Asia Institute - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableLearning in the Language of Cinema: A Case Study of the Impact of Humanities Subjects on Chinese International Student’s Critical Thinking Ability(Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2020)Chinese students make up the largest portion of international students in Australia, yet we know relatively little about their study experience in the humanities and the impact of Australian humanities subjects on their critical thinking ability. Through a qualitative analysis of the academic performance of two cohorts of Chinese international students enrolled in two film studies subjects, this study has revealed that Chinese international students benefit considerably from an Australian-style training, as evident in their improved analytical skills and critical thinking ability. However, English proficiency remains a major challenge for them in obtaining higher scores, which they could have otherwise achieved in a native language educational environment. This study has also discovered that Chinese international students are generally adept at using multi-media tools to present and communicate ideas. Distanced from their home country, Chinese international students are more motivated to study if they feel a cultural or emotional connection with the course content. Communicating in a language that students can resonate with, be it more visual or culturally sensitive, will help both students and educators achieve better outcomes.
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ItemBold Strategy or Irrational Exuberance: Can China's Fiscal Foundation Support the Belt and Road Initiative?(Stanford University Press, 2020)This chapter examines the economic rationale and finances of the Belt and Road Initiative, a signature program in Xi Jinping's assertive foreign policy that aims to build multidimensional networks linking more than sixty countries and costing trillions of dollars. The BRI was conceived during the decade-long fiscal expansion that began at the turn of the century, and the question is whether it remains affordable under slower growth. At this stage in its development, China must manage the program prudently to avoid saddling banks with bad loans from failed projects. As ever, the decentralized system remains the Achilles' heel, reflected in the gap between official statements of expenditure and figures compiled from bank lending and program announcements. Recent fiscal reforms have strengthened the government's ability to rein in local governments but provide little protection against risks from an overly ambitious foreign policy agenda.
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ItemPublic policy for a modernising China: The challenge of providing universal access to education under fiscal decentralisation(OECD, 2019)One of the key inequalities in China today is the divide between urban residents with local registration (hukou) and those without. This chapter examines the historical and systemic causes of this divide between the hukou and non-hukou populations, focusing on the provision of basic education. The limited access to urban schooling for the children of rural migrants is a divisive issue in the debate on citizenship and social rights of migrants, and one with adverse implications for labour markets and intergenerational mobility. This chapter uses the provision of basic education to illustrate how fiscal decentralisation in China – under particular historical circumstances, produced a divisive, rather than inclusive growth outcome. Moreover, even though education policies have shifted over the past two decades to calling for inclusiveness, their impact has to date remained limited, leaving the government with an inequality it does not want and finding very difficult to reverse.
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ItemManaging across levels of government: The challenge of pension reform in China(OECD, 2020)The People’s Republic of China is facing a “population ageing tsunami”, with the share of the population aged over 65 expected to double between 2010 and 2030. Reforming the social security system to improve coverage, sustainability and equity is an urgent task for the government. This chapter examines the workings of the Urban Employee Scheme (UES), the main pension programme currently covering more than 400 million workers and retirees. Although nominally a national programme, the UES is a patchwork of pension pools, managed mostly at the city and county levels. Under fragmented management and weak oversight, the system is rife with underpayment and evasion and has stymied previous efforts by the central government to promote consolidation. This may finally change under top-down reforms implemented since 2013 that have strengthened governance and enforcement capacity. Improving equity and the long-term sustainability of the UES will also require extending coverage to younger migrant workers and strengthening their incentives for participation.
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ItemBudget reform in China: Progress and prospects in the Xi Jinping era(ANU Press, 2018)
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ItemThe comparative method in Austronesian linguistics(Mouton de Gruyter, 2017)This book presents the most comprehensive coverage of the field of IndoEuropean Linguistics in a century, focusing on the entire Indo-European family and treating each major branch and most minor languages. The collaborative work of 120 scholars from 22 countries, Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics combines the exhaustive coverage of an encyclopedia with the in-depth treatment of individual monographic studies.
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ItemOn the History of Malagasy Terms for Human Body Parts(IAAS Moscow Lomonosov State University, 2019)
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ItemWho were the first Malagasy, and what did they speak?(Institute of South East Asian Studies, 2017-01-01)
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ItemLocal and Regional Initiatives for Sustainable Food Systems in Indonesia(Instituto Terra e Memória, 2019)Limited supply, increasing demand, environmental change and inequality are major drivers of a looming global food security crisis, and Indonesia is among 30 most at risk countries. Since the 1960s Indonesia has industrialised agriculture, following the advice of the global bio-tech research complex, corporations and development agencies. There is, however, an alternative approach, favoured by local grassroots organisations, NGOs and many researchers; of moral economy-based solutions grounded in communal solidarity, small-scale production, local knowledge and direct distribution networks. To illustrate the viability of this alternative, the paper explores new farmers’ initiatives that provide high-yield, high-quality, low-cost food with ecologically and socially responsible methods. Using ‘symbiotic cooperation’ strategies founded upon a moral economy ethos, they protect farmer livelihoods and vulnerable consumers. The case studies presented contribute toward a model for a worldwide transition to socially and ecologically sustainable regional food systems.
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ItemWorld Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA)(John Wiley & Sons, 2018-10-05)Since the early twentieth century, countless modern anthropological studies have paid tribute to the richness of cultural diversity across societies, as well as highlighting some of the existential conditions we all share as human beings. The discipline has not been able to serve as an undistorted mirror of this unity in diversity, however, because scholars from a few privileged nations have dominated the process of anthropological knowledge construction over most of this period of time. The World Council of Anthropological Associations was founded to overcome this deficit by providing a global platform for free communication and democratic participation in the spirit of a new “world anthropologies” paradigm.