Search

Integrated ocean management (IOM) aligns with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and serves as a crucial strategy for promoting the enduring health of marine ecosystems and the sustainable utilization of marine resources. An analysis of the evolution of China's integrated ocean management policy (IOMP) is crucial for providing valuable guidance in achieving sustainable growth in marine management and the marine economy for both China and other coastal nations worldwide. This paper studies the evolution characteristics, challenges, and prospects of IOMP in China since 1978 using content analysis. The findings indicate that the evolution of IOMP can be categorized into four stages: the germination period (1978–1998), the construction period (1999–2009), the systematization period (2010–2017), and the strategization period (2018–present), based on the state of international marine management. The IOMP has transitioned over time from its initial emphasis on resource development during the germination period to a strategization period that prioritizes the full development of all parts of the system. However, the ultimate goal has consistently been to achieve harmonious coexistence between people and the sea. China's IOMP has experienced a progressive development; nevertheless, it continues to encounter obstacles such as the pressing requirement to revise sea-related policies and the absence of policy alignment. The objective of this paper is to explore the evolution, challenges, and prospects of China's IOMP to better improve the land–sea coordination policy, strengthen international judicial cooperation. and provide effective policy reference for other maritime countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of China's economy and the increasing demand for resources in various regions, the speed and volume of railway operations are increasing, and diseases such as mud pumping and mud pumping in railway tunnels are becoming more and more serious. Although various construction units have taken diverse measures to rectify the diseases, they often have poor results, repeated rectification, and repeated failure, which consumes a lot of financial and material resources but cannot cure the mud pumping disease, allowing the disease to seriously endanger the driving safety of the line. This paper is based on the long-established loess tunnel base mud pumping disease treatment project in the Lanzhou Railway Bureau of the China Railway. Firstly, the influence of train load, structural fracture, and tunnel drainage systems on the mechanism of disease is expounded. Then, the key technologies and processes of the commonly used disease treatment schemes are sorted out and summarized, and the advantages and disadvantages of the commonly used schemes and the additional drainage tunnel and self-priming pump technology proposed in this paper are compared in detail. The analysis shows that the universally used treatment technology applies to the treatment of local mud pumping disease in the tunnel, and there are shortcomings in these measures for the long-established tunnel. The drainage tunnel and self-priming pump technology can reduce and maintain the small content of groundwater in the surrounding rock of the tunnel basement and can resolve the mud pumping disease of the loess tunnel basement from the root. At present, this technology has been applied to many tunnel projects and has achieved certain comprehensive benefits, which could provide a reference for similar projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high-quality development of the industrial software industry is of strategic significance to enhancing the core competitiveness of the manufacturing industry and promoting the high-quality development of China's industrial economy. By integrating the "capital-technology-environment-human" production factor theory and configuration perspective, this paper constructs a comprehensive analysis framework that drives the total factor productivity (TFP) of the industrial software industry. This paper uses 40 typical industrial software firms in 2018–2020 as case samples and uses fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to empirically explore the influencing factors and complex mechanisms that achieve high-quality development of the industrial software industry. It is found that: (1) a single industrial factor is hardly a necessary condition to drive the industrial software industry; (2) there are four paths to achieving high TFP, which are summarized as "technical-human-environmental" balanced driving type, "capital-human-environmental" balanced driving type, "technical-capital" dual driving type, and "capital" single driving type. There are four driving mechanisms. There are also four not-high TFP configurations with asymmetric characteristics; (3) under certain conditions, the combination of capital factors, technical factors, environmental factors, and human factors can drive TFP in an "all roads lead to Rome". In this process, the government's attention plays a more universal role. The study not only expands the application scenarios of fsQCA but also provides decision guidelines for the practice of strategic emerging industrialization represented by the industrial software industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Karst groundwater is an important water supply, especially in northern China. With the rapid development of China's economy, anthropogenic activities have had a significant impact on karst groundwater formation, circulation and other processes. In this paper, the Baotu spring basin, which is closely related to anthropogenic activities, was selected as the research object to carry out a study of water chemical characteristics and evolutionary processes. And, mathematical statistics, Piper trilinear diagram, Gibbs diagram, and ion ratio methods were used to analyze the characteristics and evolution processes of groundwater. The results of this study show that the hydrogeochemical components of karst groundwater are mainly controlled by the weathering of rocks, mainly by the