Malaysia
BY
Gerhard Hoffstaedter
The deepening Islamisation of Malaysia has echoes in the current populism policies of the US and Europe, writes Gerhard Hoffstaedter The Islamisation of Malaysian society has received much attention over the last few decades. Much scholarship has focused on the changing daily lives of Muslims, how Malaysness and Islam were fused into a nationalist project […]
Korea
BY
David Hundt
South Korea is facing a demographic crisis, writes David Hundt It’s going to take something radical to arrest South Korea’s demographic and social decline. Societies can counter population decline by having more babies, allowing more immigration, or a combination of the two. The government has bet on increasing South Korea’s birth rate to overcome its […]
Indonesia
BY
Meg Downes
Significant shifts have occurred in the Indonesian literary landscape, particularly the growing popularity of Islamic women writers, reports Meg Downes. This year marks 20 years since the establishment of Indonesian Islamic writers’ organisation Forum Lingkar Pena (FLP, Pen Circle Forum). Founded at Universitas Indonesia (UI) in February 1997 by author Helvy Tiana Rosa, FLP’s mission […]
China
BY
Yi Zheng
China’s new ‘quality’ reading program is about furthering the political aims of the Party–state, writes Yi Zheng In an official document entitled Reading Nationwide: a Program for the Thirteenth ‘Five-Year Plan, released on 27 December 2016, the Chinese State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) outlined its blueprint for building a new […]
China
BY
Benjamin Habib and Nicholas Procter
China is poised to step into the leadership void left by the Trump administration’s likely withdrawal from international climate politics, write Nicholas Procter and Benjamin Habib As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump left no ambiguity about the stance his government would take on climate change. He infamously tweeted that climate change was a hoax perpetrated […]