CNRS Éditions

The Asian side of the world - II

Chronicles of Asia and the Pacific 2011-2013

Jean-François Sabouret (dir.)

DOI: 10.4000/books.editionscnrs.13002

Publisher: CNRS Éditions

Place of publication: Paris

Year of publication: 2015

Published on OpenEdition Books: 20 August 2019

Series: CNRS Alpha

Electronic EAN: 9782271122247

https://books.openedition.org

Printed version

EAN (Print version): 9782271081964

Number of pages: 178

Electronic reference

SABOURET, Jean-François (ed.). The Asian side of the world - II: Chronicles of Asia and the Pacific 2011-2013. New edition [online]. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2015 (generated 06 avril 2022). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/editionscnrs/13002>. ISBN: 9782271122247. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/books.editionscnrs.13002.

This text was automatically generated on 6 April 2022.

© CNRS Éditions, 2015

Terms of use:
http://www.openedition.org/6540

Abstracts

Asia and the Pacific, an immense region, both new and old, in which two thirds of the world lives. A region of superlatives, exceptions, China, continually facing disasters and risks from its past, India, a continent of its own, Japan, archipelago of the future. It is a region that is attracting global growth and becoming the centre of the world. Who could have predicted that the GDP of Asia and the Pacific would be equal to that of the European Union? And what will tomorrow bring?

This compilation gives an overview of Asia's world, bringing together texts written by researchers and specialists and that have been published on Asia and the Pacific Network's website (CNRS) between 2011 and 2013. It follows the first volume published in 2011 covering the period 2002-2011. These works covering the humanities and social science recount the past, tell us of the future and illustrate the complexity of Asia and the Pacific through its flaws, strengths and challenges. They reveal the profound roots and depth of the dynamism of these new powers that could soon take over the future of humanity. Numerous researchers and academics specialising in contemporary Asia and the Pacific are bringing into light many aspects of this great and inevitable shift in the world.

Jean-François Sabouret (dir.)

Centre national de la recherche scientifique

Table of contents

Foreword

Asia at the crossroads of concerns

Jean-François Sabouret

Part One. Regional dynamics and globalization

Sericulture in Asia: yesterday, today, tomorrow

Bernard Mauchamp

Introduction

History: the sericulture of yesterday

Sericulture today

The sericulture of tomorrow

Conclusion

Inter-Korean tensions: ideology first, at any cost?

Alain Nass

The rising crisis

2010, confrontation

Lessons learnt and prospects

Was Confucius Korean?

Sources of Chinese-Korean contention

Samuel Guex

The Chinese periurban environment and globalisation

Thierry Sanjuan

Shanghai, an innovative model

Songjiang, a new town

Periurban areas: the future of Chinese towns?

Will the Asia-Pacific region become Chinese?

Fabrice Argounès

Does India have a strategic doctrine for the 21st century?

Basudeb Chaudhuri

Tourism in the French Pacific collectivities: troubled waters

Jean-Christophe Gay

War or Peace?

The Asia-Pacific region in the year 2013

Roger Williames

The regional challenge of an emerging India

Olivier Blarel

Origins of India’s troublesome relation with its periphery

From crisis to the “rediscovery of Asia”

India’s difficult odyssey in Asian regionalism

India’s rise and South Asia: stepping stone or stumbling block?

The Korean Peninsula: source of incompréhension

Marie-Orange Rivé-Lasan

“Korea” no longer exists!

Over-publicized events in the North and under-publicized events in the South

Specialists on “contemporary Korea” and the media

Singapore: Emblematic projects for a singular metropolis

Charles Goldblum

Part Two. National challenges and strategies

Brunei Darussalam 2011, between diplomatic skill and hydrocarbon revenues

Marie-Sybille de Vienne

Sake, a Japanese exception

Nicolas Baumert

Japanese rice wine

An identity product

An anachronistic drink?

The Philippines: a never-ending democratic transition

Dominique Caouette

The Philippines: a neo-patrimonial state

French traces in Viet Nam

Dominique Rolland

Buddhists and Muslims of Arakan: religious conflict or national identity crisis?

Maxime Boutry

The miners of Chikuhô and pneumoconiosis

Bernard Thomann

Is India a closed society?