dissolution of carbonate rocks and silicates with the dominant cation of Ca2+ and the dominant anion of HCO3−. Considering the role of anthropogenic activities, including agricultural and industrial activities, the evolution process of karst groundwater is mainly controlled by hydrogeochemical effects such as mineral dissolution and filtration, the mixing of multiple water bodies, anthropogenic activities (domestic sewage, industrial and agricultural wastes), oxidation–reduction and cation alternating adsorption. Moreover, the influence of anthropogenic activities on the formation and evolution of karst groundwater gradually increases, leading to the rise in nitrate content in karst groundwater and accelerating carbonate rock dissolution. The research results of this paper can provide a favorable reference for environmental protection and research on karst groundwater in areas of intensive anthropogenic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of the Chinese economy and society, the height and density of urban buildings are increasing, and large underground transportation hubs have been constructed in many places to alleviate the pressure of transportation. Commercial buildings are usually developed above the large underground transportation hubs, so the underground structures may have very shallow depths or no soil cover. The seismic response and damage mechanisms of such underground structures still need to be studied. In this paper, an example of a project in China is taken as an object to analyze the seismic response and damage mechanism of the structure after simplification. The spatial distribution of deformations and internal forces of such structures and the location of the maximum internal forces are obtained, and the effect of the frequency of seismic motions on the structural response is obtained. Finally, an elastoplastic analysis of such structures is carried out to assess the damage location and the damage evolution process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government clearly put forward a strategy to speed up the development of the digital economy in "the 14th Five-Year" Plan, which will become the booster of China's development. China has a vast territory and the state of development of the digital economy varies greatly across different regions. It is crucial to clarify the reasons for these differences and take measures to narrow them. Therefore, the evaluation and analysis of the current situation are conducive to the further development of the digital economy. Taking 30 provinces (excluding Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) of China as the research objects, this paper constructs an index system taking digital infrastructure, digital technology and digital talent as input variables and taking digital industrialization and industrial digitization as output variables. The data envelopment analysis (DEA) cross-efficiency model is constructed to calculate and compare the cross-efficiency of the digital economies in each province. The results show the following: (1) The development efficiency of China's digital economy has generally been low, and there is a large "digital divide" between provinces. (2) The input of digital talents is crucial for the digital economy in order to achieve high output and high efficiency, and high output is often accompanied by high efficiency. Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward some suggestions to promote the development of China's digital economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key to achieving the high-quality development of the marine economy (HDME) is to facilitate synergy through the coordination of marine elements. By adopting a perspective concerning complex systems, this paper presents a comprehensive framework—the composite system for high-quality development of the marine economy (CSHDME)—that synergistically integrates the five dimensions of "economy—technology—ecological—society—culture" in the marine domain. Building upon this framework, in this paper, we construct a CSHDME synergy evaluation index system using relevant data from 11 coastal provinces in China from 2010 to 2020. We utilize the subsystem orderliness degree model and composite system synergy degree model to calculate the degree of subsystem orderliness and degree of composite system synergy for the CSHDME as well as analyze the development status of the CSHDME subsystem and the degree of CSHDME synergy. The results indicate that: (1) the five-dimensional subsystem of the CSHDME exhibits an overall trend of year-on-year growth, with significant development disparities; (2) the degree of the synergy of the CSHDME is characterized by strong regional differences, strong fluctuations, instability, and low synergy; (3) the degree of the synergy of the CSHDME demonstrates the spatial evolution characteristics of low synergy, strong differences, strong fluctuations, and high agglomeration; and (4) the degree of orderliness and development speed of subsystems affect the degree of the synergy of the CSHDME. Therefore, measures such as the rational allocation of marine resources, accurate improvement of shortcomings, optimization of the spatial layout, and strengthening of regional cooperation should be considered to further promote the synergistic development of the CSHDME. