope with this situation, which might become a severe risk for the party-state system, the CCP has been trying to reinforce its urban governance through residents’ committees.

In the official context, the residents’ committee is a grassroots level autonomous organization, which takes care of daily issues within local communities. Members of residents’ committees are chosen through elections. This election gives the residents’ committee a “democratic” image. However, in reality, it is a sub-administrative organization controlled by the local government. Not only does it provide benefits for urban residents, but it is also in charge of management and surveillance of the urban populous. Therefore, many literatures have concluded that local governments have established a firm control over residents’ committee and through that control the CCP has improved its urban governance.

In order to investigate state influence towards residents’ committees, the author conducted fieldwork at a residents’ committee (“J” committee) located in Hangzhou city from 2015 to 2017. One of the objectives of this ethnographical observation was the election process of choosing the new leadership of “J” committee. This paper introduces what the author encountered during that election and elaborates over those findings.

All of the members of “J” committee leadership, turned out to be CCP members. They interfered with the election process by mobilizing other party members within the community. Mobilized party members interfered with the election in various ways in order to secure a high voting rate. They did this to gain high evaluation from the local government, which decides the annual budget of “J” committee.

What became clear through this ethnographical observation was that “J” committee was indeed manipulating the election in order to gain more resources from the local government. Since the officials of the local government and members of “J” committee were both party members, it could be said that lower level party members were actually maneuvering against their superiors. This incident shows that local governments do not necessarily possess firm control over residents’ committees. Therefore, this paper argues that the theory of “Fragmented Authoritarianism” propounded by Kenneth Lieberthal and Michel Oksenberg might be applicable to the explanation of urban governance in contemporary China.

On June 9^th, 2018, the third Kashiyama Seminar took place at Gakushuin University, as part of the annual meeting of JAAS. This report discusses the speech given there by Ms. Eriko Kameoka, the president of the Kashiyama Scholarship Foundation, describes the primary aims of the symposium, and recounts the discussions that took place between the panelists and JAAS members.

Looking back on how Asian studies has progressed, much research was originally done from the perspective of the “empires” or industrial powers of Western Europe, the United States, and Japan. After World War II, the rise of newly independent nations across Asia led to a subsequent wave of scholarship from within these countries, largely focusing on each country’s developments from a “nationalist” perspective. And with the rise of globalization in the 1990s, as Asia took a leading role in propelling global economic growth, countries across the region were host to a move toward scholarship that sought to examine each polity’s immediate neighbors.

However, up until the present, researchers in Asian studies across Asia have continued to primarily tailor their work towards an English-language audience, as Western academic institutions and professional associations such as the Association for Asian Studies and European Association for Japanese (Chinese) Studies have served as the main outlets for their research. Such organizations in the United States and Europe will continue to be important. Nevertheless, more work must be done to encourage the construction of networks of Asian studies scholars across Asia and to ensure that research on Asian studies continues to develop from within Asia itself.

This symposium took these issues as its primary starting point. While JAAS has paid attention to them, it had not yet held a symposium specifically focused on them. As a result, the 2018 Kashiyama Seminar, entitled “Chinese Studies in Asia: Asian perspective,” set its sights on research about China. China has long been a subject of interest to those from neighboring countries, and JAAS invited outstanding scholars from places like India, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea to participate. Panelists first discussed the main areas of research in sinology as conducted in their home countries and regions. They then went on to talk about how they might analyze the Xi Jinping regime and the One Belt One Road Initiative. Finally, the discussion was opened beyond the panel, with a lively debate ensuing after comments from the discussant and from JAAS members on the floor.

In the 1980s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chose to pursue a path of “shifting to a market-oriented economy,” and since that time, it has been held captive by contradictions between the centralized politics of “one-party rule,” and Chinese society, which has been becoming increasingly diverse accompanying economic development.