Some thoughts on the issue of social mobility

Jules Naudet

Class, caste and status

Discrimination, social mobility and the closure of Indian society

Social mobility and ties to the group of origin

Justice for the poor or poor justice?

Leïla Choukroune

Bottom-up

Top-down

Bottom-up again

The sirèns of tradition

Feminising and “modernising” political life: Comments on cases in India and Pakistan

Virginie Dutoya

Women’s representation within the parliaments of India and Pakistan

Women’s political representation and modernity: from James Mill to Pervez Musharraf

Radicalisation & resilience: should Indonesian Islam be considered as an example to be followed in the Muslim world?

Gwenaël Njoto-Feillard

World War I: 50,000 Vietnamese nationals in the industry that was the French war

Mireille Le Van Ho

Part Three. Constructing theories

The rise of Asia in the world economy

Immanuel Wallerstein

The Role of the Judiciary in implementing Western Law in Iran under the Pahlavi Dynasty

François Ameli

Towards a better understanding of Asian capitalisms?

Sébastien Lechevalier

The revival of comparative capitalism analyses… without Asia

Towards a new research programme: bringing Asia into the comparative capitalism perspective

An example: analysing new emerging welfare systems in Japan, the Republic of Korea and China

Some thoughts on the role and tools of archaeology in Japan

Laurent Nespoulous

Chinese writing from its origins to the 3rd century CE

Olivier Venture

Conclusion

For a loving policy: what the meeting between Japan and the west tells us about the couple and love

Jean-Michel Butel

The Northern Mountains, another aspect of Vietnamese history

Philippe Le Failler

Asia has become the laboratory of various forms of capitalism and a challenge for the social sciences

Robert Boyer

Asia is not Latin America: contrasting path of development

“Japan number one”, a challenge to American capitalism and its theorists

Boom, crisis, stagnation: crises are an integral part of capitalism

Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan: where other forms of Asian capitalism are still present

A promising research agenda for social sciences

Foreword

Asia at the crossroads of concerns

Jean-François Sabouret

September 2014

The focus remains forever and always on Asia; the abyssal Asia with its ancient sources and the present Asia that is conjuring the future and for the long term. The Pacific is an immense and violent region, from which typhoons originate and which shelters the constantly moving tectonic plates, relentlessly threatening islands and continents from powerful earthquakes and destructive tsunamis.

It is a vision that is obsolete today, separating the study of Asia from that of the Pacific. Impossible, even dangerous, to separate these two entities under the pretext that one represents a region of ancient lands and the other, an “aqueous region”, fragile to unwritten and uncertain cultures.

China is presented as the inhabited Middle Kingdom and is becoming a leading maritime power year after year, threatening American domination in this vast Pacific region. Is dying for islands claimed by neighbouring and opposition countries unthinkable nowadays? The powers of the sea and borderlines that pass in the Pacific Ocean are being redefined. The great powers of Asia, playing the “go” game of the sea, are placing their black and white pieces on the vast chessboard.

However, China is not the only country of dynamism in Asia. The great economic, industrial and creative Asia is progressing forwards. Will the country come together or will it fall apart? Border, economic, industrial, religious and ideological complexes; the list is long of reasons of conflict. Nevertheless, the Asia of Confucian values of work and effort is a reality, a global effort, which despite various upheavals, is taking the world upwards.

The Asia and Pacific Network (Imasie) illustrates, in its own way, the immensity of the task that is to be accomplished. Every month, the Network edits texts, known as its editorials, aimed at as many people as possible, not only at specialists of Asia, but also at those who wish to understand the reason for which this great economic and industrial machine that is North-East Asia, is leading the world in a dynamic momentum. This is reassuring for some and worrying for others.

These editorials are “still frames” that show the diversity of skills possessed by France on this part of the world, but also all that remains to be addressed in depth. An editorial should be able to be produced every day. The task is immense and exciting as well. Asia and the Pacific are forging ties with other continents and making waves, exploiting new magnetic fields of economics, innovation, science and industry that are organising themselves around the major cities of Asia.

