The Asian Bioethics Review covers a broad range of topics relating to bioethics. An online academic journal, ABR provides a forum to express and exchange original ideas on all aspects of bioethics, especially those relevant to the region. The journal promotes multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary studies and will appeal to all working in the field of ethics in medicine and healthcare, genetics, law, policy, science studies and research.

In March 2009, the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) was briefly taken over by a Christian faction. Their coup was overturned within a matter of weeks, but the episode highlighted a variety ofissues, including the role of religion in civil society, sex education, homosexuality, state intervention and media engagement. Although the immediate issue was control of an activist group concerned with women's rights, it has implications for the agendas and concerns of NGOs, "culture wars", the processes of citizenry mobilization, mass participation and noisy democracy, and liberal voices in contemporary Singapore. In this book, academics and public intellectuals examine the AWARE saga within the context of Singapore's civil society, considering the political and historical background and how the issues it raised relate to contemporary societal trends. In addition to documenting a milestone event for Singapore's civil society, the authors offer provocative interpretations that will interest a broad range of readers.

The Geneva conference on Laos of 1961-1962, which Britain helped initiate and bring to a conclusion, throws light on Britain's policy in Southeast Asia during what in some sense may be seen as the last of the decades in which its influence was crucial. This book is the first to make full use of the British archives to explore the conference, but it also bears on the history of Laos, of Vietnam, and of Southeast Asia generally. The core of the Geneva settlement was the neutralisation of Laos, the United States to strengthen its commitment to Thailand and Vietnam. North Vietnam could accept this result only if it allowed continued use of the Ho Chi Minh trail, which sustained resistance in South Vietnam. Under these circumstances, the agreement on neutralisation, though elaborately negotiated, had little chance of success. In the longer term, however, the agreement played a part in developing the concept of a neutral Southeast Asia advanced by ASEAN. The book is important for scholars in the various fields it touches, including modern Southeast Asian history, the history of Laos, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and international relations. It will be of expecial interest to those studying British policy at a time when Britain was seeking to reduce its commitments while continuing to avert the escalation of the Cold War.

The Cham people once inhabited and ruled over a large stretch of what is now the central Vietnamese coast. Their Indianized civilisation flourished for centuries, and they competed with the Vietnamese and Khmers for influence in mainland Southeast Asia. This book brings together essays on the Cham by specialists in history, archaeology, anthropology, art history and linguistics. It presents a revisionist overview of Cham history and a detailed explanation of how the Cham have been studied by different generations of scholars, as well as chapters on specific aspects of the Cham past. Several authors focus on archaeological work in central Vietnam that positions recent discoveries within the broader framework of Cham history. The authors synthesize work by previous scholars in order to illustrate what "Champa" has represented over the centuries. The book's fresh perspectives on the Cham provide penetrating insights into the history of Vietnam and on the broader dynamic of Southeast Asian history.

Published twice yearly in March and September by Singapore's East Asian Institute, China: An International Journal focuses on contemporary China, including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, covering the fields of politics, economics, society, geography, law, culture and international relations.

The interactions and mutual perceptions of China and Indonesia were a significant element in Asia's postcolonial transformation, but as result of the prevailing emphasis on diplomatic and political relations within a Cold War and nation-state framework, their multi-dimensional interrelationship and its complex domestic ramifications have escaped scholarly scrutiny. China and the Shaping of Indonesia provides a meticulous account of versatile interplay between knowledge, power, ethnicity, and diplomacy in the context of Sino-Indonesian interactions between 1949 and 1965. Taking a transnational approach that views Asia as a flexible geographical and political construct, this book addresses three central questions. First, what images of China were prevalent in Indonesia, and how were narratives about China construed and reconstructed? Second, why did the China Metaphor -- the projection of an imagined foreign land onto the local intellectural and political milieu -- become central to Indonesians' conception of themselves and a cause for self criticism and rediscovery? Third, how was the China Metaphor incorporated into Indonesia's domestic politics and culture, and how did it affect the postcolonial transformation, the fate of the ethnic Chinese minority, and Sino-Indonesian diplomacy? Employing a wide range of hitherto untapped primary materials in Indonesian and Chinese as well as his own interviews, Hong Liu presents a compelling argument that many influential politicians and intellectuals, among them Sukarno, Hatta, and Pramoedya, utilized China as an alternative model of modernity in conceiving and developing projects of social engineering, cultural regeneration and political restructuring that helped shape the trajectory of modern Indonesia. The multiplicity of China thus constituted a site of political contestations and intellectual imaginations. The study is a major contribution both to the intellectual and political history of Indonesia and to the reconceptualization of Asian studies, it also serves as a timely reminder of the importance of historicizing China's rising soft power in a transnational Asia.

