In Japan between 1770 and 1790, the craze for witty, comic verse forms such as kyōka and senryū, infected the ancient and noble tradition of poetry written in Chinese to produce kyōshi, “wild Chinese poetry.” Written in both Edo and Kyoto by poets of the lower samurai and educated townsmen classes, kyōshi ranged from silly puns and parodies of long-petrified Chinese verse forms to serious poems that used new subjects, language, and perceptions to revive the old genre, kanshi. Of the major poets, Ōta Nampo (Shokusanjin) of Edo, well-known as a master of kyōka, was equally famous for collections of witty kyōshi, while Hatanaka Tanomo (Dōmyaku Sensii) revived the Chinese “folk song style ballad” as a vehicle for descriptions of daily life in and around Kyoto. Because kyōshi was the product of a unique conjunction of literary, social, and political factors, it was almost forgotten by the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The meiji period (1868–1912) in Japanese history is known traditionally as an era of bustling reform during which the leaders of the restored imperial government sought to discard a feudal and backward civilization and to replace it with the modernity of the West. No people, however, notwithstanding all their persistence, talents, and hopes can have worked as great a transformation in their national life as has been claimed for the Japanese during this period. There is no doubt that great and far-reaching reforms were inaugurated, but it is especially necessary, in assessing them, to distinguish between the initial plans and hopes of the Japanese, on the one hand, and the actual achievements, on the other. The fundamental institutional changes which were projected required in most instances the passage of at least a generation before a reasonable stage of progress was attained. Failure to bear in mind the gradual nature of these changes has often resulted in the presentation of distorted and anachronistic treatments of modern Japanese history.

The Chinese literary renaissance has produced in the past few decades many distinctly new results. The universal acceptance of the vernacular as a literary medium by a whole generation of writers, the absorption of modern western ideas, and the transvaluation of all traditional values brought about radical changes in creative literature. New theories were studied and practised, new forms and genres developed, and an appreciable number of distinguished works of poetry, fiction and essays created during this period can be assured of a permanent place in the history of Chinese literature. Yet one ancient literary genre, biography, seems to have benefited little by the new movement. It is this fact that makes the excellent work now under review deserve more than usual attention.

This year academic circles in the Netherlands are celebrating the centennial of the birth of C. Snouck Hurgronje; Arabist, scholar of Indonesian affairs, and formateur of Dutch colonial policy. Most Dutch scholars and many students of Indonesian affairs would readily agree that few men have had as intimate acquaintance with the Indonesian archipelago and its people and have had as wide a reputation as an expert on this part of the world as the late Snouck Hurgronje. Unfortunately his writings and policies are known to English-reading scholars only at second hand. Except for a few brief articles, only his books, Mekka and The Achehnese, and his lectures in Mohammedanism have appeared in English. Other important writings have appeared in German and French, but the great bulk are in Dutch. There are presently plans to translate some parts of Snouck Hurgronje's collected works and also to make available certain writings which were done after the collected works were published, but the publication plans for these translations and reprints are still indefinite.

The four books reviewed are different in discipline and approach and written for widely different audiences. They are, however, linked in their articulation as a contemporary response to the larger political situation in and around Afghanistan. Certain fundamental issues are raised that relate to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, for instance, will the Russians continue their advance to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean (as suggested by the proponents of the Great Game thesis)? An understanding of the current situation in Afghanistan will provide clues to the possible future outcome of the Russian invasion. On that outcome depends the present balance of world power. If the Russians reach the warm waters of the Gulf, they are ideally poised to threaten South Asia and the Middle East. An understanding of the situation in Afghanistan is thus of primary importance.

The foreign policy of Japan known as the Tōa shin chitsujo or New Order in East Asia was officially announced by Prince Konoye on November 3, 1938, the birthday of Emperor Meiji. Further statements were issued by Foreign Minister Hachirō Arita to correspondents of foreign newspapers on December 19, 1938 and by the premier to the nation, three days later. When the fall of the Netherlands and France in May and June 1940 pointed to the complete collapse of European colonial empires in Asia and offered opportunity for the expansion of Japanese hegemony, the cabinet of Prince Konoye, on August 1, 1940, issued a restatement of the policy under the name of the New Order in Greater East Asia or Dai Tōa shin chitsuj. The Greater East Asia included not only Japan, Manchukuo and China, but also Indo-China and Thailand or Siam, and possibly the Dutch East Indies and the South Seas.