Author

Jean-François Sabouret

Centre national de la recherche scientifique

Part One. Regional dynamics and globalization

Sericulture in Asia: yesterday, today, tomorrow

Bernard Mauchamp

August 2011

Introduction

The term “sericulture” is strictly limited to the production techniques of the cocoons of a caterpillar, the silkworm. In a broader sense, it includes the stages of stifling and reeling to obtain raw silk fleets, which is how raw silk is marketed. Other interventions are necessary for obtaining silk fabric, the ennoblement of silks.

I will limit myself to a restricted definition of sericulture. As the silkworm feeds on mulberry leaves, culture of the mulberry tree is part of sericulture. The breeding of silkworms and the culture of mulberry trees is a saga that shaped the world.

History: the sericulture of yesterday

Tsunami in a cup of tea: splashed by the fall of a cocoon into her cup of tea, Princess Si-Ling-Chi discovered the secret of silk while trying to remove it. She drew out one very long, solid thread. After this observation in 2602 BC, the emperor put his wife in charge of producing this fabulous thread. Si-Ling-chi collected the worms and installed them in a closed room to feed them. With the cocoons obtained, she was able to reel the thread and to weave it. For centuries, this practice remained confined to the courts of the many Chinese dynasties, any person trying to reveal its secrets being sentenced to death, and the material was known only in the form of silk fabrics. These fabulous fabrics became the basis of commercial exchange, with the same value as currency, and trade routes were opened (139 BC, Han Empire) to areas west of China, in the first form of globalisation. The roads encouraged commercial, cultural and even religious exchanges. The exceptional character of the goods attracted heterogeneous populations, diversifying the exchanges (gold, money, horses, new food products, alfalfa). The “silk roads” crossed the deserts, from oasis to oasis, and the mountains. In the East, the silk road started from Chiang’ an (Xi’ an) and passed to the west either north of the Caspian Sea and then north of the Black Sea, or south of the Caspian Sea towards Baghdad and then to Antioch. This road was not, however, the one the silkworm travelled, and the origin of this fibre remains unknown.

In the 2nd century BC, Chinese emigrants introduced sericulture into Korea, but it did not last there. The silk roads were not the channels for the dissemination of sericulture but, on the contrary, protected the secret, because the merchants wished to keep a monopoly on trade. In the 5th century AD, sericulture reached India, where it settled. Gradually, it spread to most of the countries of Asia, including India, Korea, Japan, Cambodia, Viet Nam and Thailand.

This is the stage on which the first act of sericulture was played. Let us see who the actors are.

The silkworm

The cocoon that fell into the cup came from a caterpillar, Bombyx mandarina, a wild species present in nature. The current Bombyx of the mulberry tree, Bombyx mori, is a domesticated form, a species in which the caterpillar does not move and the adult does not fly. Consequently, large numbers of worms and can be bred and various species can be hybridized.

The worms are reared on open trays covered with mulberry leaves, their only food. Over the centuries, several hundred lineages have been selected that are best adapted to the various rearing areas. The monovoltine (one generation per year) and bivoltine (two generations per year) lineages are bred in temperate zones and give the best silks, whereas the polyvoltine lines (several generations per year) are bred in tropical and subtropical areas and give silks of poorer quality.

The worm is fed for about 36 days. It then secretes silk to make the cocoon, inside of which it is transformed into a pupa, then into a butterfly. The cocoon consists of only one thread, which can be more than a kilometer long, and those with a longer thread (1.5 km) are selected. The adult leaves the cocoon by breaking the thread, and this is prevented by killing the pupa with heat. Once the pupa has been killed and dehydrated, the cocoons are preserved until the thread is reeled. Sericulturists plan their interventions to the day. All the worms in a breeding stock are the same age, and all secrete their silk at the same time, so that the cocoons can be collected all together.

The B. mori worm constitutes more than 95% of all reared worms. Other, wild species produce silk of different quality, such as tussah, tasar, eri and muga silks.

The mulberry tree

The most commonly used species, Morus alba, is found in China. There are currently several hundred varieties, adapted to the areas and soils in which they are cultivated. The tree is easy to multiply: by sowing, propagation by cutting and multiplication in vitro.

The worms feed on leaves placed on the trays, which represents expensive work for gathering. In addition to the selection of varieties, efforts have been made to control the trees. Feeding branches consists of cutting and giving whole branches to last-age worms, without taking off the leaves. For first-age worms, the leaves are cut into thin strips, which is the only way of feeding them. Use of artificial food containing mulberry leaf powder was not satisfactory. The quality of the food has a direct effect on the quality of silk.