Chinese cuisine has had a deep impact on culinary traditions in Southeast Asia, where the lack of certain ingredients and acess to new ingredients along with the culinary knowledge of local people led Chinese migrnats to modify traditional dishes and to invent new food. This process brought the cuisine of southern China, considered by some writers to be "the finest in the world," into contact with a wide range of local and global cuisines and ingredients. When Chinese from Southeast Asia moved on to other parts of the world, they brought these variants of Chinese food with them, completing a cycle of culinary reproduction, localization andinvention, and globalization. the process does not end there, for the new context offers yet another set of ingredients and culinary traditions, and the "embedding and fusing of foods" continues, creating additional hybrid forms. Written by scholars whose deep familiarity with Chinese cuisine is both personal and academic, Chinese Food and Foodways in Southeast Asia and Beyond is a book that anyone who has been fortunate enough to encounter Southeast Asian food will savour, and it provides a window on this world for those who have yet to discover it.

British imperialism profoundly influenced the development of the modern world order. This same imperialism created modern Singapore, shaping its colonial development, influencing its post-colonial reorientation. Winston Churchill was British imperialism's most significant 20th-century statesman. Churchill never visited Singapore, yet their two stories heavily influenced each other. Singapore became a symbol of British imperial power in Asia to Churchill, while Singaporeans later came to see him as symbolising that power. The fall of Singapore to Japanese conquest in 1942 was a low point in Churchill's war leadership, one he forever labelled by calling it "the worst disaster in British military history". It was also a tragedy for Singapore, ushering in three cruel years of occupation. But the interplay between these three historical forces -- Churchill, empire, and Singapore -- extended well beyond this most dramatic conjuncture. No single volume critically examines that longer interplay. This collection of essays does so by analysing Churchill's understanding of empire, his perceptions of Singapore and its imperial role, his direction of affairs regarding Singapore and the Empire, and his influence on the subsequent relationship between them.

De Jiao ("Teaching of Virtue") is a China-born religious movement, based on spirit-writing and rooted in a tradition of "halls for good deeds", that emerged in Chaozhou during the Sino-Japanese war. This book relates the fascinating process of its spread throughout Southeast Asia in the 1950s, and, more recently, from Thailand and Malaysia back to post-Maoist China and elsewhere. Through a richly-documented multi-site ethnography of De Jiao congregations in the PRC, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, Bernard Formoso examines the adaptation of Overseas Chinese to sharply contrasted national polities, and the projective identity they build in relation to China. De Jiao is of special interest because its organization and strategies strongly reflect the managerial habits and entrepreneurial ethos of Overseas Chinese businessmen. It also utilizes symbols of the Chinese civilisation whose greatness it claims to champion from the periphery. A central theme of the study is the role that such a religious movement may play to promote new forms of identification to the motherland as substitutes for loosened genealogical links. The book also offers a comprehensive interpretation of the contemporary practice of fu ji spirit-writing, and reconsiders the relation between unity and diversity in Chinese religion.

Singapore experiences substantial changes during the 14-year tenure of the country's second Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong (1990-2004). Coming after a long period of growth and stability, the period brought to office a new generation of political leaders who faced the task of sustaining and building the policies of their predecessors. There were social and cultural initiatives and significant challenges to the economy arising from the Asian financial crisis of 1998 and the SARS outbreak in 2003. This volume examines the changes that took place during the Goh premiership and assesses its legacy. The 45 essays collected in this volume review a range of issues from domestic politics and foreign policy to economic development, society, culture, the arts and media.