• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.27-49
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• 2018

Public Diplomacy (PD) is the third pillar of South Korean foreign policy. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PD aims to attract foreign audiences by means of art, knowledge transmission, media, language and foreign aid. When it comes to the Korean language, its global profile has seen an especially marked increase in recent years (Kim, 2009). Thus, this paper's objective is to explain the relevance of the Korean language in the generation of South Korea's soft power. I draw from $C{\acute{e}}sar$ Villanueva's reflections in order to problematize how language promotion can be translated into soft power at five different levels: the empathetic, the sympathetic, the geopolitical, the diplomatic and the utilitarian. I observe that in the case of the Korean language in Mexico City, soft power has the potential to be generated on three levels: it helps to increase knowledge of Korean culture (empathetic); it exercises symbolic persuasion (geopolitical), since the products of cultural industries are mostly in Korean; and it is used as a tool for economic transactions in Mexico City (utilitarian).

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.152-167
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• 2018

Until recently, Japanese cuisine was known only for sushi and was still considered exotic outside the archipelago. However, today the number of specialized restaurants which serve other traditional foods is constantly increasing all over the world, making Japanese gastronomy one of the most influential. Japanese government has supported the promotion of national cuisine worldwide in different ways, making washoku (Japanese traditional cuisine) one of the main elements of Japan's soft power and cultural diplomacy. In this paper, I will analyse the connection between Japan's gastrodiplomacy, defined as the use of typical food and dishes as an instrument of soft power, and Japan's food security strategy. I will argue that the strategy of promotion of washoku worldwide is not a mere act of popularization of Japanese food but it is strictly related to the issue of the low self-sufficiency rate of the country, as the main objective of the government is the raise of food export, in order to foster agricultural production and improve self-sufficiency.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.31-46
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• 2009

The purpose of the study was to find out which posts were answered in a text-based computer-mediated social support group. Specifically, the present study examined the effects of two variables on support-seeking behaviors: support-seeking strategies and gender. A revised typology of support-seeking strategies originally proposed in the Sensitive Interaction Systems Theory (SIST) model was employed for the study. Data were collected from the PTT psychosis discussion group, the largest BBS in the Chinese-speaking community, for a period of 30 months from February 2004 to July 2006. In general, the results indicated that posts with more asking, less crying and less hinting were answered more than posts with more hinting, more crying and less asking. However, although different support-seeking strategies did affect support-seeking behaviors, gender did not have an impact on which posts were answered.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.35-40
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• 2011

The recent listing of Preah Vihear Temple as a World Heritage Site has awakened a longtime simmering border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia over a few square kilometers surrounding the ancient Khmer Temple. While the listing of the site by UNESCO was expected to revive the economy of the impoverished border towns near the temple due to the increased tourism and funding for the preservation of the archeological site, it has had the opposite effect due to the sharp increase in violent conflict carried out by the armed forces and nationalist activists from both sides. Military skirmishes and violent protests have brought the local economy to a halt in addition to causing considerable physical damage to the local infrastructure and to the local transnational network of ethnic Kui, local business owners, Khmer and Thai villagers. This paper shows how the dispute is viewed and undertaken by three distinct communities involved in the conflict, the militaries, the metropolitan political elites and activists, and the local villagers. The three communities represent three different cultures of conflict with different interests and most importantly with differential access to the media and official representations of the dispute.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.47-56
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• 2011

After the 2006 coup $d^{\prime}{\acute{e}}tat$, there were many unusual incidents in Thailand, some of which involved considerable bloodshed, which originated from clashes between those in power and dissenters. This article examines how political institutions in Thailand are structured, and the author argues that, in order to effectively assess the state of Thai politics after the coup, an analysis of the structures of political legitimacy in the country is essential. The author will be exploring the way in which political legitimacy is generally determined by the established power holders, especially the monarchy and its allies. The ideologies and beliefs of recent dissenters will also be examined in detail.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.1-20
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• 2010

This paper explores a new hypothesis that can help to shed light on why the Japanese financial system has fallen into a unique transition failure in terms of its extraordinarily prolonged financial slump. An aspect of the continuing Japanese financial slump can be explained in terms of games that were being played between regulators and main banks as each tried to test the intentions and commitment of the other in a context where the traditional system of monitoring had collapsed together with its relationships of trust. Higher "audience costs" which prevented the restoration of appropriate relations between regulators and banks, associated with the internal collapse of trust in the system, can explain this unique transition failure.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.111-144
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• 2016

Alternate members of the Chinese Communist Central Committee are often overlooked regarding elite formation or even when assessing Chinese elites in general. This article focuses on the case of alternate members of the Central Committee from 1992 to 2007 in order to understand why some individuals will eventually be promoted and why some will never be. Through extensive quantitative testing, I argue that these non-promoted individuals differ from their counterparts in many ways, most of which can possibly be traced back to the type of formation they received early on. As such, the article concludes that Party School attendance and the age factor, through threshold analysis, are a significant factor helping us understand the difference between promoted and non-promoted houbu.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.145-161
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• 2016

Using the Sunflower movement as a case study, this article seeks to articulate a theoretical framework to evaluate online "free spaces" as tools for political mobilization. To this end, this article conducts a thematic and content analysis of 151 posts on the official Facebook page of the Sunflower movement. Key results uncover four thematic functions among posts - expressive, informative, informative-support, and promotional - that overlap, in which the expressive theme prevails, and two thematic topics discussed by posts - damages by protesters and their ideology of freedom. I conclude that: (1) combining the logistic and thematic dimensions of posts enables a specific understanding of an online free space's political viability and anticipates the campaigns it will connect itself to; (2) the networked nature of the Sunflower movement page prompts the reconceptualization of (i) online free spaces as nodes through which various political campaigns and struggles are thematically connected by a political ideology; (ii) inactivity as a strategy where protest capital and followers accumulate to prepare and empower future mobilizations.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.177-190
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• 2016

One of the main objectives of this paper is to provide insight to understand the effect of natural disasters on local government finance. That is, to analyze local governments' sales tax revenues after Hurricane Ike. Three Texas cities are examined: League City, Pearland, and Sugarland. Based on data collected from the Texas Comptroller's Office and the US Census, we found local governments experience a short-term increase in sales tax revenues and a long-term decline after the hurricane strike the region. On average, a major hurricane has a two-year impact on local government economy. The findings are essential for practitioners because in order to have a prosperous recovery after natural disasters, public managers have to prepare financially for short term changes in their sales tax revenues.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.191-210
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• 2016

While general belief is that the military alliances are stable and rigid, the authors argue that the states are far more flexible in their behavior and often act against their alliances. This paper looks at states' behavior in the UN GA and looks how it is reflected in participation in military alliances during three periods of history since 1976 to this day. The authors illustrate the need to consider the network representation of co-sponsoring groups in General Assembly votes. They find significant support for their argument, indicating that social aspects can be extended beyond alliances. An application of social network analysis shows some unexpected affiliations in UN GA. If the UN GA is the "true" nature of these countries' alliance strategies, then it might suggest some significant defections and interesting association.