Search

The 2022 anti–zero Covid White Paper protests that erupted in China and its diaspora demonstrated the intertwinement of politics and performance in contemporary China. The symbolic dimensions of blank sheets of A4 paper and other performative tactics used in these demonstrations exemplify the shifting roles of performance art in the field of contemporary Chinese art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualises digital displacement as both a way through which the digital, dynamic and fragile spatialities of contentious politics can be examined and as a geographic critique of censorship. Digital displacement, understood here as the act of removing users from the digital places and spaces they wish to remain in and use, often through the act of deletion, is conceptualised through the digital displacement of two contentious political groups that attempted to contest the forced eviction of migrants from Beijing in 2017; hashtag focused #BeijingSurgery# and instant messaging group using BeijingTogether. Explored through participant observation, interviews and playful digital exploration, this paper examines the spatialities that made multiple digital displacements possible and the activist spatialities that emerged during and post‐displacement. In exploring this, I develop a flexible vocabulary around digital place, space, scale, territory and mobility to analyse the practices of digital displacement, to understand the socio‐spatial positionality of activists involved in digitally centred contentious politics and to contextualise their territorial positionality within Chinese digital territory and global digital territories. Through the examination of #BeijingSurgery# and BeijingTogether, the article highlights: the importance of digital territorial positionality for both activists and the digital places and spaces used for contentious politics; that within systems of digital spatial governance, deletion and displacement can be effective strategies of repressive governance with wide‐ranging displacement effects; and that while digital displacement is not necessarily the ending point of contentious politics, the re‐production of activist spatialities is more difficult when the authority being protested against governs the digital territory used for protest. This paper conceptualises digital displacement as: a way through which the digital, dynamic and fragile spatialities of contentious politics can be examined; a way to understand China's digital territorialization project; and as a geographic critique of censorship. Digital displacement is conceptualised through the ethnographic research conducted in Beijing and examines efforts to contest the forced eviction of migrants from Beijing in 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study calls for greater scholarly engagement with the generational experiences of the socialist working class in China. Through an analysis of collective actions in response to the reform of state-owned enterprises at the turn of the century, the paper divides the Chinese socialist working class into the Revolution Generation and the Transition Generation. Amid the restructuring of the state sector, workers from the Revolution Generation exhibited a proclivity for civic activism and petitions, while the Transition Generation, though grappling with unemployment, largely refrained from public dissent, instead expressing sentiments of bewilderment and resignation. The study illustrates how the differing lived experiences of two working-class generations played a pivotal role in shaping their interpretation of grievances and contention repertoire. The article underscores the significance of generational perspectives in gaining insight into the destiny of the Chinese working class, advocating for the integration of such perspectives into the broader fields of deindustrialization and labor studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2000s, scholars have proposed the notion of "world anthropologies" to expose the pluralistic nature of anthropology, and to counter the colonial legacy embedded in knowledge production. This paper discusses how anthropological knowledge in and of China contributes to, is distant from, and challenges, such intellectual movement at both intellectual and institutional levels. First, unlike Western anthropology which shifts from colonialism to liberalism and then to postcolonialism, anthropology in China began with a progressive agenda of anti-colonialism, and then leaned toward liberalism. In the context of China's rise, "China" has been further embroiled in a puzzle of imperialism. This reversed ideological tendency contributes to the disorientation of the critical energy in anthropology focused on China. Second, just as China has taken an active role in the competition for education and research in a globalized, yet uneven academia through discipline construction, anthropology in the West, particularly the United States, has become provincialized in terms of its intellectual agendas. Many of the younger generation of Chinese anthropologists have become stuck in the disjuncture, struggling to channel their critical energy through engaged scholarship, both within and beyond academic institutions. The epistemic politics in and of China, at both the intellectual and institutional levels, reveals that the post-socialist condition deserves to be reference points in world anthropologies. If decolonization posits treating plural standpoints as equal, then being counted in the decolonizing efforts necessitates subscribing to the dominant framework. Thus, more attention to the post-socialist condition, and ultimately the pluralization of the reference points of political potency, should truly pluralize, and ultimately decolonize, anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been contributing to new approaches to global governance. The Health Silk Road (HSR), a significant component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was proposed by China in 2016. This paper claims that HSR is a new institution introduced alongside the existing WHO-led multilateral health system, and its relationship with the existing system can be described as layering. Having explored the new development of HSR during COVID-19, this paper further argues that while HSR has its unique strength in making contributions to global health governance and economic recovery, it faces a prominent issue of securitisation in the context of China-U.S. strategic competition, suspicion of the quality of medical products and sectoral fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese cultural conservatism used to participate in shaping the course of modernization to a large extent. In this paper, I aim to describe a hidden lineage of Chinese cultural conservatism of the twentieth century that is still alive and appears to be more and more influential in mainland China. Relying on several ideas developed by Neo-Confucians of the early twentieth century, Gan Yang's paper in 2007 represented a contemporary revival of Chinese cultural conservatism. More importantly, in recent years, this kind of revival of conservative discourse went through another big change, which not only matters to the self-underpinning of the legitimate basis of the current regime, but also combined with the political conservations related to the Hong Kong protest of 2019–2020 explains why this country is so ideologically different from the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although heritage in the digital age and heritage digitisation have received increasing scholarly attention, critical reflection on new media heritage politics as individuals, communities and institutions transmit heritage remains an unexplored area. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the representation of Chinese Nüshu (literally women's scripts) on new media platforms, paying particular attention to the centralised nature of Chinese AHD and its decentralisation through digital, democratic grassroots practices on heritage new media. Using a mixed-method approach combining qualitative and quantitative techniques, this study conducted a digital ethnography on several Nüshu social media communities from 2017 to 2022 and more than fifty in-depth interviews with twenty-three Nüshu stakeholders including official and unofficial transmitters, local officials, heritage experts, and local residence. The study finds dynamic negotiations in terms of cultural (re)production, power transformation, actors' empowerment, and identity construction between the local authorised heritage discourse (AHD) and folk heritage discourse on new media. Furthermore, as a form of decentralisation of local AHD, the study demonstrates the presence of digital heritage democratisation in China through new media. However, this creates the potential for new discursive hegemony in folk heritage society. Recently, short-form content's popularity has rapidly risen; the study reveals the complex politics of 'positivity' in relation to the representation of heritage on short-form video platforms in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preferential access to scarce resources can bring competitive advantages and better performance to enterprises. However, the existing literature has a relatively single research path on the influencing factors of enterprise resource access, which has lack of sufficient research from the perspective of multidimensional environment. In particular, as an important factor affecting enterprises' access to external resources, few studies have given empirical results on the impact of political factors such as government structure on enterprise resource access. Preferential access to scarce resources can bring competitive advantages and better performance to enterprises. However, the existing literature has a relatively single research path on the influencing factors of enterprise resource access, which lacks sufficient research from the perspective of multidimensional environment. In particular, as an important factor affecting enterprises' access to external resources, few studies have given empirical results on the impact of political factors such as government structure on enterprise resource access. Through the discussion of multidimensional environmental factors, this paper can provide theoretical reference for the reform of government institutions and the establishment of good political relations between enterprises and the government. Focusing on the multidimensional environment of government structure, political relations, and enterprise resource acquisition, this paper takes 129 enterprises in Central China as samples and uses the structural equation model to empirically verify the relationship between the formalization of government structure, liaison mechanism, decentralization, and enterprise resource acquisition, especially the easing effect of political relations. The results show that the formalization of government structure is promoting enterprises to obtain policy resources and financial resources; the liaison mechanism helps enterprises to obtain financial resources and market resources; decentralization has a significant positive impact on enterprises' access to policy resources and market resources; and political connection magnifies the positive effect of government structure on enterprise resource acquisition, but there are differences in different dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The weaponization of racialized imagery has been a common feature of geopolitical contestation in contemporary history. The paper critically examines the historical genesis of Sinophobic narratives, which have been common features of the big power geopolitical contestation in the Pacific. The globalization of capitalism in the nineteenth century and the West's attempts to penetrate the Chinese market and exploitation of its resources led to tension, skirmishes and wars. The myth of racial European superiority and corresponding inferiority of the Chinese was weaponized as an ideological justification for colonial domination, exploitation of cheap labour and appropriation of China's resources and wealth. In recent years, the Sinophobic paranoia has been exacerbated by China's Belt and Road initiative, a strategy at global economic and technological supremacy to counter the West's dominance. This competition for global hegemony is played out in various parts of the world and the Pacific included. The paper critically discusses various historical factors associated with Sinophobia in the context of the USA, France and Australia and how these have influenced these countries' contemporary approaches to Chinese expansionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do provincial governments change policy, even when those policies have proven successful? This paper explores a debate regarding the determinants of provincial policy choice and the degree of discretion provinces are permitted in this area. It does so by scrutinizing the shift in Guizhou's development policy from a poverty reduction orientation to a wholehearted pursuit