Comment on Looking Back to Look Forward: Geopolitics, Identity, and Engaging China
D a recent visit to a local bookstore, I stumbled upon a monograph by the Chinese scholar Zhang Weiwei (Zhang, 2012). It would have been easy to overlook among the voluminous literature seeking to make sense of China’s much-debated ascendancy in the international arena. Entitled The China Wave, it follows many other works focusing on the exceptionalism of the Asian state, signaling its upward trajectory as a unique (albeit important) global actor. However, what really attracted my attention was the front cover, which boasts sales of one-half million copies of its Chinese edition, making it one of most popular books in China in 2011. Turning to the preface, the author explains that the book was originally intended for a Chinese audience, and the purpose for translating it is to enable the “West” to “emancipate the mind and learn a little more about or from China’s approach and the Chinese ideas, however extraneous they may appear, for its own benefit” (Zhang, 2012, p. xi). Indeed, in the subsequent pages, Zhang proceeds to qualify his claim; by positing China as a civilizational state amalgamating modern state structures with distinct traditions and features originating from its civilization, Zhang argues that there are eight historically embedded ideas that the state follows in charting its developmental pathway. He concludes that this set of political discourses raises questions about many commonplace assumptions of democracy, good governance, as well as human rights, and that “the West may actually gain from China’s rise of power and ideas, just as many developing or transitional economies have done” (Zhang, 2012, p. ix). Zhang’s thesis confirms John Agnew’s (2012) observation that there has been no lack of voices within China reflecting on the country’s positioning in world politics. Indeed, Zhang’s work seems to fall under Agnew’s narrative of “international relations theory with Chinese characteristics.” Rather than suggesting the existence of a singular Chinese (meta)narrative, Agnew traces the genealogies of four different geopolitical themes prevalent in China, to demonstrate how such (selective) histories and geographies have been revived (at different junctures) to envisage the country’s geopolitical futures. Agnew’s intent is neither to privilege these Chinese accounts as necessarily more authentic nor uphold an essentialist view that there are fundamental ideas intrinsic to the existing Chinese polity (which Zhang’s writings seem to connote). Rather, Agnew’s contribution lies in his exposition of how China’s past has been mobilized by intellectuals and politicians alike to provide justifications for the pursuit of particular foreign policy agendas. Accordingly, as opposed to Zhang’s lofty proclamations of the value of Chinese modes of thinking for different societies, Agnew appears more concerned with gaining insight into the mindsets and practices of these Chinese political actors given China’s status as an emerging world power.
Translating Terror
Abstract On 10 February 2005, a New York jury convicted Mohamed Yousry, an Arabic interpreter and translator, of two related offenses: (1) violating US federal prison rules, called Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), designed, inter alia, to prevent high-risk inmates from communicating with confederates on the outside; and (2) aiding and abetting an Egyptian terrorist organization (U.S. v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar, Lynne Stewart, and Mohamed Yousry, 2005). By tracing Yousry’s path from judiciary interpreter to prisoner, this article explores the legislative history of the SAMs, discusses their application/misapplication and sheds light on how this landmark case transformed the professional landscape for interpreters in the United States post-9/11. To highlight some of the implications for the profession and the discipline, it draws on current literature on translation and interpreting in situations of conflict. It also positions the verdict in the larger context of US national security and offers policy suggestions geared toward protecting this increasingly vulnerable profession.
Reconceptualizing Vagrancy and Reconstructing the Vagrant: A Socio-Legal Analysis of Criminal Law Reform in Canada, 1953-1972
This article explores significant reforms to the vagrancy section of the Criminal Code during the mid-to-late twentieth century. By locating the reforms within their unique social, political, and economic climates, I examine how they reconceptualized the offence of vagrancy and concomitantly reconstructed the vagrant as a social problem. The reforms played a seminal role in reducing the number of vagrancy offences, eventually leading to the demise of vagrancy in the criminal law. Yet, while the "vagrant" ceased to exist in the law, the law still continues to preserve vestiges of the vagrant in a highly gendered manner.