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy of linking the increase and decrease in urban and rural construction land is a land policy that gradually forms and develops to solve the contradiction between "food and construction" under the background of urbanization in China. It is of great significance to the sustainable development of China's social economy. In order to grasp the evolution of the policy of linking the increase and decrease in urban and rural construction land in China as a whole, this paper used the content analysis method to analyze the changes in the content of China's urban−rural construction land increase/decrease linkage policy from different perspectives, such as the levels of policy promulgation and the types of policy promulgation. Firstly, 105 directly related policy texts were selected from a large amount of policy information and read in detail with this as a sample, and 11 keywords were extracted, which were "balance of occupation and compensation", "clear property rights", "reasonable planning", "project area", "turnover indicators", "linkage procedure", "voluntary principle", "resettlement compensation", "cultivated land protection", "supervision and management", and "capital finance and taxation". Secondly, the policy text was coded to provide quantitative data on policy development. Finally, the trajectory of policy development was analyzed on the basis of the quantitative data on policy development. The results show that the existing policies were mostly issued in the form of notifications, management measures, implementation plans, working rules, and so on, involving the nature, principles, conditions, methods, procedures, capital finance and taxation, and circulation indicators of the linkage between the increase and decrease, but the policy effectiveness is low, and there is a lack of formal laws and regulations. Improving the legal status of the policy, changing the relationship between the government and the market, strengthening the protection of cultivated land, and reconstructing the income distribution mechanism will help to further improve the policy of linking the increase and decrease in urban and rural construction land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective-owned construction land (CCL) marketization is an important driving force for the rapid development of China's rural economy and society. Recognizing the trends and logic of its institutional changes is important for better understanding the central-local interrelation and the new-round CCL reform. Throughout the process of rural land reform since China's reform and opening up, together with the unified policy guidance from the central government, the diversity of local practices and the trend of convergence in the development process deserve attention. Based on the institutional isomorphism theory, this paper analyzes the evolution of the CCL system in Shunde, Guangdong Province, and Wujiang, Jiangsu Province, since the 1990s, empirically demonstrating the trend of convergence based on diversity and exploring the underlying influencing mechanisms. The study finds that the evolutionary practice is characterized by the trend of ephemeral convergence represented by the shared cooperative and the land reservation reform and that of coeval convergence represented by the construction land nationalization. Top-down coercive pressure, horizontal imitative learning pressure, and governance-embedded normative pressure jointly shape the evolutionary convergence. This paper argues that the diversity of local experiments should be allowed and encouraged based on local characteristics. Policy flexibility should be further considered by the central government when formulating uniform policies for local adaptability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tea (Camellia sinensis L.), as one of the most important cash crops in China, plays an important role in increasing farmers' incomes and guaranteeing a high quality of life. Tea production has been greatly influenced by both climate change and economic development in China. However, without a scientific understanding of the interaction mechanism of climate change and the impetus from rapid economic development on tea production practices in China, it is difficult to take adaptive actions to meet the climate change challenges for the tea industry. In this paper, we firstly assessed the potential impacts of climate change on tea climate suitability by empirical formula calculation using meteorological data; then, the effects from the additional climatic stress due to warming on tea production were detected with the annual statistical tea yield record on a municipal level. The contribution of socioeconomic development to the tea industry was evaluated with the comparison of the movement of China's national economy's and tea industry's gravity center during the period of 1987–2017. Finally, a conceptual adaptation framework was built to demonstrate the interaction mechanisms between climate change, tea production, and the economic development. The results showed that there was a negative impact of climate change on tea production in mainland China, with the percentage of high tea climate suitability (>0.9) areas dropping by 45% to 32%, while opportunities of enlarging the tea cultivating area emerged in the north tea production region where the tea climate suitability increased. We found that the tea planting area expanded northwards from 33° N in 1987 to 35° N in 2017 to take advantage of the favorable climatic resources due to warming, and tea planting decreased at an altitude of 100–400 m while increasing to higher altitude of 400–2000 m to avoid hot temperature damage and seek the optimum environment in high mountainous areas for tea production. In addition, the tea production moved westward along the longitude, decreasing obviously at 117–121° E while increasing significantly at 98–104° E and 107–110° E. Meanwhile, the tea production gravity center showed a westward movement consistent with the national economic gravity center moving trend, which means that tea industry development was driven by multiple socioeconomic factors and climatic forcings. A conceptual framework was built in this paper, aiming to show a robust adaptation mechanism for the tea system to maximize the benefits and minimize the damages from the altered climatic resources under rapid economic development in mainland China. The results in this study would help deepen the understanding of the adaptation process and practices for tea production in mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the term "sea" (hai) in the four-character Chinese idioms according to conceptual metaphor and metonymy theory, attempting to illustrate their conceptualization, determine their possible underlying motivations, and explore Chinese maritime thought and culture. Based on idiomatic