of economic growth, urbanization and industrialization. In contrast to those who argue that central experience, prospects for promotion or local conditions are key factors explaining policy choice, the paper concludes that Guizhou's shift in policy had more to do with the backgrounds and experiences of top provincial leaders. The result has implications for our understanding of central–local relations and local government decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uncovers two publications of Quesnay's Despotisme de la Chine, which are apparently the first translations in German of any work of Quesnay. They were published in the late 1760s in Greifswald, then under Swedish rule, and their translator, Dähnert, managed to remove most traces of Quesnay's despotism. While the French infatuation with China is the topic of innumerable works, the Sinophilia of Germany and Sweden has been less studied1 and is illustrated with these publications. The paper suggests that Physiocracy and Despotisme de la Chine had a direct influence on the 1772 coup of Gustav III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trump's earlier statements about China and the US losing out on trade primed his supporters for the "China virus" narratives that epitomized Trump's references to the COVID-19 pandemic. Keywords: Trump; China; victimhood; nationalism EN Trump China victimhood nationalism 882 889 8 10/04/22 20221001 NES 221001 This paper analyses the deployment of victimhood nationalism towards China by Donald Trump during his two presidential campaigns and presidency. [Extracted from the article]

Research Background. With the enhancement of China's international influence, China has stepped into the international ecological environment in the fields of economy, politics, culture, art, and so on, accompanied by the spread of China's culture and literature. China's 5000-year-old cultural history and artistic characteristics are integrated into the ecological field of the international environment. Research Purpose. The international spread of Chinese literature also has a certain impact on the physical and mental health of teenagers. This paper studies and discusses the impact of international communication of Chinese literature on teenagers' physical and mental health in the digital humanistic environment. Under the development environment of Digital Humanities in China, the impact of Chinese literature on the healthy psychology of teenagers, the impact content, and the characteristics of each were evaluated. Through the comparison of physical and mental health growth of adolescents in different ages, the characteristics of physical and mental health of adolescents are explored. The coupling degree of physical and mental health of adolescents in different development environments is compared and analyzed. Research Results. Through the research, it is found that with the development of Digital Humanities, the spread of Chinese literature with internationalization has a positive impact on the physical and mental health and psychological quality construction of teenagers and plays a promoting role in promoting mental health, increasing personal quality, and improving teenagers' correct values. The various ideological and moral qualities of Chinese literature can play a greater role in helping and growing up the physical and mental health education of young people in the new era and are also the literary value of promoting the quality education of the next generation of young people in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the decision-making process of the Yangtze-to-Huai Water Transfer Project (YHWTP) in China to explore how governments at various levels and the public respond to spatial and jurisdictional ambiguities inherent in the incomplete decentralization of water governance. Through participatory observations, semi-structured interviews and investigation of historical records of the project, we examine scalar strategies adopted by various groups at different stages. We find that within China's regionally decentralized authoritarian regime under centralized regulation, the scalar configurations as a result of the scalar strategies produce material consequence in the planning, designing and construction of inter-basin transfer projects. The use of such strategies transforms the existing scalar configuration, which provides a basis for further changes in the power structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, Korea and Japan have increasingly exhibited different strategic priorities in trade in face of China's rising global economic prowess and worsening USChina trade conflict. Japan's trade policy decisions have worked to reinforce its economic and security ties with the US as a means to counter China. Japan has used both bilateral and multilateral means to secure its ties with the US against China. In contrast, Korea's trade policy positions have been one of 'strategic ambiguity'. Korea has been more conciliatory towards China, reluctant to take actions that would counter China's interest. Korea has mainly resorted to bilateral channels to maintain favorable relations with both China and the US. Korea's reluctance to clearly ally with the US against China has been observed across different administrations with opposing political orientations. This paper examines Korea and Japan's diverging strategic priorities in trade through the 2017 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference; the 2017 US imposition of Section 232 on steel; the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Korea-US FTA renegotiation and the Korea-China FTA Phase Two Negotiation; and the 2019 Japan-US Trade Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large‐scale demolition has been ubiquitous in fast urbanising China. The politics of redevelopment is often seen as secondary, derived from and defined by local entrepreneurial governance. However, changing state politics, in particular national political mandates, has not been adequately addressed. Through examining variegated practices, this paper understands how the changing national political context affects or redefines local redevelopment projects. These cases reflect local responses to the national campaigns for rural vitalisation and "Beautiful China", heritage preservation and "incremental regeneration" (weigaizao), and community participation in dilapidated neighbourhoods for a "harmonious society". We find that these redevelopment projects are inherited from and associated with, but at the same time go