This dissertation focuses on a critical factor in historical transformation of medieval China-the dilemma between war and peace. Not only does this dissertation provide a brief and comprehensive account on conflicts, battles, and treaties, but it observes the attitude toward violence and the track of searching peace during Tenth and Eleventh Century China as well. Borrowing the concept of peace by modern scholars studying grand strategy, strategic culture, and pacifism, I regard peace as realistic strategic option, institutionalized establishment, consent behavior mode, and multi-oriented culture. My discussion begins with the exhausting campaigns of the T'ang in Central Asia and the ensuing civil war during the Ninth and Tenth centuries, arguing the Sung non-active posture in external adventure as a conscious avoidance of excessive violence. The relative success of the Sung policy saw in the peace annexation of the Wu-Yueh Kingdom and the conclusion of the Peace of 1005 between the Sung and Liao with modest cost. In addition, the early Sung rulers firmly controlled the military machinery and prevented war-making by internal and institutional causes. Nevertheless, the existing institutionalized peace between the Sung and Liao did not create a norm of behavior and prevent violence proliferation. Unable to contain the Tangut expansionism, the Sung was compelled to reinstate aggressive grand strategy, relieving constrain on its war machinery. Strategic imperative stimulated career military service of the Sung civil officials and gave room to the voice of pragmatic expansionism. Sung military achievement culminated in the success of rearmament during the reform of Wang An-shih. However, the ensuing war eventually ravaged the Sung empire, its opportunity for a great leap toward a pre-modern world missed.

In the midst of revolution as the Qing Dynasty faded into the twentieth century, metropolitan Chinese Muslim leaders took initiatives in their communities, which shaped change. As a result, a process was set in motion, one that effected the identity of urban Chinese Muslims in more ways than one--within the new political scene nationally, internationally, and in regards to other Muslims in China. The process stimulated a self-awareness among Chinese Muslim urban populations, which promoted new perceptions of their identity as Hui. The process also triggered a debate among Chinese Muslim intellectuals in which ideas of minzu-ness, ethnicity, and religiosity were argued. The process fostered a sense of solidarity among the urban Muslim communities. Chinese Muslim activities paralleled those of other Chinese. Chinese Muslims took part in the New Culture Movement, many joined the army. At the same time they focused attention on improving their communities. This dissertation examines the activities of urban Chinese Muslims: the creation of study groups and associations; the revamping of Muslim schools; and the publishing of books and periodicals. The dissertation is a look at strategies used in adapting to change. The goal has been to illustrate that the Chinese Muslims accepted change, even welcomed it, but in so doing altered perceptions of themselves and their religion. The metropolitan Chinese Muslims got swept up in the enthusiasm of the early republican era. Many influential members of the community endorsed the Nationalists' revolution and the new republic. Chinese Muslim urbanites welcomed modernization and nationalism, seeing them as vehicles that would facilitate their efforts, and protect them. Chinese Muslim motives were nationalistic, as Chinese they wanted a strong China. Their motives were also parochial. They wanted a strong local community, and they actively set out to improve conditions. By strengthening their communities they could insure the survival of Chinese Muslim culture, just as a strong China would insure the survival of Chinese culture.

Zhoukoudian Locality 15 is one of the most important Paleolithic sites in North China. It plays an essential role in assessing Pleistocene hominid adaptation and behavior, and defining Paleolithic cultural/technological traditions and transitions in North China and greater East Asia. However, the paucity of published original research hinders the accessibility of this rich archaeological collection and forces many discussions concerning this locality speculative and far-fetched. This dissertation makes a comprehensive study of this site and the rich data-set from it. Major topics covered by this study includeGeology, stratigraphy, chronology, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, lithic analysis, and a discussion of the current practice and theoretical framework of Paleolithic research in China. The centerpiece of the study is lithic analysis, including artifact typology and variability, core reduction, tool retouch and modification, and raw material exploitation and economy. Through these analyses, a series of theoretical and empirical questions are addressed, such as the nature of stone tool variability at the site, the capability and preferences of the Locality 15 hominids in handling the available raw materials and modifying lithic tools, the restrictions of raw materials placed on stone tool technology and stylistic features, the interaction between nature and hominids at the site, and the proper placement of the Locality 15 industry in Paleolithic cultural traditions and developments in North China. This study found that sophisticated direct hard hammer percussion was employed as the principal flaking technique to exploit vein quartz at the site, which is very distinctive from the Sinanthropus industry at Zhoukoudian Locality 1. However, the presence of Levallois technology at the site, as often mentioned, cannot be verified by this study. The dominant tool type is simply modified sidescrapers. The stone tools' informal features, minimal modification, and variability in morphology and edge are perceived as closely related to raw material quality and availability and mainly the function of the original blank forms. The Locality 15 materials are also recognized as a direct challenge to the scheme of identifying a three-stage cultural transitions and models classifying distinct Paleolithic technological traditions currently prevail in North China and East Asia.