Up until the beginning of the twenty-first century, people accepted “liberal democracy” to be the default form of government, and, following the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, China viewed this as a weak type of political regime existing amid the era of the “third wave of democratization.” Nevertheless, the regime of the CCP is still in place even today. As such, questions concerning Chinese politics have shifted from the question of “when and how China will democratize” to the question of “why the regime of the CCP does not collapse.”

How has the CCP been confronting the above-mentioned contradictions between politics and society, and how has it been able to maintain its rule? Some previous studies have attempted to find answers to such questions by making use of the concept of “regime resilience.” One type of political institution that previous studies have targeted for analysis in order to assess “regime resilience” is “input institutions,” which are institutions in which people are able to submit their requests to leaders. It appears that input institutions have been contributing to the maintenance of political regimes.

The CCP initiated political reforms in the 1980s, and as part of this, it positioned “input institutions” as a key issue related to such reforms. As is well known, following the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, the CCP abandoned many ideas related to the political reforms that it initiated in the 1980s. One of the few ideas that it did not abandon was “input-institution reforms.” Rather than doing away with input-institution reforms, the successive leaders of the CCP since the 1980s have been treating these as important policy issues. In this study, we focus on the decisions made by these successive leaders in this regard.

In this study, we use official documents of the CCP to trace ideas related to the input-institution reforms that CCP leaders initiated in the 1980s, 1990s, and beyond, and changes made to concrete initiatives related to such ideas, and then we discuss the aspects of “1980s Chinese politics” that current Chinese politics has inherited and the aspects that it has abandoned. Through this work, we obtain hints for thinking about how the CCP has been confronting contradictions between politics and society, and how the CCP has been maintaining its one-party regime.

It has been 30 years since the Tiananmen incident. During this period, China’s economy has grown at an average annual rate of 9.3%, and it is still maintaining a relatively rapid growth trend now. However, China’s political system has not gradually changed from authoritarianism to democracy with economic growth, such as the case in South Korea and Taiwan. It is still a centralized country under the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China. How has China achieved an organic combination of market economy and centralized politics, and how it has embarked on a unique development path? This paper argues that:

First, after the Tiananmen incident, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the upheaval of Eastern Europe, all strata of Chinese society strongly agreed on the political judgment that stability is an overriding thing, and they formed a broad consensus on the trinity of reform, development and stability. Second, in order to achieve social stability, the Chinese government has adopted a combination of hard and soft means to coordinate the interests of all social strata. Third, while strengthening the Party media’s control and guidance of public opinion, the freedom of speech in the self-media has been relaxed, and the so-called birdcage politics with both constraints and a larger free space has been formed. Fourth, the purpose of birdcage politics is to create social stability for economic growth. People’s satisfaction with the life brought about by economic growth is the main condition for birdcage politics to survive. Based on the above analysis, in the long run, birdcage politics may gradually lose its reason to exist, just as the case of the birdcage economy that once played an important role and then disappeared.

In this paper, on the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, I reexamined the connection and disconnection between the modern constitutionalism in western Europe and the Chinese constitution (thought and system). The constitutional review was employed as the focal point in this discussion.

First, the constitutional review has two meanings: the protection of human rights and the protection of constitutional order. The constitutional review is one of the crucial elements of constitutionalism. Its system and operation are a measure of realization and retention of the constitutionalism.

Second, the Chinese constitution enacted in 1982 was based on the bitter experiences of the Cultural Revolution. In order to protect human rights and constitutional order, various discussions were held to decide what kind of constitutional review system was to be established. Furthermore, the Chinese government and CCP rejected the judicial review and chose their own version of constitutional review that is carried out by the People’s Congress.

Finally, there is a gulf between the modern constitutionalism in western Europe and the Chinese constitution. The Chinese constitution imposes the duty of upholding and abiding by the constitution not only to the government but also to its citizens. At the same time, it is reluctant to ensure the relativity of individuals’ values. At the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the Chinese government and CCP criticized the students and intellectuals for joining the protest and openly violating the constitution. This accusation symbolizes the gap between the modern constitutionalism in western Europe and the Chinese constitution.