expressions, three types of conceptual metaphors are identified: abstract qualities of concrete entities are the sea, abstract entity is sea, and a certain aspect of a human being is sea. Moreover, the four types of conceptual metonymies are the part for the whole, the whole for the part, the place for the product, and the place for the responsible deities or goddesses. They are motivated by a culture of worship of and accordance with nature, the pursuit of achievements in traditional Chinese literature, "man paid, nature made" as the attitude towards the ups and downs of life, and a self-centered conceptualization of the world. The maritime culture represented in these conceptualizations comprises fear of and respect for the sea, harmony between humans and the sea, and static–dynamic integrations of river, land, and sea. The findings show that the motivations of these conceptualizations do not only originate from the embodiment and Chinese philosophy of the unity of heaven and humanity but are also constrained by the most influential talent selection mechanism, the Imperial Examination System, as well as by agriculture, the foundation of the economy in ancient China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbon emissions of sectors and households enabled by primary inputs have practical significance in reality. Considering the mutual effect between the industrial sector and the household, this paper firstly constructed an environmentally extended semi-closed Ghosh input–output model with an endogenized household sector to analyze the relationship between carbon emissions and the Chinese economy from the supply-side perspective. The structural decomposition analysis and the hypothetical extraction method were remodified to identify the supply-side driving effects of the changes in carbon emissions and investigate the net carbon linkage. The results show that the electricity, gas, and water supply sector was the key sector with the highest carbon emission intensity enabled by primary inputs. The household sector had an above 93% indirect effect of the enabled intensity, with its enabled intensity dropping significantly by more than 55% from 2007 to 2017. The operating surplus and mixed income caused 3214.67 Gt (34.17%) of the enabled emissions in 2017. The supply-side economic activity, measured by the value added per capita, was the main factor of the carbon emission growth, mainly attributed to the development of the manufacturing sector and the electricity, gas, and water supply sector. The emission intensity and allocation structure both brought a decrease in carbon emissions. The electricity, gas, and water supply sector and the manufacturing sector were the major sources of the supply-induced cross-sectoral input emissions, while the commercial and service sector and the household sector were the top source of supply-induced cross-sectoral output emissions. This paper sheds light on the policies of the carbon emission abatement and the adjustment of the allocation structure from the perspective of supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of China's economy, China has become the world's largest carbon emitter. China not only has an obvious growth rate of industrial carbon emissions but also the intensity of agricultural carbon emissions is hovering at a high level. The development of China's agricultural economy has largely come at the expense of high emissions. Currently, under the background of global warming and difficulty in controlling greenhouse gas emissions, the development of low-carbon agriculture is an important way to realize the harmonious development of the ecological environment and economic growth and to promote the sustainable development of agriculture. The agricultural production efficiency is the main factor affecting the intensity of agricultural carbon emissions. Based on provincial panel data of China from 2010 to 2019, this paper establishes an indicator system and uses the super-efficiency SBM model to measure agricultural production efficiency. The regional agricultural carbon emissions were estimated using carbon-emission-related agricultural production activities. In order to study the nonlinear relationship between agricultural production efficiency and agricultural carbon emission intensity in the narrow sense, this paper uses a threshold regression model with agricultural carbon emissions as the threshold variable. Based on the analysis of China's agricultural production efficiency and agricultural carbon emissions from 2010 to 2019, an empirical test is conducted through a threshold regression model. The results show an "inverted U-shaped" relationship between agricultural production efficiency and agricultural carbon emission intensity. In areas with high agricultural production efficiency, the improvement of production efficiency can suppress the intensity of agricultural carbon emissions; in areas with low agricultural production efficiency, the improvement of production efficiency increases the intensity of agricultural carbon emissions. Finally, based on the research conclusions, this paper provides feasible suggestions and countermeasures for China's agricultural carbon emission reduction and improvement of agricultural production efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China agricultural development has been facing the problem of resource constraints because its resources per capita such as land and energy are relatively lower than the global average. By applying the provincial agricultural panel data from 2000 to 2015 and fixed effect model based on the translog production function, this paper estimates both output elasticities and substitution elasticities of agricultural inputs, which may provide insights into sustainable agricultural development. The results show that, except for capital, the output elasticities of other production factors are all positive. Energy has always played an important role in agricultural production, whose elasticity in agriculture increased from 0.0203 in 2000 to 0.1694 in 2015. We also find a severe scarcity of land, and the high intensity