To raise one ounce or nearly 40 000 eggs, a total of 1 200 kg of leaves are needed during 36 days over a final surface of 60 m². One ounce produces 60 kg of cocoons, which produce 5 kg of raw silk.

Breeding farms are either small family units or industrial-type units.

Sericulture today

Progress in knowledge led to industrialization, with changes in some techniques. The first advance was separation of the production of cocoons from production of adults for eggs, resulting in two separate businesses, seeding and sericulture, each with its own know-how. The seeder ensures the production of healthy eggs, resulting in at least 98% hatching by a date scheduled by the sericulturist. Studies by Pasteur in France allowed eradication of pébrine, a fatal worm disease. The seeder also produces hybrids, resulting in cocoons of a much better quality than that provided by each parent. The seeder provides certified eggs to the local market and even exports them. When the eggs are incubated at the same time, the breeding stocks are homogeneous, facilitating interventions. Exchanges of knowhow between Europe and Asia modernize sericulture. Recent techniques are adopted in the countries where sericulture is established and also benefit family breeding farms.

At the end of the 19th century, Japan, India and China were the principal producers. More than 95% of the world’s silk is produced in Asia. Recent statistics place China as the first producer (with more than 70% of the overall production).

Production of fresh cocoons and raw silk by country.

Source : www.inserco.org

The market and consumption do not always reflect sericultural activity directly. It is affected by labour costs and risks regression in the long term, as industrialization induces rural depopulation. In the medium term, Chinese and Indian production is likely to decrease in favour of new production centres (e.g. Africa, South America). Its future depends on grants, as the price of fresh cocoons remains low (US$ 2–3/kg). World demand is currently slightly increasing.

The sericulture of tomorrow

Which is the future of sericulture? The example of Europe would indicate that it is compromised, because, although Europe consumes worked silk, it does not produce any cocoons. The probable increase in demand from emerging countries should lead to an increase in production, in contrast to their industrialization. Will these countries become like Japan, France and Italy? Any such evolution implies displacement of the production zones. Currently, silk is used almost exclusively as a textile fibre (e.g. for the sari at the beginning of this article). This activity will be maintained in the future, but other outlets for silk can be found without any great increase in sericultural activities, such as use of silk from cocoons with poorer-quality thread, which does not meet the criteria for textile use.

The true future of sericulture lies in a new destiny for the silkworm: making proteins other than silk by gene transfer in the genome. Japan and China have become strongly implicated in this new strategy since France, which developed the technology in 2000, abandoned these programmes in 2010!

Silk is synthesized in silk-producing glands. As it is proteinic, it is expressed by known genes and sequences. To obtain proteins other than silk from the cells of silk-producing glands, genes of other proteins are introduced into the genome of the silkworm, ensuring that it functions only in these glands. The silkworm is thus genetically modified. During the transformation, the introduced gene is transmitted to its progeny, thus directly obtaining a new lineage. In this way, a medically useful recombinant protein can be combined with silk, impregnating the thread. It can then easily be purified to obtain a product free of any cellular contaminants. The transformation strategy can be used for any kind of gene.

Another application of transgenesis that will have a strong impact on the future of sericulture in India is the production of lineages resistant to the diseases due to baculoviruses. The lineages that give the best silks cannot be bred in India because of their high sensitivity to these viruses. With Indian colleagues, we introduced a genetic construction into the genome of silkworms, which is expressed in all cells and thus blocks replication of the viruses by inhibiting the structural proteins. The lineage obtained is thus resistant to the viruses. Hybrids obtained by crossing with the resistant line acquire this property. This represents enormous progress in the development of sericulture in tropical and subtropical areas.

The production of medically useful proteins and special silks are under way.

Conclusion

Sericulture, and therefore the silkworm, was the basis of many major upheavals, which changed the world, such as:

the silk roads, the first signs of globalisation;

study of the diseases of silkworms by Pasteur, leading to the advent of microbiology;

transgenesis of the silkworm in animal biotechnology.

Sericulture, although practised fir more than 5 000 years, has a certain future in the 5 000 years to come.

Author

Bernard Mauchamp

Institut national de la recherche agronomique

Inter-Korean tensions: ideology first, at any cost?

