COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Association for Asian Studies conference here March 13-16 drew over 3,000 professors, librarians and students from China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, the U.K. and the U.S., among other countries. Presentations covered topics like Asian immigration to the U.S., human rights in Japan, what next after martial law in South Korea, the Uyghur diaspora and Taiwanese political history.
The conference took place as the growing rivalry between Beijing and U.S. imperialism in Asia strongly affects conditions in this region of the world. There were over 500 panels, workshops and film showings.
In his keynote address, “Authoritarian Shocks: Centralizing Control In and Over Hong Kong Since 2020,” professor John P. Burns described how the Xi regime in China systematically cracked down on political freedoms.
One of 70 publishing houses with booths at the gathering, Pathfinder Press attracted lively nonstop discussions. Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution by Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui and Moisés Sío Wong, was the bestseller. One visitor sent a photo of the book to a friend in Cuba, who texted back saying, “that must be Pathfinder.”
A professor from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago picked up Cosmetics, Fashion, and the Exploitation of Women, which discusses how the capitalist cosmetics and fashion “industries” play on the emotional, sexual and economic insecurities of women and adolescents to generate profits, for possible use in his class. He also said he would help get more Pathfinder titles into the school library.
Looking at the book, a young woman from China said that to be considered attractive there women must maintain unblemished, white skin. This title was the second best seller.
A woman panelist who spoke on “Women Combatants in Myanmar,” bought two books on the role of women in Cuba’s socialist revolution — Marianas in Combat and Women in Cuba: The Making of a Revolution Within the Revolution — as well as a subscription to the Militant.
A Stanford University student involved in a fight to win a union for graduate student workers bought The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us, which contains the Socialist Workers Party 2022 convention resolution. A worker at the conference center said she “loved” the books and the discussions she had at the booth, and will consider attending a Militant Labor Forum when she gets back to Cincinnati.
Happy to see the Pathfinder booth, a research analyst from Montreal said, “Given what’s happening in the world today, these books contain material that needs to be read.” He got a subscription to the Militant and a copy of Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It by Leon Trotsky.
Another professor looking for books for her students bought Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the Movement in the United States against the Vietnam War by Fred Halstead and the Education for Socialist bulletins Maoism vs. Bolshevism: The 1965 Catastrophe in Indonesia, China’s “Cultural Revolution” and the Disintegration of World Stalinism and Revolutionary Strategy in the Fight against the Vietnam War.
Overall sales totaled 89 books, more than twice as many as sold at last year’s conference. This reflects the impact of the big changes taking place in the world today as the crisis deepens.