Pak Nung Wong

Discerning the Powers in Post-Colonial Africa and Asia

Qualifying post-Westphalian sovereign statehood as a ‘power’ as argued for in Hendrik Berkhoff’s political theology, this book addresses the decades-long theological-spiritual debate between Christian realism and Christian pacifism in U.S. foreign policy and global Christian circles. It approaches the debate by delving into the pacifist Anabaptist political theology and delineates empirically how sovereign statehood in post-colonial Africa and Asia has fallen into the hands of the devil Satan, as a ‘fallen power’ in the Foucaultian terms of power structures, techniques and episteme. While the book offers intervention schemes and options, it holds that Christian statecraft remains the source of hope to effectively address a number of serious global issues. By extension, the book is thus an invitation to ignite debates on the suitability of Christian statecraft and the nexus between spirituality and world politics, making it especially interesting for scholars and students in the fields of International Politics, Politics of Asian and African States, Post-colonial Studies and Political Theology.

Destined Statecraft: Eurasian Small Power Politics and Strategic Cultures in Geopolitical Shifts

This introductory chapter will contextualize the US–China geostrategic shifts and an emerging global order as the background to study Eurasian small power politics. In reference to the strategic and sociological thoughts of Thucydides, Sun Tzu and Pierre Bourdieu, I shall start to develop a post-structuralist perspective of small power politics. I will delineate the definitions of two key concepts: ‘destined statecraft’ and ‘destined agency’. A subsequent literature review of China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative will identify several existing theoretical approaches. Building on these instructive works, I will state the purpose of this book is to illustrate how the Eurasian small powers respond to these global changes as both opportunities and challenges to remake their own destinies.

Post-Colonial Statecraft in South East Asia:Sovereignty, State-building and the Chinese in the Philippines

Stretched out along the Western rim of the Pacific, historically torn between Chinese and US influence, the Philippines has been troubled by internal conflicts since its independence in 1946. In 1972, following two decades of communist insurgency and social unrest, President Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law and established a 14-year dictatorship. Although Marcos was overthrown in 1986, the democracy that followed, as in many South-East Asian states, has been beleaguered by insurgency, mutiny, corruption and violence. Post-Colonial Statecraft in South East Asia, an historically aware ethnography of the region, aims to account for centralizing measures by the state and the resistance that it encounters when policing the frontiers. In the first study of its kind, and the result of several years of field research, Pak Nung Wong maps out the complex interweaving power structures of the tribal rulers in the northern regions of the Philippines. Featuring interviews with a range of local actors, including state officials, members of the judiciary, the police force, the Catholic Church, the military, the Chinese business community and the inarticulate ruled majority, Post-Colonial Statecraft in South East Asia provides a complete picture of Philippine political culture. By focusing on the governance techniques of three frontier strongmen of the Cagayan Valley; the late Lieutenant Colonel Rodolfo Aguinaldo, Dr Manuel Mamba of Tuao and Mr Delfin Ting of Tuguegarao City, the book argues that the success of Philippine post-colonial statecraft hinges on the integration of the provinces into the states mechanisms of power. This is an important study which students and scholars in International Relations, Anthropology, History and Politics will find most valuable, as the strategic and geopolitical significance of the Philippines becomes increasingly apparent.