Alain Nass

October 2011

2010 was the worst year of inter-Korean confrontation for decades. Human losses were heavy in the south, with about 50 military and civilian victims after two major incidents in the West Sea: a ship of the Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy was sunk by an undetected action attributed to the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), which then poured artillery shells on Yongpyeong Island. The result of the ROK military response is not known.

The reasons for these events, which have had long-lasting effects on inter-Korean relations, reflect the reciprocal choice for firmness and confrontation made in 2008 and the difficulty of getting out of the spiral of violence dominated by ideological confrontation. As Pyongyang wants to make 2012 the year of consolidation of its regime and a presidential election is to be held in the south, will there be a move towards negotiation and easing of relations or aggravation of the tensions?

The rising crisis

In early 2008, a new conservative administration took over in Seoul. Determined to break with the liberal approach to the north of the two previous presidencies, it enacted policies contrary to those followed previously. In order to be firmer with the regime in Pyongyang, the administration backtracked on several inter-Korean projects and agreements that were accused of funding the regime, advocated strict reciprocity and stopped automatic aid; it made the DPRK nuclear issue a bilateral priority. At the same time, Seoul strengthened its economic and military ties with its US ally.

The North Korean regime took a long time to express an opinion on this new Government, responding first verbally, asking that all inter-Korean commitments be respected, then denouncing Seoul more and more strongly for its “intransigence and provocations” (controversy over preemptive strikes).

In mid-2008, the accidental death of a South Korean tourist who had inadvertently entered a military compound in the North worsened the relationship. The regime refused to apologize, and the Conservatives in the South used this incident to justify their intransigence, to denounce the liberal approach and to suspend the so-called sunshine policy. The incident thus compromised any easing of contacts, the question of a prior apology emerging as a new obstacle.

Starting in 2009, the degradation of relations became overt, with frequent tensions and significant degradation of exchanges (end of joint exploitation of the Keumkang Tourism Resort, blockage of the Kaesong industrial complex). Direct contacts were interrupted, and the flagship programmes of reconciliation (meetings of separated families) were suspended.

In the North, the elite who had supported opening up with Seoul and had benefited from the trade it generated was purged. On top of a failed economic reform, the health problems of the leader speeded up implementation of a viable mechanism for a succession, to fill a possible power vacuum. This process, with its potential instability, played into the hands of hardliners in the regime, who were already concerned about the destabilizing effects of the opening up with Seoul. Their approach was legitimized by the quickly deteriorating relations.

The Seoul Government, better backed militarily by the US and therefor better assured of its security in a crisis, strengthened its intransigent, conditional approach, which was not challenged by the new Democrat US administration1, which arrived in 2009. Most Conservatives estimated that, with strong international support, firmness was preferable and could force the regime to surrender to the conditions of Seoul in order to survive and avoid collapse.

The Pyongyang regime, however, demonstrated that other, more painful alternatives exist and once again showed its capacity for resilience in the face of adversity, choosing the West Sea as its battlefield. This zone of direct military contact between the two Koreas, where the demarcation line is not agreed upon, had already been the theatre of regular clashes (1999, 2002 and 2009). The mutual desire for revenge and confrontation predominated.

Thus, within a few months, inter-Korean relations again became hostage to the most hardline politicians on both sides of the demilitarized zone, paving the way for a clash.

2010, confrontation

The sinking of the “Cheonan”

On 26 March, a ROK Navy ship, the Cheonan, patrolling the West Sea near the demarcation line was cut in two by an explosion and sunk, killing 46 sailors of a crew of 104.

The international investigation by the ROK Government2, concluded in May that the DPRK had been involved3, and debris from a North Korean torpedo (propeller) was found by dredging the scene of the sinking. North Korea has always denied responsibility, international condemnation was not unanimous, and some technical findings of the investigation remain disputed. A team of experts from the Russian Navy made separate analyses, which have not been made public4, with other hypotheses.

The event also cast doubt on the effectiveness of US-ROK monitoring of the West Sea, an admittedly difficult but small area, which has been closely monitored for decades, where the water is not deep (30-40 m at the site) and the channels well known. Undetected underwater activity despite the amount of the equipment deployed by the allies (further strengthened by a joint naval exercise involving US Navy ships in the south) is disquieting. It indicates an unsuspected capability of the North Korean military and a highly sophisticated operation that escaped detection before and after the action, despite travelling a long distance in shallow waters.