beyond, growth machine politics. We argue that their motivations reflect a governance mode of "state entrepreneurialism" to achieve extra‐economic objectives through market instruments, and that this illustrates geopolitics, especially the role of the national state in development politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, our paper attempts to advance a dual-process model from online social support to individual resilience via diverse social capital (bonding and bridging) and political beliefs (political efficacy, political trust and city identification). Drawing on a survey of 446 residents in Shanghai, China, the findings indicate that neither informational nor emotional social support directly affects individual resilience, but indirectly influences it through different pathways. Specifically, bridging social capital mediates informational social support and individual resilience, but bonding social capital might not follow a similar path. Notably, political efficacy and political trust are involved in the above mediation between informational social support and individual resilience. Besides, the serial mediation effect of emotional social support on individual resilience via bonding social capital and then city identification or political trust is also significant. Our findings are expected to reveal the mechanism of resilience construction and prepare for the future public health crisis. • Neither informational nor emotional social support directly predicts individual resilience in China during the COVID-19. • Bridging social capital mediates the relationship between informational support and resilience. • Political trust explains the mechanism from social support to resilience via both bonding and bridging social capital. • Political efficacy acts in the sequential mediation of informational support, bridging social capital, and resilience. • City identification acts as the pathway connecting emotional support, bonding social capital, and resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of citizenship education witnessed an expanding body of literature looking at the case of China. Yet citizenship with broad conceptual terrain often refers to different things in the literature. This paper foregrounds the common core of the essentially contested concept of citizenship and considers citizenship conception as discourse. By engaging with and drawing evidence from extant literature, this paper critically examines citizenship in the academic and related official and social discourses. It discloses the discursive conformity among the academic, official, and social discourses of citizenship in mainland China and discusses the politics beneath the conformity. It suggests that the fundamental values of liberty and equality constitutive of the common core of citizenship should not be lost but localized to serve as the conceptual and analytical compass in the contestation of citizenship and citizenship education discourses in contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 2016 review of literature about automation, algorithms and politics identified China as the foremost area in which further research was needed because of the size of its population, the potential for Chinese algorithmic manipulation in the politics of other countries, and the frequency of exportation of Chinese software and hardware. This paper contributes to the small body of knowledge on the first point (domestic automation and opinion manipulation) and presents the first piece of research into the second (international automation and opinion manipulation). Findings are based on an analysis of 1.5 million comments on official political information posts on Weibo and 1.1 million posts using hashtags associated with China and Chinese politics on Twitter. In line with previous research, little evidence of automation was found on Weibo. In contrast, a large amount of automation was found on Twitter. However, contrary to expectations and previous news reports, no evidence was found of pro-Chinese-state automation on Twitter. Automation on Twitter was associated with anti-Chinese-state perspectives and published in simplified Mandarin, presumably aimed at diasporic Chinese and mainland users who 'jump the wall' to access blocked platforms. These users come to Twitter seeking more diverse information and an online public sphere but instead they find an information environment in which a small number of anti-Chinese-state voices are attempting to use automation to dominate discourse. Our understanding of public conversation on Twitter in Mandarin is extremely limited and, thus, this paper advances the understanding of political communication on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparing China's 2006 and 2015 Africa policies, this article reveals how China's political discourse has become more confident, practical, and depoliticised. In particular, this paper shows how education is allocated, promised, and embedded in China's 'shared' agenda, which is centred on development co-operation and mutual learning. It then reflects on the extent to which China may move towards traditional donors. This paper concludes that, despite fragmented convergences in the discourse and an increased recognition of a Chinese model, China maintains its distinctive role and position in the post-2015 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theoretical advancements in geographies of religion have reconceptualised secularisation as a multi‐scaled, grounded process of place‐making that reconciles the "agent‐in‐place" with large, institutional differentiation and fragmentation. This paper contributes to this re‐theorisation by examining the context of urban regeneration in which macro‐ and meso‐scaled secularisation is performed, negotiated and contested at the scale of the local community. The empirical research focuses on state‐enforced secularisation imposed on the ancestral temple of a lineage village during the urban regeneration project in Guangzhou, China. This paper considers the resistance conducted by local villagers to defend the sacredness and authority of their ancestral temple and to reclaim their own space from the totalising party‐state. We suggest that the effect of secularisation at the micro‐scale implies the formation of new religiosities as new legitimising religious thoughts and discourses of the sacred arose within villagers' embodied practices of resistance. This paper therefore highlights both secularisation and re‐sacralisation as scalar constructs that mutually interact at different