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The Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy is crumbling within China. The government’s approach to policy making, ethnic minorities, corruption, and the environment has not satisfied citizens. Rather, as the CCP fails to address each of these domestic concerns the population grows increasingly skeptical, even critical of their ability to lead. In order to counter and distract from this dissatisfaction, the CCP is driven towards an increasingly active foreign policy. The CCP has curated a Chinese brand of nationalism founded in the “Century of Humiliation.” By providing constant reminders of the atrocities suffered at the hands of foreign invaders, the government’s intent is to establish an “us versus them” mentality that unites Chinese citizens not against the CCP, but against other countries. In the East China Sea, China has managed to incite tensions over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands without aggressive military action; rather, a government-established history and well-placed propaganda has mobilized Chinese citizens against Japan. In the South China Sea, the CCP has been able to justify its military buildup by claiming historical and legal right to the area. By pointing out the multilateral institutions that have come together in the interest of combating China’s supposed “peaceful rise,” the CCP is able to justify its salami tactics in the region as self-defense. By finding enemies in Japan and South China Sea countries, the CCP is able to act as the righteous defender of China abroad, solidifying its approval and legitimacy with citizens.

<p> In order to investigate the actual instructional experiences for students with reading disabilities in Taiwan, a qualitative study was conducted using the method consisted of observation of the special education environment and interviews with two students with reading disabilities, one parent of the student, and three Resource Room teachers. On a macroscopic scale, the researcher looked at the special education system&rsquo;s implementation in a public middle school in Taiwan, while on a microscopic scale, the researcher focused on the remediation of the reading disabilities that the students were receiving in special education. The ultimate goal of this research was to benefit the special educational system in Taiwan in educating students with reading disabilities. Therefore, this was written in both English and Mandarin for the benefit of readers in Taiwan and in the U.S.</p>

<p> In traditional narrative of Chinese literary history, Du Fu (712&ndash;770) is arguably the &ldquo;greatest poet of China,&rdquo; and it was in the Song (960&ndash;1279) that his greatness was finally recognized. This narrative naturally presumes that the real Du Fu in history is completely accessible to us, which is not necessarily true. </p><p> This dissertation provides another perspective to understand Du Fu and the &ldquo;greatness&rdquo; of his poetry. I emphasize that the image of Du Fu that we now have is more of a persona that has been constructed from his available poetic texts. Poets in the Song Dynasty, especially those in the eleventh century, took initiative to construct this persona, and their construction of Du Fu was largely conditioned by their own literary and intellectual concerns. </p><p> The entire dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 investigates how Du Fu&rsquo;s poetic collection emerged. His collection, as it was compiled and edited, not only provided a platform, but also set restrictions, for the construction of Du Fu. Chapter 2 examines how Du Fu used to be remembered before his collection took form. Memory of him before the eleventh century was considerably different from his received image. The remaining chapters focus on three major aspects of Du Fu&rsquo;s persona&mdash;namely his images as a poet-historian, a master of poetic craft, and a Confucian poet&mdash;to analyze how and why Du Fu was constructed as such in the Song. Song poets accepted poetry as a medium loaded with valuable information, and they thus explored Du Fu&rsquo;s poetry for history; they concerned themselves with issues pertaining to poetic craft, and retrospectively looked for examples in Du Fu&rsquo;s poetry as established standards; they, as scholar-officials, committed themselves to the state, and declared Du Fu as their model. In sum, Song poets provided particular readings to Du Fu&rsquo;s particular poems, and claimed these readings as the result of Du Fu&rsquo;s intentional production. Through interpretation of Du Fu&rsquo;s surviving poems, they constructed Du Fu as China&rsquo;s greatest poet.</p>

<p> Ethno-demographic grievances define the conflict between Buddhist and Rohingya-Muslim populations in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Nationalistic Buddhist leaders, such as the controversial monk Ashin Wirathu, maintain that the Rohingya population&rsquo;s rapid growth and high fertility rates threaten to overtake local Buddhist populations, reflecting local Rakhine State sentiments. This study seeks to identify quantitative and qualitative differences between the Rohingya and Buddhist populations in Rakhine State and to elucidate the theoretical and practical implications for Buddhist-Rohingya relations. Due to the government&rsquo;s decision to avoid enumeration of self-identifying Rohingya, this study has relied on several recent local surveys to reconstruct a local demographic description of the Rohingya. The &ldquo;Demographic Security Dilemma&rdquo; theory, which specifies expectations for minority-majority conflicts and their resolution, will be used to discuss the relevant forces that underlie the Buddhist-Rohingya conflict.</p>

