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The best of
Asia Society every week.
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Good
afternoon. In this issue, we consider
the similarities between the Tiananmen Square protests in
1989 and those in Hong Kong today; we take a
peek at stories from China you haven’t heard about; and,
we dig
deeper into the dispute between South Korea and Japan —
which just might turn into a huge headache for the U.S.
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CURRENT
AFFAIRS
The
Alarming Parallels Between Tiananmen Square and Hong Kong
Thirty
years ago, demonstrations led by young, idealistic students gathered
force in Beijing, grew larger following a ham-handed government
response, and eventually encompassed a broad swath of society. Not
even stern warnings from the Chinese Communist Party dampened
protester enthusiasm, leading to fears of a violent crackdown.
In 1989, those fears were realized. Will they be in Hong Kong?
In a new
essay for Foreign
Affairs, Orville
Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on
U.S.-China relations, writes about the striking similarities between
the Tiananmen protests and the current demonstrations in Hong
Kong.
“As events in Hong Kong have escalated without any plausible scenario
for resolution, they have gained a worrisome air of determinism,” he
said. “With the two sides sliding ineluctably toward greater
polarization, it becomes ever more difficult to imagine making the
requisite concessions without risking an unacceptable loss of face
and sacrifice of core principles.”
Read the
whole essay at Foreign
Affairs.
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POLICY
Chinese
Lives Beyond the Headlines
Amy
Qin of the New York Times
has reported from China for seven years, a period of time in which
the country has become “more influential, more surefooted, more
confident” and the ruling Communist Party has increasingly blurred
the lines between the people and state.
Nevertheless, in a presentation for the Asia Society Policy
Institute’s AsiaX
series, Qin talks about a China seldom covered in the international
press. There’s the country’s burgeoning hip hop scene, centered in
Sichuan Province, where the local dialect is especially conducive to
rapping. There’s a Tibetan filmmaker who tells harrowing stories
about his people while evading strict censorship laws. And there’s a
fierce, growing feminist movement navigating the country’s
deeply patriarchal society.
Watch the
complete video of Qin’s talk.
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POLICY
The
Worsening Japan-South Korea Dispute
Japan
and South Korea, two crucial U.S. allies in East Asia, are engaged in
a serious dispute that reflects both current and historical
grievances. On Thursday, Seoul announced that it would terminate
a military-intelligence sharing agreement (GSOMIA) with
Tokyo, just weeks after Japan removed South Korea from a “whitelist”
of favored trading partners.
The two countries have long struggled to resolve
outstanding issues stemming from Japan’s decades-long
occupation of Korea before and during the Second World War — a task
that has grown especially difficult in recent years. South Korea’s
supreme court recently ordered two Japanese companies to pay tens of
thousands of dollars in compensation to Koreans forced into labor
during World War II. A number of similar lawsuits are in the works,
aimed at scores of Japanese firms, and the companies' noncompliance
with the court orders thus far have sparked anti-Japanese protests in
South Korea.
“There is a long litany of grievances,” Daniel Russel,
Asia Society Policy Institute vice president, said
on the PBS Newshour.
“Particularly in the last three years, there has been a steady stream
of events. One slap is met by another slap between Seoul and Tokyo.”
The South Korea-Japan dispute could present significant headaches for
the United States, particularly in managing relationships with both
China and North Korea.
“At a time when North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile arsenals
are rapidly expanding, the abrogation of GSOMIA directly harms U.S.
national security,” Russel told
Al Jazeera. “And at a time when China’s assertiveness and
new capabilities represent an unprecedented challenge, the
disintegration of the U.S.-led alliance system is a disaster.”
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UPCOMING EVENTS
- On
August 29, Asia Society Hong Kong will host a screening of Moving Stories,
a new film following the lives of six dancers who work with
children that have experienced trauma. The screening will
be followed by a Q&A with the film’s director, Rob Fruchtman.
More
details here.
- On
August 30, in partnership with Human Rights Watch, Asia Society
Australia will host the Indonesian journalist Andreas Harsono
in Melbourne for a talk on the state of human rights in his
home country 20 years since the fall of Suharto.
Click
here to learn more.
- On
September 5, Asia Society Policy Institute Vice President Wendy Cutler
brings us up to speed on where the U.S.-China trade war stands
in a discussion at Asia Society New York with Tom Nagorski.
This program will be available via live webcast. More
info here.
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