Artillery shelling of Yongpyeong island

In November, contributing to the fatal crescendo of tensions already exacerbated by the Cheonan incident, the DPRK responded to live firing exercises by the ROK in the West Sea by a salvo of heavy artillery on the inhabited island of Yongpyeong, leaving 4 dead, 19 injured and heavy damage. This direct military action against ROK territory was unprecedented since the 1950s and the war.

Lessons learnt and prospects

When the new Seoul Government introduced its new approach to the North in 2008, it sought to denounce the “errors” of the Liberal presidencies, using inter-Korean relations as a vector. This internal approach, however, weighed instantly on the still-fragile North-South relations, built laboriously since 1991, the year of the first major inter-Korean agreements.

For Seoul it was also, in full accordance with its inter-Korean principles and its calculations for domestic policy, a means of “rehabilitating” its alliance with Washington, which was considered to have deteriorated under the Liberals. The rapprochement was helped by a good relationship and ideological proximity with the Bush administration. Its military component (joint exercises and planning, scenarios for interventions in the North) reactivated the fears of Pyongyang, confronted by its own weaknesses and the risk of a coordinated external intervention in a crisis, and strengthened the determination of the regime to guard against risk by improving its deterrent capability and emphasizing threat it represented.

The escalation of intransigent rhetoric on both sides reignited military tensions and postures, directed by the North either at the US (missiles and nuclear testing, HEU program) to lure them into negotiation, or at the South.

The firmness showed by Seoul quickly reached its limits. Although it may have weakened the regime, it was concluded that that might contribute to an overt crisis or even to collapse, which neither Seoul nor the other players wanted. To be effective, it had to rely even more on the US, which had all the necessary means (vigilance, anticipation, reaction), at the risk of not mastering decisions and reactions in to incident, the US having no interest in the situation getting out of control, as they were also in the front line.

Those incidents have shown once again that, beyond the rhetoric, retaliation is still not a credible option, and the North knows it. Firmness can even be counterproductive: it resulted in the disappearance of relays and contacts between the South and the North forged through exchanges, and that network would have to be rebuilt. Positions dearly acquired in the commercial field and exploitation of natural resources in North Korea were abandoned, to the benefit of the Chinese, who will be difficult to dislodge.

Seoul lost the initiative in a project in which progress depends more on Washington and Beijing, who are the only players capable of controlling the escalation and dissuading Pyongyang from and who are making efforts to facilitate a return to dialogue.

It would more appropriate and realistic in the short term to return to negotiation and detente, despite the financial (aid) and ideological (accept the regime and discuss on equal terms) costs. History has shown that Seoul will gain room for manoeuvre and status, not only with the North but also the US and its Chinese neighbour, than in any phase of intransigence. This attitude has the advantage of creating trust, influence and dependence in the North, which are useful for reducing tensions and for South Korean interests.

With just one year left before the ROK presidential election, however, the clock is ticking, and Seoul has lost the initiative on the inter-Korean issue, which depends on Washington and Beijing for any progress. Another policy is possible, as now requested by South Korea, but, to be credible, it will be necessary to change the people around the President who are still advocating intransigence.

Notes

1 The Government in Seoul even convinced the Obama administration not to renew the “North Korea” approach of President Clinton, which raised conflict with the Republicans and was traumatizing for the Democrats, who lost the presidential election.

2 With the US, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Sweden

3 Ministry of National Defence, Joint Investigation Report on the Attack against ROK Ship Cheonan, September 2010.

4 “Russian Navy Expert Team’s Analysis on the Cheonan Incident”, The Hankyoreh, 27 July 2010.

Author

Alain Nass

Expert on Asia and Korea

Was Confucius Korean?

Sources of Chinese-Korean contention

Samuel Guex

December 2011

Anti-Japanese feelings in the Republic of Korea have a long history, dating back for many to the Wako, the Japanese pirates who plundered the Korean coasts during the 14 th century. More recently, it derived almost certainly from the painful experience of colonization (1905-1945), but it is perhaps mainly the way in which Japan manages this sensitive heritage...