In many ways this thesis is concerned with the meaning of the term 'Naga' especially when it is applied in the identification of historical material culture held in British museums. In the examination of the development and use of Naga collections in British museums, the connections with the ethnology and anthropology of the 19th century are explored. It is fitting, therefore, that we should begin with a reiteration of the early explanations of the word 'Naga', for whilst the theoretical basis and aims of this thesis are different, it could, ironically, be said to be following on from the work of early writers and their search for meaning. The many different early definitions of 'Naga' are of interest for two reasons. First, they give an impression of their writers' ideas, and secondly because they indicate the starting point for the collection of Naga material culture. The following examples are not given in any particular order: from nangta or nanga meaning 'naked' (Butler 1875, Dun 1886, Shakespear 1914); from the name Naga used in the Mahabharat meaning 'beautiful dragon', like the beings against whom the hero Arjuna fought (Dun 1886); from nok meaning 'folk' in some dialects (Chakravorty 1964 from Gait 1826); from the word naga meaning 'snake'; from the Kachari work Naga meaning a 'young man' or 'warrior' (Woodthorpe 1881-82, who also noted the 'naked' and 'snake' explanations); from Na-Ka meaning 'people or men or folk with pierced ears', a name given by the Burmese to Nagas and possibly passed on to the British (Hokishe Sema 1986). Essentially the word seems to have been a derogatory term applied by local outsiders, such as the people of the plains, to the people of the hills, and it was then taken up and used by the British. As early as 1841 Robinson recorded that 'whatever the origin of the word Naga, it appears that the appellation is entirely unknown to any of the hill tribes themselves'. The preoccupation with the derivation of the word continues, for in 1986 Hokishe Sema, as noted above, was suggesting that the name was known in Burma from Na-Ka, and the British got to know of Nagas from the Burmese wars 1795-1826. The practical looseness of definition was realised in the 19th century and comes across in the work of Butler (1875) where he stated that Naga is a 'comprehensive term ... including the whole group of cognate races ... hill and upland' and then gave limits around the compass by reference to geographical features and approximate lines of latitude and longitude; he also suggested that the Kachin and Chin were offshoots of the Nagas. In 1886 Dun firmly noted that: In cases where a large number of tribes have been classed together (Abors, Singphos, Nagas), the differences between tribes separated socially and geograpically from one another have, since the imposition of the name, been discovered to be so great as to suggest doubts as to the advisability of attempting any such wide generic classification. The imposition of the name is the crux of the matter, with connotations for modern identity. Whatever its origin, the term Naga is now used with pride by some hill peoples on the periphery of mainland South-East Asia, predominantly those around what is now the international border of India and Myanmar. Hokishe Sena, a Naga, gives a contemporary view in noting that 'it is a name given by outsiders' and was long resented by the people 'till political expediency caused it to be accepted as describing the separate identity of these people as distinct from other ethnic tribal people and also from the people of the country at large'. Thus, the term Naga already can be seen to offer layers of complex meanings, from its application by outsiders including the British in the 19th century to the centrality of its political use today. It is against this background that this study discusses the ethnography and anthropology of the Naga peoples, particularly in relation to their historical material culture which was collected in the 19th and 20th centuries by the British and deposited in museums in Britain.

The period AD 1200-1600 was a time of great change in South Sulawesi, which saw the rise and development of the major kingdoms that came to dominate the political landscape in later centuries. The advent of regular external trade with other parts of the Indonesian archipelago from about 1300, and its increase in subsequent centuries, provided the major stimulus for the rise and development of the Bugis and Makasar kingdoms. Rice appears to have been the major product that the lowland kingdoms of South Sulawesi exchanged with foreign traders, and the demand for this appears to have stimulated a major expansion and intensification of wet-rice agriculture. In this thesis I focus on five South Sulawesi kingdoms, collectively known as Ajattappareng. Through a combination of oral, textual, archaeological, linguistic and geographical sources, I explore their rise and development from about 1200 to the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the Makasar kingdom of Goa defeated and Islamised the neighbouring Bugis kingdoms. I also present an inquiry into oral traditions of a historical nature in South Sulawesi, encompassing their functions, processes of transmission and transformation, their uses in writing history and their relationship with the written register. I argue that any distinction between oral and written traditions of a historical nature is largely irrelevant, and that oral and written information collectively make up a large corpus of knowledge that can be recalled, or referenced, whenever the need may arise. I also argue that the South Sulawesi chronicles, which can be found for a few kingdoms only, are an anomaly in the corpus of indigenous South Sulawesi historical sources.