This study investigates the medieval Chinese formation of the cult of Dizang (Skt. Kṣitigarbha; Jpn. Jizō), a Buddhist divinity especially popular in connection with East Asian beliefs about the afterlife. It explores why and how Dizang, an obscure figure from the pre-Chinese Buddhist pantheon, became in medieval China an important object of cult worship. A tendency to focus on the popularized characterization of Dizang as " the savior of the damned" has distorted scholarly understanding of this Bodhisattva, obscuring other developments of his personality, including afterlife trends other than the underworld function. To arrive at a more accurate re-construction of the medieval Chinese Dizang cult, this study examines a diverse range of evidences (canonical and non-canonical, textual and visual, as well as Buddhist and non-Buddhist) so as to ferret out threads of Dizang belief not documented in standard sources. Non-canonical sources are particularly highlighted since they frequently capture largely neglected aspects of religious development which must be studied in order to uncover the full complexity of medieval Chinese Buddhism. In particular the formation of the Dizang cult supplies a crucial key to unlocking the larger cross-cultural patterns of religious assimilation operating in medieval Chinese society, which have wider implications for the study of Chinese religion. Previous studies on sinification in Chinese Buddhist history have focused on a particular thinker, a specific text, a single doctrinal concept, or one ritual practice, thus demonstrating the development of only one pattern of assimilation and reducing the complexity of the cross-cultural dynamic in which assimilation really took place. The Dizang cult instead allows one to better contextualize the patterns of cross-cultural assimilation in medieval Chinese religion. What distinguishes the Dizang cult from other examples of sinification is the manner in which the figure of Dizang functions as a religious symbol that integrates diverse religious planes, doctrine, mythology, ritual, and soteriology. The Dizang cult, in short, offers a single but kaleidoscopic lens that encompasses a multivalent religio-cultural assimilation, thus resisting usual bifurcations between doctrine and ritual, as well as between so-called "elite" and "popular" religion.

The site of Zhoukoudian has been studied for over 70 years. During this time, a great deal of change has occurred in both analytical methodology and paradigmatic models concerning human prehistory. Zhoukoudian presents an opportunity to study both issues of early hominid behavior and the evolution of palaeoanthropological, geological, dating methodology and palaeoenvironmental research over the last eight decades. Zhoukoudian was the first site to exhibit verifiable evidence for the presence of early hominids in East Asia (more than 45 individuals). The site has been established as containing Middle and Upper Pleistocene components. The majority of these (e.g., Locality 1) fall within a Middle Pleistocene context, while the Upper Cave represents an Upper Pleistocene occupation of the site. Modem studies are suggested in light of the recent reworking of some fundamental concepts at Zhoukoudian. These include evidence for hunting vs. scavenging, fire usage and duration of occupation of the site by early hominids, all of which need reevaluation.

<p> This thesis examines Japanese writer Saotome Katsumoto and his efforts to create a pacifist message in his 1991 film <i>Senso to Seishun</i> (War and Youth). The story presents multigenerational viewpoints on the Pacific War, and is significant for being the first film to depict the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 9&ndash;10, 1945. I discuss how Saotome's use of fiction, metaphor, and autobiographical techniques assist the film in creating a pacifist narrative. The film's pacifist message continues to hold relevance today, as nationalist and conservative groups push strongly for revisions to Article 9 of the Japanese Peace Constitution in order to remilitarize the nation.</p>

<p> The interactions between Chinese religions has occupied an enormous amount of scholarly attention in many fields because there have been direct and indirect consequences resulting from the interactions among Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. These religious traditions have obviously influenced each other in many respects such as rituals, doctrines, textual materials, philosophy and so on. Accordingly, I will, in this paper, critically analyze the implications of the interactions between Buddhism and Daoism by examining Twofold Mystery. Since Twofold Mystery is heavily dependent on Madhyamaka Buddhist concepts, this study will, on the one hand, examine the influence of Madhyamaka Buddhism on the development of Twofold Mystery. On the other hand, it will critically survey how Twofold Mystery remained faithful to the Daoist worldview.</p>

