Asia Institute - Theses
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ItemChina’s intervention policies in the Middle East and North Africa during the late-Obama era( 2020)This thesis considers the role of the United States as a conditioning factor for China’s intervention practices in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with a particular focus on three cases studies during the late-Obama era: the external interventions in Libya during 2011, the Syrian civil war, and the multilateral involvement in the Iranian nuclear proliferation case. Drawing from the most recent field interviews with stakeholders involved in the three cases and a comprehensive review and content analysis of daily statements and communications between the highest levels of the Chinese government and the Obama administration, this thesis argues that Beijing’s perception of the American-led interventions in MENA during the late-Obama era is a major conditioning variable in its decision to balance against, hedge, or cooperate with the United States. More importantly, this thesis illustrates that in addition to unit-level and localized explanations of Chinese interventions, a structurally and power-oriented analysis enhances existing understanding of how and why China intervenes in MENA and other regions contested by the two major powers.
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ItemImagining Singapore: Pictorial photography from the 1950s to 1970s( 2020)This thesis explores the development of pictorial photography in Singapore and the different roles it has played in broader Singapore society. After World War II, photography practice in Singapore exploded via the numerous camera clubs and salons. Pictorial photography was the dominant expressive form of photography during this period and was deliberately positioned as art through its circulation in exhibitions and catalogues, similar to the display and distribution of painting and sculpture. The same period saw sweeping changes within Singapore as it fought for and gained independence from British rule, and embarked on a comprehensive industralisation programme. Pictorial photography in Singapore was shaped by these developments and took on traits unique to its circumstances. I contend that the specificities of the Singapore experience led to a distinct variant of pictorial photography that I term “Singapore Pictorialism”. Pictorial photography offers a useful platform to examine representation and ideology, especially given photography’s close relationship with realism. Pictorial photography, with its own ideas of reality and aesthetics, provides access to questions of politics and imagination. This study looks at the politics involved in the production and consumption of Singapore Pictorialism, from the ideologies of Singapore’s colonial period to those of the post-colonial shift to independence. It places pictorial photography within this social history to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the visual representation of Singapore. By examining the activities of the photographers and the photography clubs, this thesis uncovers a vibrant photographic scene, which not only had a prominent place in Singapore’s art history, but shaped the way modern Singapore was imagined and represented. Of particular importance to the research are Singapore’s nation-building activities during this period and the role the state played in driving developments within photographic circles, leaving a formidable impact on photographers’ imagination of their country. Photography during this period took on multiple roles, acting as a symbol of democracy and modernity, staging national identity and providing a mechanism for Singaporeans to engage with ideas of the past, present and future.
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ItemFinancial sustainability of the pension system in China: Impact of fragmented administration and population ageing( 2020)With a rapidly ageing population and a highly fragmented pension system divided into over 2,000 pools managed separately by local governments, the financial sustainability of the Chinese pension system is facing serious challenges. This study aims to investigate the impact of fragmentation and population ageing on pension sustainability in China. By examining the history of pension reform and policy evolution in the context of overall development of China, the study conducts an analysis on the consequences of fragmentation based on both evidence obtained from fieldwork and secondary data including policy documents and official statistics. The distortion in incentives for local governments is documented in case studies covering both the coastal and inland regions. These case studies demonstrate how pension sustainability is compromised by various adverse effects produced by fragmentation, such as the moral hazard caused by the disarticulated intergovernmental fiscal responsibility. An overlapping generations (OLG) model is updated with the latest demographic data and used to perform a prospective assessment of the impact of population ageing on pension sustainability in China and to help determine whether adjustment in retirement age can ensure long-term financial sustainability under various demographic scenarios in the rest of the century. Overall, the findings of this research reveal that, compared to the population ageing, the issues stemming from the fragmentation pose a more insidious threat to pension sustainability in China. The retirement age reform alone can only provide a necessary but not sufficient condition for ensuring the system’s long-run financial sustainability, abstracting from the significant negative impact of the fragmentation. Problems of moral hazard such as noncompliance by local governments and challenges of adverse selection resulting from the administrative loopholes in the highly decentralised system, if left unchecked, are classic reasons why insurance policies including pension schemes go bankrupt. Therefore, if China wants to ensure the long-term sustainability of the pension system, it is imperative to take its reform to the next level by defragmenting the system. The possibility of the fertility cliff and the danger of the de facto bankruptcy brought by the population ageing further highlight the urgency to address the fragmentation as the underlying cause of the many defects of the system that are damaging pension sustainability.