<p> Hakka people in Taiwan remain largely unreached after 150 years of Protestant missionary activity. The purpose of this Participatory Action Research is to understand how Taiwanese Hakka ministers perceive the impact of participating in interventions designed to increase the awareness of the three binary cultural value systems, guilt and innocence (GI), shame and honor (SH), and fear and power (FP) in communicating the gospel. In this study, I laid the theoretical foundation of evangelism, taking into account the GI, SH, and FP cultural values. The cultural values found in Hakka ministers&rsquo; methods of gospel communication prior to the intervention was mainly GI, sometimes FP (depending on the theological stance of individual church), and intuitively SH yet with a need for developed SH theology.</p><p> The intervention measure of the seminar &ldquo;Worldview and Reflection on Hakka Evangelism&rdquo; proved to be crucial as the participants expressed that this was the first time they had heard theology presented systematically from an SH perspective. The focus group agreed that GI, SH, and FP provided a helpful system for understanding the Scripture and further contextualizing evangelism. They learned to think more holistically, which is conducive for further contextualization efforts in Hakka evangelism.</p><p> My main research question was &ldquo;What are Hakka ministers&rsquo; perceptions of the impact of a seminar designed to increase their awareness of the three cultural values, GI, SH, and FP, in communicating the gospel?&rdquo; The central understanding was that &ldquo;The perception of Hakka ministers is that intentionally contextualizing church events and ministries by incorporating the three cultural values in the order of SH&rarr; FP&rarr; GI with progressive messages, in the form of concrete Bible stories and personal testimonies, is likely to increase the impact on Hakka evangelism and discipleship.&rdquo; </p><p> Finally, I made suggestions for future research, including greater development of SH theology, orality, and partnership development. These three fields have potential to greatly enhance the impact of evangelism on the Hakka and unreached people groups around the globe and restructure our theological training and discipleship processes.</p>

<p> Numerous researchers have studied the connection between exchange rate fluctuations and macroeconomic variables for various market economies. Few studies, however, have addressed whether these relationships may differ based on the market classification of the given economy. This study examined the impact on exchange rates for Japan (a proxy for developed economies) and South Korea (a proxy for emerging economies) yielding from the macroeconomic variables of the sticky-price monetary model between February 1, 1989 and February 1, 2015. The results show that money supply and inflation constituted a significant, but small, influence on South Korean exchange rate movements, whereas no macroeconomic variable within the model had a significant impact on Japanese exchange rates fluctuations. The results of the autoregressive error analyses suggest small variances in the affect that macroeconomic variables may have on developed versus emerging market economies. This may provide evidence that firms may use similar forecasting techniques for emerging market currencies as used with developed market currencies.</p>

<p> Since the Great Famine of the mid-1990s, the the Democratic People&rsquo;s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has experienced significant socioeconomic and political changes. Most importantly, the ways in which North Koreans produce, distribute, and consume food, which shed light on food security, has changed in a great deal. Scholars have sought to understand whether and how food security has improved and why the regime stayed in power despite predictions of its likely demise. The paper examines trends among indicators of food security&mdash;food availability and nutritional status in the DPRK&mdash;that show overall improvement, while acknowledging that the DPRK still suffers from food insecurity in absolute terms. This paper argues that three factors account for this improved food security: unexpected acceptance of international food assistance, marketization from below, and a series of government policies adjusting to marketization. Based on the analysis of the literature investigating the three factors and their effects, the paper claims that international food assistance was necessary for pulling the country out of the Famine, but food assistance alone did not explain improved food security in the longer term. The paper found that the combination of marketization and government policies was the primary contribution to improved food security. The paper deepens the understandings of policymakers on why the DPRK is not collapsing despite the ongoing food shortages. It also suggests a need for studies of food security to theorize the interaction between state policies and individual agency or coping behaviors.</p>