scales. This paper examines how secularisation and re‐sacralisation manifest at different scales through a case study of China's ancestral temple in Guangzhou. It highlights the contested and hybrid nature of secularisation and re‐sacralisation and regards them both as multi‐scalar and situated constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, China implemented tougher driving-under-the-influence laws, which criminalized driving under the influence of alcohol for the first time and increased penalties. This paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of the effects of stricter drinking policies on men's smoking behavior by using data from the 2010 and 2012 waves of the China Family Panel Studies. The results show that stricter drinking policies reduced smoking initiation and the number of cigarettes smoked per day among men by reducing the frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption. Heterogeneity analyses show that the impact of the policy is more pronounced not only for men aged 41–55, but also for men who have higher educational qualifications, who are employed, or who are not members of the Communist Party. • Tougher driving-under-the-influence laws subject offenders to more severe penalties. • Stricter drinking policy affects men's smoking behavior. • Stricter drinking policy reduces frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption of men. • Policy effect is stronger for men aged 41–55, educated, employed, or party-affiliated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a political perspective of just transition by linking the just transition concept with the concept of policy implementation, thereby drawing attention to the role of local policy implementers in the process and outcome of just transition. Focusing on the Chinese political context, it examines the degree of implementation flexibility in a broader context of authoritarian environmentalism. Implementation flexibility at the local level has been an enduring feature of Chinese environmental governance and can be considered as a key political process through which just transition can be achieved. However, recent studies suggest that the strengthening of top-down control over the environment means that the implementation process has become less flexible. Drawing on a case study of a logging town in the Greater Khingan Range transitioning under the National Forest Conservation Program, we found that while the strengthening of top-down control has resulted in an elevated level of compliance, flexibility remains an important dynamic in policy implementation. As such, local policy implementers still play an important role in just transition. This persistence of implementation flexibility is driven by a combination of local priorities, implementation difficulties, and top-down control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between Maoism and psychiatry in the work of the Argentine psychiatrist Gregorio Bermann (1894-1972). As a result of the cultural diplomacy deployed by the People's Republic of China since 1949 and of specific institutional networks, the author produced knowledge regarding China, its practices and institutions of mental health as an expert-traveler. Those works were a dissemination of the "mass science" promoted by this country, applied to the field of psychiatry, though not without tensions. The relevance that China had for rethinking psychiatric practice in the case studied is evaluated, and it is argued that Gregorio Bermann's interest in largescale psychiatry and the international political commitment that he held were decisive in it. Lastly, this article studies the spaces where those works circulated and shows the variety of existing knowledge regarding China based on the political positions that were held towards it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent research has shown a growing interest in the consequences of China's foreign aid giving, few have examined how public attitudes towards China in recipient countries have responded to the surging inflows of Chinese aid. Using a geo-referenced dataset combining individual survey data with foreign aid project sites information, this paper examines the association between Chinese aid projects and public approval of China's influence in African countries. Despite contributing to development and growth in recipient countries, Chinese aid inflows may have a bifurcating effect on the approval of the donor along a partisan line. In the African context of neopatrimonialism and patronage politics, Chinese foreign aid packages are likely manipulated by the recipient government to further its domestic political interests, which could result in a partisan bias in the distribution of aid benefits favoring supporters of the incumbent government. As a result, the local presence of Chinese aid sites would be more strongly associated with a favorable attitude towards China among supporters of the incumbent political party than supporters of the opposition. We find support for our argument from a multilevel modeling of the association between the approval of China among individuals and the presence of nearby Chinese aid projects sites between 2009 and 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts a corpus-based critical discourse study of the representations of the National Congresses of the Communist Party of China (NCCPC) in China Daily (CD) and The New York Times (NYT) in the past two decades. It is found that the shared keywords in the CD corpus and NYT corpus tend to suggest different discursive constructions of the same event in different social-political contexts. The different representations of the NCCPC can be revealed in the three types of discourse-historical discursive strategies (referential or nomination strategies, predicational strategies, and perspectivation strategies). CD prefers to construct the NCCPC as important political events and brand China's political system, China's contribution to world stability and prosperity in reporting the events. By contrast, NYT tends to construct them as events of power transfer and point towards criticisms of China's political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technologies occupy a central position in the Covid-19 pandemic. Public response has been deemed extremely important, with social media platforms playing a key role in both institutional and bottom-up information sharing processes. The emerging field of platform studies has shown that platforms increasingly influence how society works; however, such