OBSERVARE

Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL14 N2 TD1

Thematic dossier

Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on East Asia

January 2024

EDITORIAL

CARMEN AMADO MENDES

carmen.mendes@cccm.gov.pt

President of the Macau Scientific and Cultural Centre (Portugal). Associate Professor of

International Relations with tenure, accredited at the School of Economics of the

University of Coimbra, where she established the course “China and the Portuguese-

speaking Countries in World Trade”. Former head of the International Relations

department and coordinator of the School of Economics International Office at the same

university. Holds a Ph.D. degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies –

University of London, a Master degree from the Institute of Higher European Studies –

University of Strasbourg, and a Bachelor degree from the Institute of Social and Political

Sciences – University of Lisbon. She was a Post-doctorate scholar at the Institute of

Political Studies of the Portuguese Catholic University of Lisbon and visiting professor at

the University of Macau, the University of Salamanca and the University of Lyon. She was

a board member of the European Association for Chinese Studies, and the organizer of

the 2014 EACS conference in Coimbra; and president of the International Relations

Section and member of the board of the Portuguese Political Science Association.

Principal Investigator at the University of Coimbra on a research project on the role of

Macau in China´s relations with the Portuguese speaking-countries, funded by the

Portuguese national funding agency for Science, Research and Technology; and on a

project on South-South Cooperation for the Europe China Research and Advice Network,

supported by the European External Action Service. Auditor of the Portuguese National

Defense Institute. Co-founder of the consulting company ChinaLink, and of the

Observatory for China in Portugal. Author of China and the Macau Negotiations, 1986-

1999 (HKUP) and China’s New Silk Road: An Emerging World Order (Routledge), as well

as other publications available for consultation at: www.uc.pt/feuc/carmen.

ISABEL MURTA PINA

isabelpina@cccm.gov.pt

Isabel Murta Pina holds a MA (2000) and a Ph. D. (2009) degree in History from the

NOVA University of Lisbon. She is currently a research fellow at Centro Científico e

Cultural de Macau (Portugal), and a collaborative scholar at the Centre for the Humanities

(CHAM - NOVA University of Lisbon | Azores University); and holds the same category at

the Centre for Classical Studies (University of Lisbon). She is also a member of the

Portuguese Maritime Academy. There were two stints as an Invited Assistant Professor,

one from 2006 to 2011, in the Institute for Oriental Studies (Portuguese Catholic

University); and another from 2011 to 2014, at the Bachelor’s degree of Asian Studies at

the University of Lisbon. Her main research interests focus on the Sino-European

intercultural and material exchanges during the Ming and Qing periods. For a more

detailed CV, see: https://www.cienciavitae.pt/6317-C667-B530.

How to cite this editorial

Mendes, Carmen Amado & Pina, Isabel Murta (2024). Editorial. Janus.net, e-journal of international

relations, Thematic dossier “Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on East Asia”, VOL14, N2,

TD1, pp. 1-4, consulted [online] on date of the last view. https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-

7251.DT24.ED

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL14 N2 TD1

Thematic dossier

Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on East

January 2024, pp. 1-4

Editorial – Carmen Amado Mendes e Isabel Murta Pina

EDITORIAL

CARMEN AMADO MENDES

ISABEL MURTA PINA

This special issue is the result of collaboration with the Macau Scientific and Cultural

Centre (also known as the CCCM). This issue is one in a series of collections of articles

presented at the CCCM China Conferences. These conferences are held annually in the

spring of each year, and the authors of the articles in this issue actively participated in

the 2022 Conference. The CCCM itself is a scientific research centre based in Lisbon,

under the auspices of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher

Education. The mission of the CCCM is to produce, promote, and disseminate knowledge

about Macau and China in general, and act as a platform between Portugal and the

People's Republic of China, as well as more broadly, between Europe and Asia.

On this occasion, the special issue contains a total of seven articles, two of which are in

Portuguese, and the remaining five in English. The first two articles make up a section

titled Historical Perspectives. The section commences with an article by Teddy YH

Sim and Dennis De Witt that provides new and important insights into the social history

of the Melaka-Singapore region in the late eighteenth century and the first half of the

nineteenth century.

The focus of the article is directed to a discussion of the Portuguese and inter-married

Portuguese communities in Melaka during the long period after the fall of Melaka,

spanning the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, and by extension to the close

lineage links between this settlement (Melaka) and Singapore, and similarly to

communities in Singapore in the immediate period following its founding (1819). The

article also introduces discussion of Dutch and British activities in the region and provides

detailed support for the research conclusions that are reached.

The second article by Cristina Bahón Arnaiz focuses on the origins and development

of Christianity in Korea, covering almost the entire twentieth century, from 1907

onwards, and includes reference to events that occurred in the current century. The

author convincingly details the closely related origins of the core doctrine of two

important and widely known Christian movements, namely the Unification Church and

Jesus Morning Star (JMS). Similarly, to several other Korean new religious movements,

or NRMs, the founders of the Unification Church and Jesus Morning Star both emphasized

their doctrine as being new and unique.