During the years 1895 to 1898 the Chinese reform movement was a remarkable success and then a conclusive failure in Hunan. For the first time, ideas emanating from the intellectual ferment in the treaty ports were actively implemented in the conservative provinces. Members of the Hunanese elite joined with government officials in a broad program of modernization. But in late 1897 and early 1898, as foreign powers pressed for concessions in China, a new leadership gradually took control of the Hunan reforms. Led by Liang Chʻi-chʻao, this group was intensely influenced by the teachings of Kʻang Yu-wei. By March it had broadened the scope of institutional change and had widely popularized Kʻang's ideas. Members of the elite, who at first had supported reform, became alarmed as the movement became more radical. They disagreed sharply with the Kʻang Yu-wei group over reform objectives, and after a bitter controversy during the spring of 1898, they suppressed Kʻang's teachings and ostracized his followers. By the summer of 1898 they had reasserted their domination over provincial affairs.

In this paper, I shall try to examine and identify the factors responsible for the increase in agricultural output in Communist China in the nineteen fifties. Then I shall try to discuss the implications of my findings in relation to future agricultural growth.

Agricultural Output 1949–1957. Agricultural statistics remain the Achilles' heel in evaluating the performance of the Chinese economy in quantitative terms. For foodgrains, the official statistics show an increase of nearly 43 percent from 1949 to 1952, and nearly 20 percent from 1952 to 1957. These claims are generally regarded as exaggerated. Based on per capita consumption requirements, Liu and Yeh regard the pre-1956 official figures as gross understatements. They accept, however, the official figure for 1957. They allow for no more than 5 percent increase from 1952 to 1957 for the production of food crops. After adjustment of reported cultivated area has been made, Wu's estimate shows virtually no increase in foodgrains from 1952 to 1957. Hollister, after suggesting official understatements for earlier years, accepts the official 1955 figure and estimates that the 1957 production of basic food crops and animal products was 14 percent higher than that of 1952. Jones and Poleman also maintain that the official estimates of grain production were underestimates for 1952–54; they accept the 1955–57 figures. Their estimates put the 1957 level about 12 percent higher than that in 1952. Choh-ming Li, though without making any independent estimates of his own, regards the official figure for 1955 as more reliable or least unsatisfactory for the whole period 1949–57, while considering the pre-1955 years as underestimates and the post-1955 years (that is, 1956 and 1957) as overestimates.

Party governments in Japan during the period from 1924 to 1932 joined a majority of the European democracies in imposing rigid state controls over the new medium of radio. Over the years many elected governments have restricted political expression over radio despite the strong logical connection between free elections and free speech, and this article examines the Japanese case in a comparative perspective. It analyzes the decision-making process that produced Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK), the public-interest radio monopoly, in Japan in 1926, as well as the exercise of state controls over broadcasting until the last prewar party cabinet fell in 1932. Various definitions of the public interest that are consistent with democratic values may nonetheless call for close state supervision of broadcasting. In Japan, the rationale for the control of radio resembled the rationales of many contemporary democracies. The Japanese experience suggests that, although broadcasting controls may not have contradicted democratic principles, the development of a strong democratic regime would have been better served by a liberal policy toward the new electronic medium.

This article examines the subject of queues in the life and writings of Lu Xun (1881–1936), the most prominent figure in modern Chinese literature. The long-standing reluctance of readers and critics to associate this backward hairstyle with Lu Xun's iconic figure has restricted our understanding of the topic to two well-known satirical portraits in his short fiction, Ah Q and Sevenpounder. This article, however, proposes that the queue is of more than satiric interest—that the author's own experience raises fundamental questions about how he discloses and transmutes certain experiences in his writings. Starting from some little-studied events featuring queues in his pre-Republican years and a puzzling short story that recounts them, this essay analyzes the queue's autobiographical connections and their varied literary manifestations. It also makes a case for reexamining the uses of autobiography for a writer whose life story is an important part of his influence.