studies often adopt a highly Western-centric approach. By focusing on Twitter and Weibo use in the early stages of the pandemic, the paper presents an exploratory study that comparatively explores the role of the two platforms for both Western and Chinese publics. Our findings indicate that during the Covid-19 outbreak, Weibo worked as a propaganda tool to unite the Chinese people and promote public policies under the control of the government and the guidance of the mainstream media. Twitter functioned more like a public discourse platform open to personal expression, often showing the influence of defined partisan political discourses. We argue that the participatory dynamics characterizing Weibo and Twitter conversations at the outbreak of the pandemic at least partially mirrored the different 'platforms societies' currently developing in China and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the foreign direct investment (FDI) literature, studies show that investors prefer low-risk host states. However, the research focuses on investors from developed country democracies, such as the United States, ignoring the rise of China, an authoritarian developing country that engages in public and private investment. This paper investigates Chinese state and private FDI in 127 developing countries from 2003 to 2017 to determine the effects of political risk on FDI. We find that, as with US FDI, low-risk developing countries attract more Chinese state FDI, except in the case of natural resource investment, where Chinese investors appear to disregard risk concerns. For Chinese private FDI, on the other hand, political institutions seem to play no significant role, but political affiliations matter. Our work suggests that similarities between US and Chinese state FDI are increasing, while the investment strategies of Chinese private and state firms appear to be growing farther apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender norms, roles and relations differentially affect women, men, and non-binary individuals' vulnerability to disease. Outbreak response measures also have immediate and long-term gendered effects. However, gender-based analysis of outbreaks and responses is limited by lack of data and little integration of feminist analysis within global health scholarship. Recognising these barriers, this paper applies a gender matrix methodology, grounded in feminist political economy approaches, to evaluate the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and response in four case studies: China, Hong Kong, Canada, and the UK. Through a rapid scoping of documentation of the gendered effects of the outbreak, it applies the matrix framework to analyse findings, identifying common themes across the case studies: financial discrimination, crisis in care, and unequal risks and secondary effects. Results point to transnational structural conditions which put women on the front lines of the pandemic at work and at home while denying them health, economic and personal security – effects that are exacerbated where racism and other forms of discrimination intersect with gender inequities. Given that women and people living at the intersections of multiple inequities are made additionally vulnerable by pandemic responses, intersectional feminist responses should be prioritised at the beginning of any crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data has become one of the most valuable assets for governments and firms. Yet, we still have a limited understanding of how data reshapes international economic relations. This paper explores various aspects of data politics through the lens of China's digital rise and the country's global engagement. I start with the theoretical premise that data differs from traditional strategic assets (e.g., land, oil, and labor), in that it is nonrival and partially excludable. These characteristics have generated externality, commitment, and valuation problems, triggering three fundamental changes in China's external economic relations. First, data's externality problem makes it necessary for states to regulate data or even to pursue data sovereignty. However, clashes over data sovereignty can ignite conflicts between China and other countries. Second, the commitment problem in data use raises global concerns about foreign government surveillance. As data is easier to transfer across borders than physical commodities, Chinese tech companies' investments abroad are vulnerable to national security investigations by foreign regulators. Chinese tech companies, therefore, confront a "deep versus broad" dilemma: deep ties with the Chinese government help promote their domestic business but jeopardize their international expansion. Lastly, data's valuation problem makes traditional measures (e.g., GDP) ill-suited to measure the relative strengths of the world's economies, which may distort perceptions of China and other states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State rescaling has become one major framework for deciphering the changing state-space nexus of modern states. While conventional wisdom has regarded state rescaling as a fix to manage recurring crises of capitalism, its contradiction-ridden political dynamics are still poorly grasped, especially in the non-Western context. This paper critically engages the debate by focusing on the interactions between key state actors in national and local political arenas who embrace distinctive strategies to reconfigure territorial arrangement. Borrowing insights from the research of territorial politics, I argue that the alignment of diverse territorial strategies creates opportunities for broad political collaboration and competition that eventually lead to state rescaling. To illustrate such political dynamics, this paper presents a novel investigation of the restructuring of city-regions during Maoist China through extensive historical research. In the late 1950s, the shared frustration with Soviet-influenced central planning resulted in a coalition between change-oriented central and local leaders. The coalition rolled out an alternative territorial strategy that shifted powers from planners to those who dared to try bold initiatives and look beyond local boundaries. Shanghai, among other major Chinese cities, resumed its status as the national industrial champion and exerted control over rural hinterlands as the seat of power for the city-region. Although short-lived, the brief attempt at state rescaling has left a lasting impact on the reconfiguration of the territorial governance