<p> This dissertation explored Korean mass politics through neighborhood associations from the late 1930s to 1960s, defining them as a nationwide organization for state-led mass campaigns. They carried the state-led mass programs with three different names under three different state powers -Patriotic NAs by the colonial government and U.S. occupational government, Citizens NAs under the Rhee regime and Reconstruction NAs under Park Chung Hee. Putting the wartime colonial period, the post liberation period and the growing cold war period up to the early 1960s together into the category of "times of state-led movements," this dissertation argued that the three types of NAs were a nodal point to shape and cement two different images of the Korean state: a political authoritarian regime, although efficient in decision-making processes as well as effective in policy-implementation processes. It also claimed that state-led movements descended into the "New Community Movement" in the 1970s, the most successful economic modernization movements led by the South Korean government. </p><p> The beginning of a new type of movement, the state-led movement, arose in the early 1930s when Japan pushed its territorial extension. The colonial government, desperate to reshape Korean society in a way that was proper to the Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere and wartime mobilization, revised its mechanism of rule dependent on an alliance with a minority of the dominant class and tried to establish a contact with the Korean masses. Its historical expression was the "social indoctrination movement" and the National Spiritual General Mobilization Movement. Patriotic NAs, a modification of Korean pre-modern practice, were the institutional realization of the new mechanism. To put down diverse tensions within a NA, patriarchal gatherings made up of a male headman and male heads of household were set up. </p><p> Central to their campaigns&mdash;rice collection, saving, daily use of Japanese at home, the ration programs and demographic survey for military drafts&mdash;was the diverse interpretation of family: the actual place for residence and everyday lives, a symbolic place for consumption and private lives, and a gendered place as a domestic female sphere. The weakest links of the imperial patriarchal family ideology were the demands of equal political rights and the growing participation of women. They truly puzzled the colonial government which wanted to keep its autonomy from the Japanese government and to involve Korean women in Patriotic NAs under the patriarchal authority of male headmen. </p><p> The drastic demographic move after liberation, when at least two million Korean repatriates who had been displaced by the wartime mobilization and returned from Japan and Manchuria, made both the shortage of rice and inflation worse. It led the U.S. military occupational government not only to give up their free market economy, but also to use Patriotic NAs for economic control&mdash;rice rationing and the elimination of "ghost" populations. Although the re-use of NAs reminiscent of previous colonial mobilization efforts brought backlash based on anti-Japanese sentiment, the desperation over rice control brought passive but widespread acceptance amongst Koreans. </p><p> Whilst renaming Patriotic NAs as Citizens NA for the post-Korean War recovery projects in the name of "apolitical" national movements and for the assistance of local administration, the South Korean government strove to give it historical legitimacy and to define it as a liberal democratic institution. They identified its historical origins in Korean pre-modern practices to erase colonial traces, and at the same time they claimed that Citizens NAs would enhance communication between local Koreans and the government. After the pitched political battle in the National Congress in 1957, Citizens NAs got legal status in the Local Autonomy Law. The largest vulnerability to Citizens NAs lied in their relation to politics. While leading "apolitical" national movements as well as assisting with local administration tasks, they were misused in elections. Consequently, they were widely viewed as an anti-democratic institution because they violated the freedom of association guaranteed by the Constitution and undermined local autonomous bodies. In the end, they lost their legal status in Local Autonomy Law, with Rhee regime collapsed. </p><p> When Park Chung Hee succeeded in his military coup in 1961, he resuscitated NAs in the name of Reconstruction NAs for the "Reconstruction" movement with the priority being placed on economic development. However, civilians were against the re-use of NAs, with the notion that the governments politically abused them. Finally, the arbitrary link between state power and the NAs waned throughout the 1960s, passing its baton to the "New Community Movement" which began in 1971and swept through Korean society until the 1980s. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)</p>

This thesis addresses the issue of Japan's economic expansion in East and Southeast Asia and its regional political implications. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are employed to capture the significance of Japan's economic role in the world's most dynamic and productive region. This thesis tests the relationship between elite perception of dependence on Japan and the statistical reality and evidence of Japanese economic linkages in the region. More importantly from the methodological point of view, this thesis incorporates the phenomenon of Japan's economic expansion in Asia into the political economy paradigms of development. Advanced statistical analyses are used to capture the impact of Japanese investment and trade on three standard development indicators--the economic growth rate, employment generation and human capital development in Pacific Asia. This quantitative treatment of the topic is then supplemented by 98 in-depth elite interviews taken between September 1992 and January 1993 in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Going beyond the questions related to dependency and Southeast Asian elites' concern about Japanese ventures in the region, the survey attempted to understand whether the elites regarded Japan as a potential political and military leader in Asia. Thesis findings provide access to the opinions of a powerful core group of current Asian leaders. The results from statistical analyses generally support the neo-classical model in the context of regional development experience and economic linkages with Japan. The interview analyses reveal a perception among Malaysian and Thai elites of dependence on Japan. The Asian elites are concerned about technology transfer and opening up of management in Japanese corporations. A substantial percentage of the elites perceive a Japanese economic empire in Asia. A significant finding of this research is the divergence between statistical evidence of a lack of dependent development and the Southeast Asian elites' perception of economic dependence on Japan. Another important finding is that while an overwhelming number of the elites considered Japan to be the economic leader and a potential political leader of Pacific Asia, a slight majority of the interviewed elites disagreed with the general statement that Japan could emerge as a military leader of the region.

Building on earlier reciprocity research in arms control negotiations by Stoll and McAndrew (1986) and Druckman and Harris (1990), this study evaluates various models of cooperative and inverse reciprocity in a independent environment: the Sino-British negotiations regarding the future of Hong Kong. Coding of concessions and retractions is based on a wide range of news and government sources using methods developed by Jensen (1988). Both the trend model and the comparative reciprocity model are supported, albeit inconsistently. Statistical analysis of model predictions suggests the mixed use of cooperative and inverse strategies. A combined "hybrid" model nets support comparable to the trend and comparative models. While evidence of reciprocity is demonstrated in this study, to better understand the dynamics of parties' interactions, more studies of negotiation behavior need to be conducted which can systematically incorporate dominant aggregate contextual variables.