Editor's Introduction: In mid-August 2015, Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo gave a high-profile speech looking back at the Japanese surrender of 1945. Three weeks later, also to mark the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War II in Asia, China's Communist Party head and president Xi Jinping presided over a lavish parade in the heart of Beijing, which featured missiles and other Chinese military hardware as well as large contingents of People's Liberation Army soldiers and small contingents of troops from various other countries. Following up on a trio of essays in the August issue of the JAS, which looked ahead to events such as these, we now publish this special “Asia Beyond the Headlines” section made up of four essays that explore the meaning, for different individual or sets of countries, of Abe's speech and Xi's spectacle. This quartet of commentaries, by three political scientists and one historian, is designed to complement the last issue's contributions by historians Carol Gluck, Rana Mitter, and Charles Armstrong, as well as the historical photograph from seventy years ago that appears on the cover of this issue.

The set begins with an essay by historian John Delury, a scholar trained in Chinese history and currently teaching in Seoul, who has written on varied aspects of East Asian international relations and notes, among other things, the curious fact that the representative from South Korea rather than from North Korea got the warmer reception from Xi during the recent Beijing spectacle. Following this comes Sheila A. Smith, a scholar based at a Washington, D.C., think tank, reflecting on the current state of the complex bilateral relationship between Tokyo and Beijing. Appearing next is a commentary by Maria Repnikova, a specialist in both Chinese and Russian affairs who was trained in political science and holds a postdoctoral fellowship in a school of communications. She writes on the increasingly close ties yet lingering tensions between Beijing and Moscow, as well as the way that official media has celebrated, while some users of social media have mocked, the symbolism of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping presiding over recent victory day parades in their respective capitals. The series concludes with a commentary by Srinath Raghavan, a London-trained scholar now based at a New Delhi policy institute. He completes our survey of commemoration of the end of World War II with a look at the way recent parades revealed the Indian government's tricky position vis-à-vis Moscow and Beijing, as well as the relatively scant attention that India's significant contributions to World War II received, at home and internationally, during the season of commemorative speeches and displays.

In April of 1748 the Xiaoxian empress, first wife of Qianlong, died of a malarial fever. In the months that followed, a scandal erupted that shook the bureaucracy and left several officials dead. Their crime was shaving themselves before the expiration of the hundred days of declared state mourning. The case was an important moment in Qing rule, showing a very saddened and still-learning emperor grappling with different methods and models of governing, questioning his role as a specifically Manchu leader, and struggling with the place that law would occupy in his reign. He emerges from mourning his wife, and from the scandals that ensued, with a changed sense of how to govern that would have long-term consequences for the Qing government. Before turning to our story, it is best to begin with a context for the issues.

The Great Shun once said, “Poetry bespeaks the emotion.” As Ezra Pound puts it, “Poetry is a verbal statement of emotional values; a poem is an emotional value verbally stated.” From the earliest anonymous composer to Mao Tse-tung, we observe in the outpourings of the poet's heart his innermost feelings and the shape of things in the offing. In the Ch'un-ch'iu period (722–484 B.C.) poetry was not only composed to voice the poet's emotion, but also quoted to the accompaniment of music on diplomatic missions to exchange views between states without causing affront or embarrassment, a fact which underlies the “moderation and magnanimity” characteristic of Chinese poetical tradition.

Reverend Issachar Jacox Roberts was, as far as is known, the only Western teacher ever to instruct Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, the leader of the Taiping Rebellion. Aware of his special relationship with Hung, Roberts was for many years enthusiastic about Hung's undertakings. This article is concerned mainly with an account of the dealings between the two men.

Born in Tennessee in 1802, Roberts studied at the Furman Theological Institution of South Carolina, and was ordained to the ministry in 1828. He preached for some time in Mississippi, where he owned property said to be worth $30,000. Using this property as a financial base, he organized the Roberts Fund and the China Mission Society. Upon arrival in China in 1837, Roberts took the Chinese name of Lo Hsiao-ch'üan (or Lo Heáou-tseuen). For his first five years in China, the missionary worked among the lepers at Macao. When his income became insufficient for his work there, he labored for a time as a saddler, joined the Baptist Mission in 1841, and in 1846 transferred to the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1844 Roberts, who was the first foreigner to live outside the restricted “factory” area, opened a mission in the city of Canton, which he used as a home base for the following twenty-two years of his missionary work. During this period, he returned to the United States only twice. His connection with the Southern Baptist Convention was dissolved in 1852, and thereafter he worked independently. He finally left China in 1866, and died of leprosy in 1871 at Upper Alton, Illinois.