East Asia, the pacific and the west: Strategic trends and implications: Part II

1987 ◽  
Vol 27 (216) ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masataka Kosaka
Keyword(s):  
The West ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-397
Author(s):  
Elmar Holenstein

AbstractNot everything that is logically possible and technically feasible is also natural, for example, placing China in the exact center of a world map. Such a map would not correspond to the laws of perception.Matteo Ricci, who was the first to create Chinese world maps on which the Americas were depicted, had to choose between two ideals, between a world map that obeys the gestalt principles of perception and a world map with the “Central State” China in its center. The first ideal mattered more to him than the second, although he took the latter into account as well. The result was a Pacific-centered map.Since we live on a sphere, what we perceive to be in the East and in the West depends on our location. It is therefore natural that in East Asia, world maps show America in the East and not – as in Europe – in the West. This was the argument underlying Ricci’s creation of Pacific-centered maps, and not the intention of depicting China as close to the center of the map as possible.It is only in East Asia that Ricci was the first to create Pacific-centered maps. World maps with the Pacific in the midfield were made in Europe before Ricci, motivated by the traditional unidirectional numbering of the meridians (0°–360°) from West to East starting with the Atlantic Insulae Fortunatae (Canary Islands).


10.1596/26102 ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Shrimpton ◽  
Nkosinathi Vusizihlobo Mbuya ◽  
Anne Marie Provo

Author(s):  
Esraa Aladdin Noori ◽  
Nasser Zain AlAbidine Ahmed

The Russian-American relations have undergone many stages of conflict and competition over cooperation that have left their mark on the international balance of power in the Middle East. The Iraqi and Syrian crises are a detailed development in the Middle East region. The Middle East region has allowed some regional and international conflicts to intensify, with the expansion of the geopolitical circle, which, if applied strategically to the Middle East region, covers the area between Afghanistan and East Asia, From the north to the Maghreb to the west and to the Sudan and the Greater Sahara to the south, its strategic importance will seem clear. It is the main lifeline of the Western world.


Author(s):  
Judith A. Bennett

Coconuts provided commodities for the West in the form of coconut oil and copra. Once colonial governments established control of the tropical Pacific Islands, they needed revenue so urged European settlers to establish coconut plantations. For some decades most copra came from Indigenous growers. Administrations constantly urged the people to thin old groves and plant new ones like plantations, in grid patterns, regularly spaced and weeded. Local growers were instructed to collect all fallen coconuts for copra from their groves. For half a century, the administrations’ requirements met with Indigenous passive resistance. This paper examines the underlying reasons for this, elucidating Indigenous ecological and social values, based on experiential knowledge, knowledge that clashed with Western scientific values.


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