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ItemChinese Language Use by School-aged Chinese Australians: From a Dual-track Culturalisation Perspective( 2020)Over the past decades, the topic of Chinese immigrants has attracted wide attention and increasing academic interest, due to the rapid growth of Chinese immigration across the globe. However, many existing viewpoints are mainstream-centric, homogeneous and dated. To overcome the current research problems and elaborate Chinese immigrants’ culturalisation process through one important factor—language use—this research takes school-aged Chinese Australians as a case study, analysing their use of Chinese language from a dual-track culturalisation perspective. The 2016 Australian Census reveals that over 1.2 million people in the country claim their Chinese ancestry (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018). Among them, people who regard Mandarin and Cantonese as the most preferred language to speak at home are 46% and 22% respectively, which jointly contributes to the prevalence of Chinese language use in the Chinese community in Australia. This drew our attention to why and how school-aged Chinese Australians learn and use Chinese language and how its use influences the construction and reconfiguration of their ethnic and cultural identity. Drawing upon interviews and participant observation, this study addresses the research questions above by presenting the complex decision-making process of Chinese immigrant families and the dynamic relations between the broad cultural environment at macro level, the Chinese community in Australia and Chinese families at micro level, and school-aged Chinese Australians themselves. The findings of this research project contribute to our understanding of international migrant children’s culturalisation process, through their language use and multidimensional identity negotiation, and highlight school-aged Chinese Australians’ agency in the transformation of the immigrant community in Australia via their dual-track language practices. Though research findings in this study are based on the case of Chinese-Australian children and adolescents, many aspects of their experience could be shared by immigrants in other age groups and of other ethnicities, due to the representativeness of Chinese immigrants as one of the largest immigrant groups and Australia as a typical immigrant country.
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ItemBroadcasting Paradox? A Study of Content Diversity and Ownership in Contemporary Indonesian Television( 2020)Independent media in a democracy is an arena where the exchange of a diverse range of information and views facilitates the formation of public opinion. It took the fall of the almost 32-year-long authoritarian regime before Indonesians finally experienced democracy in 1998. The spirit of democracy was reflected in the implementation of new regulations, which are more liberal and freer from government control. Departing from the principle of diversity of ownership and diversity of content, the implementation of the new laws resulted in a growing number of media outlets. Diversity of content is commonly accepted as a founding principle in communication policy. Discussion on programme diversity as a performance goal has been particularly lively and relevant in the case of television, as is well documented, for example, by Blumler (1991) and Napoli (1999). Accordingly, the principle of a wide range of programme options is typically included in national broadcasting legislation, and both public and commercial broadcasters have faced the requirement of diversity, set by the various regulatory bodies. But previous research in the Indonesian context has shown that this diversity of media outlets and content as an essential aspect of Indonesia’s new democracy has been threatened by various developments. The first threat concerns the issue of media ownership and conglomeration. The second threat to media diversity is political: Half of the media owners also serve as the leaders of political parties. This study examines the diversity of market structure and programme content of Indonesian television in the context of the 2014 legislative and presidential elections. Using a Critical Political Economy approach, it addresses two key questions: 1) Does ownership have an impact on television structure and content?; and 2) Do corporate connections to politics have an impact on television journalism? One of the findings is that television owners only endorse the idea of diversity if it can bring them profit, or further their political interests.