ASIAN REVIEW

Introduction

Jirayudh Sinthuphan — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0700

The four articles collected in this issue of Asian Review examine Asia not as a fixed cultural or geopolitical category, but as a dynamic field of negotiation in which power, identity, embodiment, and knowledge are continuously reconfigured. Spanning historical inquiry, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and communication theory, the contributions traverse Thailand, Nepal, North India, and Sri Lanka to illuminate how Asian societies respond creatively to structures of governance, modernization, religious practice, and epistemological dominance. Despite their disciplinary diversity, the articles are united by a shared concern with forms of tension and mediation: between state and community, intervention and refusal, technique and embodiment, and Western and Asian paradigms of knowledge.

The Eightfold Noble Path Wheel Model of Communication

Sugath Mahinda Senarath — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0700

Middle Path (Majjima Patipada), based on the Eightfold Noble Path (Ariya Atthangika Magga) Mindful Communication model is an effort to address contemporary world issues from an Asian perspective. Asian knowledge is based on Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islamic philosophical and traditional knowledge. In the fields of social sciences and humanities, theories are still mostly Western centric. It is doubtful whether Asian scholars are well versed in Asian philosophical and traditional knowledge in social sciences and humanities. It is better to introduce Asian theories and concepts in order to address Asian issues and problems rather than blindly apply Western centric theories and concepts. This does not mean rejecting or de-westernizing western theories and concepts. It is a balancing of the Eastern and the Western theories and concepts on Mass Communication. The Eight-Fold Noble Path of Buddhism can be a remedy for contemporary issues and problems. The Buddhist Middle Path based on Eight-Fold Path is transcending of two extremes. The Four-Fold Noble Truths in Buddhism consist of: the noble truths of suffering (dukkha), the origin of suffering (dukkha-samudaya), the cessation of suffering (dukkha-nirodha), and the path that leads to the end of suffering (magga or dukkhanirodhagamini-patipada-magga). The Eightfold Noble Path represents the means to achieve the cessation of suffering, fulfilling the fourth truth. Even though the Eight-fold Noble-Path-based mindful communication model is based on Buddhism, it is not limited to Buddhists but can be practiced by the people of other religious backgrounds as well. This mindful communication model, grounded in the Eight-Fold Noble Path, is represented as a wheel with spokes. Each spoke symbolizes one of the eight principles: Right View (Samma Ditthi), Right Intention (Samma Sankappa), Right Speech (Samma Vaca), Right Action (Samma Kammanta), Right Livelihood (Samma Ajiva), Right Effort (Samma Vayama), Right Mindfulness (Samma Sati), and Right Concentration (Samma Samadhi). Each of these is connected to the other and can be started at any point but preferably from Right Understanding (Samma Ditthi). This paper examines a mindful communication model based on the Buddhist Eight-fold Noble Path.

Surface Repression, Substantive Compromise

Qiyu Zhang — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0700

This paper examines Thailand's anti-Chinese policies during the period of Phibun Songkhram (1938–1944; 1948–1957), exploring why they exhibited a highly contradictory pattern of “initially hardline but ultimately compromising.” It further analyzes how this policy model objectively propelled Thailand's modernization process. The article argues that while the Phibun government implemented radical anti-Chinese measures at the levels of nationalist mobilization and symbolic politics—such as closing Chinese schools, restricting Chinese-language media, imposing occupational exclusion, and promoting nationalist propaganda—it remained economically and organizationally dependent on Chinese capital, commercial networks, and professional expertise. This created a dual-track policy structure of “surface suppression and core concession.”

Theoretically, this paper integrates Skocpol and Finegol's state capacity theory (1982) with Anderson's conception of “nation” (1991), arguing that anti-Chinese policies stem not solely from nationalist ideology but are profoundly shaped by structural constraints on state capacity. Through systematic analysis of administrative fragmentation, deficiencies in professional bureaucracy and policy instruments, and Thailand's long-established tradition of political learning, this paper reveals the fundamental reasons why the Phibun government could not implement deep interventions in the core of the Chinese economy.

From a comparative perspective, this study argues that unlike Indonesia and the Philippines, which adopted high-cost exclusionary approaches to address Chinese issues, Thailand, constrained by limited state capacity, chose a low-cost modernization path by integrating the Chinese into the “Thai imagined community.” This choice not only avoided capital flight and severe social conflict but also facilitated the structural transformation of the Chinese into “Sino-Thais,” making them crucial collaborators in state-building and economic development. This paper thus argues that the historical significance of the anti-Chinese movement during the Phibun era lies not in its exclusionary nature per se, but in the complex interplay it reveals between state capacity, nationalism, and modernization.

Creative Refusal and Freedom in Craft Making

Yuko Takamichi — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0700

This study explores the conflict between local handicraft production and development assistance interventions through the case of dhaka, a hand-woven cloth produced in the eastern hilly region of Nepal. Drawing on studies of development assistance in Nepal and the perspective of “culture as creative refusal,” this paper argues that the characteristics of dhaka cloth and its production practices have been shaped through local people’s conscious rejection and selective adoption of elements introduced by various development programs implemented in the region. Since the 1980s, the KHARDEP program in Town M has served as a catalyst for the implementation of numerous development assistance projects and government policies related to dhaka production. These interventions created opportunities for local people to reflect on their own practices of making dhaka—practices that had not previously been self-consciously articulated—by comparing them with methods introduced through development initiatives and industrial production. Through this process, people came to recognize their own modes of production, reconsider what they regarded as important in making dhaka, and either reject or selectively adopt externally introduced approaches. Based on case studies of development interventions related to local handicraft production, this study examines how people in the research area responded to such interventions and how their acts of refusal and selective acceptance became connected to the features now regarded as characteristic of dhaka cloth and its production practices.

Entangled Drum Histories

Haruo Inoue — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0700

This paper examines the historical and performative entanglements between tablā, the dominant percussion instrument of North India, and jorī, a paired drum preserved within the Nāmdhārī Sikh community of Punjab. While previous studies have treated these instruments in terms of their historical origins or musical functions, this study argues that their relationship is best understood through forms of frictional entanglement, in which bodily technique, material conditions, aesthetic orientations, and religious practice do not align but actively interfere with one another.

Drawing on long-term engagement as a performer, ethnographic fieldwork among Nāmdhārī musicians, and historical analysis, the paper demonstrates that the transition between tablā and jorī is not seamless but structured by multiple forms of resistance. Techniques cultivated in one tradition do not transfer smoothly to the other, revealing the limits of embodied musical knowledge. More broadly, the differences between these instruments produce distinct sonic and temporal orientations that shape divergent modes of musical and religious experience.

By foregrounding these layered forms of friction, the article reconceptualizes entanglement not as harmonious interconnectedness but as a dynamic process of constraint, interference, and transformation. Rather than treating percussion instruments as passive tools, this paper argues that they actively shape religious subjectivity and sonic worlds in North India.

Xu Guoqi "Chinese and Americans: A Shared History"

Xing Fang — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0700

The book, Chinese and Americans: A Shared History, presents recounts of vivid cross-cultural exchanges between Chinese and Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries at a more individual level, and intends to reveal a transnational history jointly shaped by people on the two sides of the Pacific. This history, as the book shows, becomes their “shared traditions,” which could foster a positive future of Sino-American relations.