The mounting political and economic might of Asia comes under the collective
scrutiny of prominent scholars from Asia and North America next month at the
inaugural conference of the C.K. Choi Building for the Institute of Asian
Research (IAR).
Institute Director Terry McGee says that by the year 2000, Asia (comprising the
East Asian states of Japan, the two Koreas, China and Taiwan, the South Asian
continent and Southeast Asia) will support almost three billion people and
generate about a third of the globe’s gross national product. McGee adds that
Asia’s emergence in the new world order is fueling intense debate about the
role of Asian values and the need to establish cultural understanding and
respect between Western countries and Asia.
“This gathering promises to be a milestone in the reassessment of Asia’s role
in the emerging global system,” says McGee.
Harvard University Prof. Tu Weiming, a renowned international scholar on
Confucian thought, delivers the keynote address for the two-day conference
running Oct. 8-9. Prof. Weiming, director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute,
will speak on Confucian ethics as a spiritual resource for the emerging global
community.
Other speakers and topics appearing under the conference banner, The
Empowerment of Asia: Research and Policy Priorities for the 21st Century,
include: Economics Prof. Kwame Jomo, University of Malaya, “The Southeast Asian
Economic Miracle”; Prof. Edward Seidensticker, Columbia University, “Is Japan
Becoming a Normal Country?”; UBC Prof. Alexander Woodside, “The Empowerment of
Asia and the Weakness of Global Theory”; Paul Evans, Director at the University
of Toronto-York University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, “The Age of
the Pacific: Why Growth and Democratization are Not Enough.”
The conference is preceded on Monday, Oct. 7 by the official opening of the
IAR’s new home in the C.K. Choi Building on West Mall. An opening ceremony
beginning at 2:30 p.m. kicks off a week-long Open House featuring cultural,
academic and technological presentations.
Free daily concerts and cultural performances are planned from 1 p.m.-2 p.m.
Daily lunch menus and cultural performances throughout Asia Week will highlight
different countries. Graduate students will show how new technology is applied
to research in the institute’s Asia Multimedia Resource Centre.
Apart from its conference rooms and offices for visiting scholars, the building
houses the institute’s five centres: the Centre for Chinese Research, the
Centre for India and South Asia Research, the Centre for Japanese Research, the
Centre for Korean Research and the Centre for Southeast Asia Research.
Winner of the 1996 Building Owners and Managers Association’s Earth Award, the
C.K. Choi Building features recycled bricks and structural beams as well as
composting toilets.
Tours of the building will be conducted by Campus Planning and Development
daily at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. For more information on Asia Week call 822-2468.
