Asia Politics

Confucius is perhaps the most important philosopher in history. Today his teachings shape the daily lives of more than 1.6 billion people. Throughout East Asia, Confucius' influence can be seen in everything from business practices and family relationships to educational standards and government policies. Even as Western ideas from Christianity to Communism have bombarded the region, Confucius' doctrine has endured as the foundation of East Asian culture.

At the start of the 20th century in China, the Hans were married in an elaborate ceremony before they were even born. While their future was arranged by their families, this couple had much to be grateful for. Not only did they come from similar backgrounds - and as such were recognized as a good match - they also had a shared passion in their deep love of ancient Chinese poetry. They went on to have nine children and chose colours portrayed in some of their favourite poems as nicknames for them - Red, Cyan, Orange, Yellow, Green, Ginger, Violet, Blue and Rainbow.

An exciting, hugely revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa - a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people. A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting, French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth.

Conflicts over specific rules lie at the heart of the disputes, which are about much more than sovereignty over islands and rocks in the South and East China Seas. Instead, the main contests concern the strategic maritime space associated with those islands. To consolidate control over this vital maritime space, China's leaders have begun to implement "China's law of the sea": building domestic legal institutions, bureaucratic organizations, and a naval and maritime law enforcement apparatus to establish China's preferred maritime rules on the water and in the diplomatic arena.

Forty years ago in China, marriage was universal, compulsory, and a woman's only means to a livelihood. Enter the one-child policy, which despite its horrors, resulted in China's first generations of urban only-daughters - girls who were raised without brothers and pushed to study, achieve, and succeed as if they were sons. Fast forward to the present, where in an urbanized economic powerhouse, enough of these women have decided to postpone marriage - or not marry at all - to spawn a label: "leftovers". Unprecedentedly well-educated and goal-oriented, they struggle to find partners.

Rodrigo Duterte was elected President of the Philippines in 2016. In his first 18 months in office, 12,000 people were murdered on the streets, gunned down by police officers and vigilante citizens - all with his encouragement. Duterte is a serial womanizer and a self-confessed killer, who has called both Barack Obama and Pope Francis "sons of whores." He is on record as saying he does not "give a shit" about human rights. Yet he is beloved of the 16.6 million Filipinos who voted for him, seen as vulgar but honest, a breath of fresh air, and an iconoclastic, anti-imperialist rebel.

In India Positive, best-selling author and columnist Chetan Bhagat brings together essays that work as a manifesto for change. Examining a gamut of subjects—from education to employment, from GST to infrastructure, from corruption to casteism—Bhagat reflects on what we can do right in order to move forward and become a truly modern, progressive country. He expresses in this book his belief that, if we want to see reform, we—as citizens—need to be the solution. If our country is to shine, Bhagat says, we need to stand up and be 'India Positive Citizens'.

Out in the Pacific Ocean, there is a war taking place. It is a "warm war", a shoving match between the United States, since World War II the uncontested ruler of the seas, and China, which now possesses the world's largest navy. The Chinese regard the Pacific, and especially the South China Sea, as their ocean, and they're ready to defend it. Each day the heat between the two countries increases as the Chinese try to claim the South China Sea for their own, and the United States insists on asserting freedom of navigation.

Dive into the mystical world of ancient Japan and uncover its incredible deities, mythical creatures, and heroic tales, even if you're new to folklore! Are you fascinated by Japan's rich culture and history?Discover captivating tales of Shinto gods, Yōkai, and legendary heroes that shape Japan's cultural heritage.

The 21st century has seen a rise in the global middle class that brings an unprecedented convergence of interests and perceptions, cultures and values. Kishore Mahbubani is optimistic. We are creating a new global civilization. Eighty-eight percent of the world's population outside the West is rising to Western living standards, and sharing Western aspirations. Yet Mahbubani, one of the most perceptive global commentators, also warns that a new global order needs new policies and attitudes.

When he was 14, Joshua Wong made history. He staged the first-ever student protest in Hong Kong to oppose National Education, a "reform" which would have stifled free speech - and won. Since then, Joshua has led the Umbrella Movement, founded a political party, and rallied the international community around the anti-extradition bill protests, which have seen two million people - more than a quarter of the population - take to Hong Kong's streets. His actions have sparked worldwide attention, earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, and landed him in jail twice.

Dos costumes ancestrais às violentas reviravoltas do comunismo, a China passou, em algumas décadas, por uma das mais radicais e amplas transformações já vistas na história da humanidade. Mergulhando nas memórias familiares de três gerações de mulheres, Cisnes selvagens é o relato verdadeiro, com todos os acentos do drama épico, de uma família que tenta preservar a própria humanidade em meio à vertigem e ao horror da trajetória da China neste século.

When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, most experts expected the WTO rules and procedures would liberalize China and make it "a responsible stakeholder in the liberal world order". But the experts made the wrong bet. China today is liberalizing neither economically nor politically but, if anything, becoming more authoritarian and mercantilist. In this book, renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and the Free World must adopt to meet them.

We begin with a man off balance: one in one thousand, the only child in town whose polio leads to partial paralysis. We meet his future wife, chanting Hai Rams for Gandhiji and choosing education over marriage. On one side of the line that divides this book, we follow them as their homeland splits in two and they are drawn together, moving to Canada and raising their children in mining towns and in crowded city apartments.

Pakistan's pathway to developing nuclear weapons remains shrouded in mystery and surrounded by misconceptions. While it is no secret why Pakistan became a nuclear power, how Pakistan became a nuclear state has been obscured by mythmaking. In Pakistan's Pathway to the Bomb, Mansoor Ahmed offers a revisionist history of Pakistan's nuclear program and the bureaucratic politics that shaped its development from its inception in 1956 until the 1998 nuclear tests.

The remarkable story of the heroic effort to save and preserve Afghanistan's wildlife - and a culture that derives immense pride and a sense of national identity from its natural landscape.

The sheer volume of commentaries on the Mahabharata is awe-inspiring. So, what is it in the Mahabharata that gives it its timeless magic? Is it the mythical characters with which it is replete that makes the epic so enchanting? Or is it the great wealth of philosophical and metaphysical ideas in it that dazzles its audiences? Or could it be a combination of all these that makes it ever-fascinating to scholars and audiences around the world? And, most of all, what accounts for its incredible effect on the subconscious of millions of Indians through several generations?

Olive Yang was a widely mythologized genderqueer lesbian opium-pioneer in the 1950s heyday of the Golden Triangle. After escaping an arranged marriage with a noble cousin, Olive felt that she had no choice but to lead a life of banditry with an anti-communist rebel army supported by the CIA. As her smuggling empire grew, she became so powerful and infamous that novelists were inspired to write about her evil ruthlessness and beauty. Yet, Olive’s real life and identity remained a mystery to many.

Leading authorities analyze growing tensions in US-China relations and what this means for the future.

One of the most profound studies of warfare ever written, The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China presents us with an Eastern tradition of strategic thought that emphasizes outwitting one's opponent through speed, stealth, flexibility, and a minimum of force - an approach very different from that stressed in the West, where the advantages of brute strength have overshadowed more subtle methods.