and city-regions in post-reform China. • State rescaling is not exclusive to neoliberalism but present in socialist states. • The way state actors compete and collaborate across different territorial arenas is key to understanding state rescaling. • The triumph of Mao's coalition over central planners in the late 1950s caused the restructuring of China's city-regions. • Shanghai aimed to regain its position as the national economic champion by expanding into rural peripheries. • Considerable continuity of territorial politics exists between pre- and post-reform China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a governmentality approach to examine the political history of human–canine relationships in the People's Republic of China, focusing on the evolution of household dog regulations in Beijing. In doing so, it ties the micropolitics of human–canine relations to transformations in political, economic, and social governance and ways of thinking about and acting on the interactions between human and nonhuman animal species. An examination of successive waves of government regulations reveals a shift from top-down authoritarian approaches to governance toward a greater recognition of (circumscribed) individual responsibility and self-governance, which is emerging under the organizing framework of "social credit." This government-managed rearrangement is contributing to the rise of new understandings of human–canine interactions as co-constitutive relationships based in citizenship rights and obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the historical relationship between new media development and Chinese politics that led to the formation of the Chinese state's strategy on media convergence in 2014. Specifically, it analyses a series of influential public controversies in China's microblog or Weibo sphere in the formative years of Weibo's development (2011–2012) to reveal the profound class biases, partisan excesses, as well as symbolic violence of Weibo as a platform for public deliberation on Chinese politics. The degeneration of Weibo politics and its anti-democratic nature foreshadowed the state's intention to steer the direction of media convergence to ensure that the process will not be hijacked by elite interests so as to sustain some resemblance to the CCP's traditional mass line mode of political communication. However, how to realize the state's vision remains a formidable task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive conflicts of interest (COI) at both individual and institutional levels are identifiable in scientific research and healthcare in China, as in many other parts of the world. A prominent new case from China is He Jiankui's experiment that produced the world's first gene-edited babies and that raises numerous ethical, political, socio-cultural, and transnational questions. Serious financial and other COI were involved in He's genetic adventure. Using He's infamous experiment as a case study, this paper explores the wider issue of financial and other COI in scientific research and healthcare in China, especially institutional conflict of interest (ICOI) and policy-related COI. Taking a socio-ethical perspective, it examines China's state policies and its massive efforts to transform and commercialize scientific research, the lack of policies and oversight mechanisms for regulating COI, as well as major ethical issues arising from COI including the undermining of public trust. Some practical suggestions are offered for institutional reform and institutional development so that COI, particularly ICOI, can be avoided or more effectively managed in scientific research in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) is one of the most important engineering institutions for Chinese engineers. The formal establishment of CAE, from its original conception in 1978 to its final birth in 1994, took almost 20 years. At present it has been in existence for two decades. Both the former decades-long emergence and the latter decades-long operation of CAE can be interpreted in terms of an interaction between expertise and politics. To understand the CAE's origins and operation, this paper will first examine how 'engineering' and 'engineer' have slightly different meanings in the historical and cultural context of China than in the West. Then it will focus on the decades-long creation of the CAE. In the 1970s, the proposal for a Chinese engineering academy was initiated by scientist and engineer members of the Chinese Academy of Science, as a result of both domestic and international influences. Through the 1980s and 90s, a few politicians jointly with those scientists and engineers made a crucial contribution to the founding of the CAE. Finally, the article offers an account of CAE's structure and operation during the first twenty years of its existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Xi Jinping placed poverty alleviation on the main agenda of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), various means have been adopted to promote a more rational distribution of income in difficult-to-manage regions. One method used by the CCP is the posting of first secretaries to rural areas, which allows the higher levels of government to penetrate the grassroots and facilitates effective poverty alleviation. This paper is a systematic empirical study on the topic of first secretaries-in-residence. It explains the operation, effectiveness, and deficiencies of the system and seeks to enhance understanding of rural governance in China among the academic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insofar as the production of space is intimately bound up with the bodily senses, it would be reasonable to posit that the politics of space is also at the same time a politics of the senses. In this context, the theoretical remit of this paper is to extend our analysis of the role of the senses in theorising a visceral politics of urban exclusion. Using the case study of a middle-class neighbourhood or xiaoqu in Shanghai, the paper interrogates how class-based sensory 'othering' is deployed to preserve and regulate the socio-metabolic environment of the neighbourhood sensorium and justify urban exclusion. Such revanchist (sensory) urbanism, however, is irreducible to the cultural politics of neoliberalism, but also deeply implicated in actually existing metabolic inequalities in contemporary urban China. In particular, those whose metabolic needs are devalued are often stigmatised and cast as 'sensorial others' with repulsive sensory and metabolic bodily practices that are at odds with the urban middle-class. By bringing together critical literature on sensory urbanism and urban metabolism, a key contribution of this paper is to advance the theorisation of visceral micro-politics of urban exclusion that is experienced and 'sensed' through everyday metabolic inequalities in urban China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disease prevention and health care delivery, areas traditionally governed by the nation state and local communities, are increasingly being inhabited by ‘mobile sovereigns’ who carry a global currency of prevention strategies and treatments grounded in the universal standards of scientific evidence. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from research conducted on HIV in southwest China, this paper examines the impact of evidence-based science on the effectiveness of global health programming. It interrogates the intentions of global health partnerships and how the balance of power waged between those with money, science, and technical expertise, and those seeking assistance and resources, influences global health programming. Ultimately, the paper demonstrates the disconnect between the demand for a system of universal standards developed on the basis of scientific evidence and an appreciation for the local context, which shapes the way these standards should be modified for effective implementation of global health programs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper elaborates on the interconnectedness of scale and discourse in environmental governance. It accentuates that the emergence and subsequent reconfiguration of a particular scalar structure of environmental governance is the outcome of the discursive contest among various political actors, whose discourses acquire persuasive power through employing scale to frame how the world should be observed. In so arguing this paper distinguishes two moments of scale, as material political–environmental relations being shaped and as device shaping political–environmental relations. The connections of these two moments are illustrated by a case study based in the Pearl River Delta region of China, where scalar-implicated discourses were constructed by various tiers of the state to influence the scaling of the urban planning system, now being an important domain to perform environmental governance. With a scalar-discursive attention, this paper seeks to move towards a more holistic treatment of the obscured operational complexities of politics of scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fall of Suharto in 1998 opened up a new space for the public articulation of Chinese identity in Indonesia. Since the decrees that lifted the ban on Chinese language, Mandarin classes have had an unprecedented boom. This paper reflects on this phenomenon in the geopolitical context of the economic rise of China and its promotion of soft power, as well as the market forces that reward Mandarin competency in contemporary Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines processes of adaptive governance and authoritarian resilience through the lens of community governance, bringing together hitherto unrelated fields of study. It argues first that adaptation has unintended consequences that can threaten stability but do not necessarily cause regime crisis. Second, it contends that the structural fault-lines of institutionalised categorical inequality, marketisation, and professionalization, along with the pathologies of Leninist authoritarianism, undermine adaptive community governance. The paper draws on qualitative research in two neighbourhoods of Shanghai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last four decades, climate services (CS) have moved from being limited forecasting tools in their predictive capacity to becoming involved in the shaping of risk assessment instruments with global reach affected to enhance adaptation to climate change. Yet, they have been relatively overlooked by human geographers and critical risk theorists, whose interests have been to document the political processes involved in shaping climate change and the global scientific enterprise it has generated. By looking at the ways in which CS have been developed and exported to countries deemed as climate-vulnerable, the paper sheds light on two simultaneous kinds of knowledge politics that are occurring at the interstices of global human security aspirations and the realpolitik of local practices. The first emerges from the ways in which CS political relevance has been secured by climate scientists in the midst of grand developmentalist and humanitarian ambitions, what we have called beneficent knowledge politics. The second comes from the nitty-gritty of risk management practices in countries to which CS are exported, in this case China, and highlights how a myriad of knowledge and sensitivities involved in shaping risk and science have been overlooked by the superseding ideals underpinning the production of CS and their application to wider climate adaptation agenda. By doing so, the paper contributes to the geographies of risk and emergencies as well as to the geographies of science by enhancing our understanding of the knowledge politics at play in the development of and resistance to technocratic climate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To overcome the problems caused by the uncertainty of spatial regulations, a series of reforms have been proposed in China, although they are considered insufficient. In our study, we first analyse the inherent logic behind the spatial regulations in China from the perspective of two models (“interest politics” to “legal order”) and the context of the turn between these two models. The endogeneity and credibility thesis is adopted to explain why spatial regulation reforms that attempt to shift spatial regulation from “interest politics” to “legal order” are partial failures. This paper focuses on a case study of a "multi-plan combination" and argues that "multi-plan combinations" are spatial regulation reforms that changed “interest politics” in the current planning system to the “legal order” through uniform spatial regulation rules. The "multi-plan combination" reforms are not successful as the reform of “multi-plan combinations”, which are dominated by the Chinese central government and designed exogenously without endogeneity within governments and among the social public. Therefore, the reforms are ultimately empty institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]