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL14 N2 TD1

Thematic dossier

Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on East

January 2024, pp. 1-4

Editorial – Carmen Amado Mendes e Isabel Murta Pina

The Unification Church was founded by self-proclaimed messiah Moon Sun-Myung in

1954 and established in the US around the 1970s, while Jesus Morning Star was launched

by the self-proclaimed messiah Jung Myung-Seok in 1982. Both founders claimed to be

the second coming messiah and preach what they call a “new” biblical canon or a “new”

gospel that Jesus has exclusively revealed to them to complete his mission on earth.

However, as the author convincingly shows, their narratives are closely interrelated, and

they emanate from the same grassroots.

The Contemporary Perspectives section of the special issue commences with a timely

article by Anabela Santiago that specifically examines Chinese contemporary political

governance, both at the domestic and international levels, in the years from 1978 until

2022. This is a period that saw a significant overall shift in Chinese ambitions, and in

parallel a change in perception of China at the international level, as a global power. The

author suggests that there does not actually exist any academic consensus regarding

whether Chinese governance is aiming to reshape the current global order or whether it

is adapting and integrating within it and sees two different tendencies emerging from the

scientific community. While one advocates a form of peaceful rise with China as a ‘status

quo power’, the other perceives a growing ‘China threat’ as being the reality. The author

presents an extensive and balanced study, grounded on a literature review analysis using

materials accessed from the Scopus Elsevier database, together with an incisive analysis

of twenty-one journal articles.

The second and third articles in this section focus on Chinese international diplomacy.

The first of these two papers, which is co-authored by Emilio Hernández-Correa and

Ricardo Gúdel, examines China's strategic utilization of its burgeoning sports industry,

and specifically football, to achieve global influence, and analyses the implications of this

approach. The paper clearly reveals and details how the Chinese leadership has

orchestrated policies to transform the nation from one that principally hosts sporting

events to a nation that is aiming to become a global powerhouse in the highly competitive

world of sports. The authors point out that Chinese government initiatives also integrate

the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with sports diplomacy, thus further amplifying China's

soft power. China's acquisitions of European football clubs may consequently be

understood as being emblematic of a multifaceted strategy, blending cultural and

economic influence, and shifts in foreign investment policies and state support have

noticeably influenced the trajectory of Chinese investments in foreign football clubs.

The second article focusing on diplomacy, written in Portuguese by Li Guofeng, deals

with the active promotion internationally of Chinese gastronomy as a form of soft-

power diplomacy. To research the vast and complex field of Chinese gastrodiplomacy, Li

Guofeng develops theoretical perspectives advanced by Sam Chappel-sokol and Paul

Rockower, as well as other specialists, to understand gastrodiplomacy as a long-standing

and effective means to achieve nation branding. Explaining that the Chinese authorities

selects delegations from cities famous for their cuisine, such as Canton, Chengdu, and

Tianjin, to act as representatives of China, Li Guofeng quotes Rockower who wrote in

2014, “Highlighting the unique characteristics of China's different regional cuisines,

regional and urban-level gastrodiplomacy could be a new form for Chinese diplomacy,”

and continues to quote scholars who have found that there exists a degree of coordination

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL14 N2 TD1

Thematic dossier

Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on East

January 2024, pp. 1-4

Editorial – Carmen Amado Mendes e Isabel Murta Pina

in Chinese promotion of its gastronomy in its diplomatic activities that is not noticeable

in other nations with outstanding cuisines, such as Thailand, Japan, and Peru.

The fourth article in the Contemporary Perspectives section, written by Zhidong Hao,

consists of a critical analysis of the contemporary education system in the People’s

Republic of China. The author argues that higher education system in China is

simultaneously going through a process of totalitarianization, and of democratization, at

present. On the one hand, the author sees the existence of organizational controls and

ideological indoctrination of students, as well as cooptation of faculty members by the

Party-state. On the other hand, the author suggests that democratic breakthroughs also

exist, for both the students and the teaching professors. Drawing the conclusion that

whatever happens within the ’ivory towers’ of the university world will inevitably affect

what happens outside them in society at large, the author proposes that the outcome is,

yet, undecided. The result as to whether the Party-state ultimately tends towards

totalitarianism or democracy depends on the result of an ongoing tug-of-war between

the forces existing in the state and society. The author bases his views on an analysis of

available data, viewed from the perspective of research field of the sociology of higher

education.

The fifth article in Contemporary Perspectives section, which is also the concluding

article in the special issue, turns to the field of international banking and investment.

Writing in Portuguese, the author João Sabido Costa provides a detailed overview,

stretching up to 2021 of the origin and development of two banks, and analyses their

activities as international investment providers. The Asian Development Bank/ADB and

the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank/AIIB are both multilateral institutions created

in the Asia-Pacific region. They aim to promote the development of their area of activity,

and the AIIB is furthermore authorized by its statutes to operate in countries that are

not regional members. The presence of European Union shareholder countries, or

countries with similar international perspectives, in both banks, and their commitment

and performance make both institutions privileged forums for international discussion on

the main themes related to development. Furthermore, the fact that both Banks

recognize, among others, the Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030) and the

Paris Agreement as their main strategic objectives allows for a shared and rational

dialogue between countries, continents, and regions, even when grounded in diverse

cultural and intellectual backgrounds.

The special issue, when viewed as a whole, provides new, and original, insights into a

range of developments in Chinese and Korean society, both in pre-modern times, and up

to the present, and as such are fully in-line with the mission and aims of the CCCM.