Opportunities and Challenges for the Greater Mekong Subregion

Opportunities and Challenges for the Greater Mekong Subregion
Author: Charles Samuel Johnston
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2020-01-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 100002489X

The Mekong River is a vital and valuable resource, with huge development potential for the six states through which it flows. Given the significant asymmetry of power between those states, however, there is a real risk that some might utilise it to the detriment of others. Without a sense of regional belonging, it is difficult to imagine that these states and their constituent communities will take regional imperatives to heart, participate in joint regulatory frameworks, or adopt behaviours for upstream-downstream and lateral cooperation over the appropriation and use of their shared resources. How effectively has closer interdependence of the Mekong countries accommodated the development of a political-social-cultural space conducive to the growth of a regional "we-ness" among not only political elites, but also the general public? The contributors to this volume approach this question from a range of directions, including the impacts of tourism, regional development programmes, the Mekong Power Grid, and Sino-US rivalry. This edited volume presents valuable insights for scholars of international relations, Asian studies, development studies, environment studies, policy studies, and human geography.

Catholic Vietnam

Catholic Vietnam
Author: Charles Keith
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2012-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520953827

In this important new study, Charles Keith explores the complex position of the Catholic Church in modern Vietnamese history. By demonstrating how French colonial rule allowed for the transformation of Catholic missions in Vietnam into broad and powerful economic and institutional structures, Keith discovers the ways race defined ecclesiastical and cultural prestige and control of resources and institutional authority. This, along with colonial rule itself, created a culture of religious life in which relationships between Vietnamese Catholics and European missionaries were less equal and more fractious than ever before. However, the colonial era also brought unprecedented ties between Vietnam and the transnational institutions and culture of global Catholicism, as Vatican reforms to create an independent national Church helped Vietnamese Catholics to reimagine and redefine their relationships to both missionary Catholicism and to colonial rule itself. Much like the myriad revolutionary ideologies and struggles in the name of the Vietnamese nation, this revolution in Vietnamese Catholic life was ultimately ambiguous, even contradictory: it established the foundations for an independent national Church, but it also polarized the place of the new Church in post-colonial Vietnamese politics and society and produced deep divisions between Vietnamese Catholics themselves.

Continuing Vietnamese

Continuing Vietnamese
Author: Binh Nhu Ngo
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2021-02-16
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 146290095X

"Quite simply the most serious early intermediate textbook currently available for thoughtful American students at the university level."--Professor Stephen O'Harrow, Director, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa This is a second-year, intermediate Vietnamese language course designed for high school, college or self-study. Continuing Vietnamese is your next step toward master; it follows the best-selling, linguistically-based Elementary Vietnamese, and helps you progress to an intermediate level of communicating in Vietnamese. Invaluable for anyone planning to travel, study or work in Vietnam, this complete language course has been extensively tested at Harvard University. The accompanying native-speaker audio helps to develop listening comprehension and ensure correct pronunciation. The book contains ten lessons, each composed of two parts. Part 1, the dialogue part, introduces the learner to conversational Vietnamese as it's currently spoken in Hanoi so that the learner will be able to participate in engaging conversation on a variety of topics. Part 2, the narrative part, includes written materials that are characteristic of formal Vietnamese. It aims to develop the learner's reading and writing skills as well as speaking skills. The lessons focuse on various aspects of life in present-day Vietnam, including topics such as culture, history, geography, economy, theater, music, tourism, literature, poetry, cinema and sports. Each lesson helps you to learn Vietnamese by building your Vietnamese proficiency using several complementary elements to thoroughly develop your skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Key features of Continuing Vietnamese include: Online audio recordings offering native speakers' renditions of all the dialogues and narratives, vocabulary, grammar and usage explanations, everyday Vietnamese expressions, pronunciation drills and exercises, and even some popular Vietnamese proverbs. Exercises and practice activities which hone your skills throughout the learning process. Cultural notes that help bring Vietnam to life. A contemporary focus on today's Vietnamese speech patterns. A format that sharpens all four language skills: listening, speaking, writing and reading. All media content is alternatively accessible on the Tuttle Publishing website.

Public Diplomacy in Vietnam

Public Diplomacy in Vietnam
Author: Vu Lam
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2022-08-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000631605

This book explores how Vietnam's leadership conceptualises and conducts public diplomacy (PD) and offers a comparative analysis with regional powers. Drawing on social constructivism as its theoretical framework it investigates the rationale behind an authoritarian regime's implementation of public diplomacy to contribute to a better understanding of the broader framework of foreign-domestic policy. This theoretical and practical exploration of Vietnam's PD in cases of cultural diplomacy, South China Sea diplomacy and online activism situates it in the general academic and theoretical discussion on soft power. Key variables to the conceptualisation and conduct of Vietnam's PD, namely national interest, national identity and changing information technologies, especially the Internet and social media, are also thoroughly investigated. With crosscutting themes ranging from politics and international relations to communication studies, it will appeal to students and scholars of identity politics, populism and nationalism.