of energy in the field of agriculture. Moreover, there exists a substitute relationship between all factors, which means that in the short term, one production factor can be employed to replace another to maintain agricultural development. From the empirical results of this paper, some policy suggestions are proposed as follows: it is crucial that more attention should be placed on land and to plan energy use wisely. In addition, on account of the current situation in China, the input of labor force should be stepped up and energy should be used more efficiently to make up for the shortage of land resources. The empirical results and policy suggestions in this paper may benefit the sustainable development of China's agricultural economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid population aging has serious implications for socio-economic development and poses considerable challenges to food security and agricultural economic resilience, issues that are not well understood to date. Against the background of the aging agricultural labor force in China, this paper, based on the sample data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, constructs a spatial autoregressive model and uses the generalized moment method to measure the development level of agricultural economic resilience in China. Moreover, the GMM model and intermediary effect model are used to empirically analyze the impact of rural labor aging on agricultural economic resilience in China and its role channels. The results show that the aging of China's rural labor force is on the rise, and the resilience level of China's agricultural economy is on the decline. The aging of the rural labor force significantly weakened the resilience of the agricultural economy; the aging level of the rural labor force increased by 1 unit, and the resilience of the agricultural economy decreased by 1.085 units. The results of this mechanistic analysis show that the aging of the rural labor force mainly weakens the resilience of the agricultural economy by reducing rural human capital and restraining agricultural scale management and agricultural technology progress. Our heterogeneity analysis shows that the aging of the rural labor force has a stronger inhibitory effect on the resilience of the agricultural economy in western regions, non-grain-producing areas, and areas with low economic development levels. This means that the government should pay attention to the impact of the aging rural labor force on the resilience of the agricultural economy, focusing on solving problems such as low agricultural production efficiency and insufficient rural human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of the urban economy and service economy, the decoupling of service industry land expansion from economic growth has always been a key measure to evaluate sustainable and healthy development. Based on the decoupling model and GIS spatial analysis method, this paper conducted an empirical study of Chinese cities from 2012 to 2019. Results: (1) Increasing spatial heterogeneity, correlation and agglomeration of land expansion were found in China's urban service industry and its economic growth; (2) Most cities were in weak decoupling, with evolved, degraded and unchanged cities accounting for one-third each, and the number of cities in negative decoupling was increasing, leading to increasingly diverse and complex decoupling relationships; (3) From the perspective of changes in the urban service industry land and its decoupling from economic growth, HH cities were clustered in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei and Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomerations in a continuous belt pattern, while LL and HL cities were mostly in the north, especially in the northeast, creating many cluster-like agglomerations that have become problematic spaces; (4) A significant synergistic effect was identified between the factors of urban permanent population, value added of the secondary industry, per capita GDP, government financial expenditure, international trade, foreign direct investment, total retail of commodities, and authorized patents, with factor pairs formed showing nonlinear enhancement. The factor value added of the secondary industry had the largest direct impact, while urban permanent population and foreign direct investment led in terms of net synergies; (5) It is recommended to introduce classified and differentiated urban service industry land use policies, plan and build a number of national, provincial and municipal modern service industry clusters, demonstrate changes in land supply and use, build a scientific and efficient land resource allocation and management system, guard against and prevent recoupling and effectively improve the ability of cities to achieve high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China's economy and the U.S. economy have shown a definite interaction, there is considerable interest in studying the correlation between the Chinese stock market and the US financial markets. This paper uses an Asymmetric Dynamic Conditional Correlation (ADCC)-GARCH to investigate the correlation between the Shanghai Composite Index (SHCI) and the U.S. financial markets, including SP500, NASDAQ, and US dollar indexes. The empirical results show that the time-varying daily and the lag-one correlation between China and the US stock markets have different performances during global events and national events. Compared with the complicated effect of negative events on the correlation of the stock market, SHCI and USD are negatively correlated with higher negative correlation during the global negative events. In addition, we found Chinese investors are more contagious to the news than American investors, indicating that the Chinese government's policy are more indicated to Chinese investors. Finally, some policy suggestions are provided, and are beneficial to risk prevention and control, and investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copper in the international market has been priced by copper futures contracts from the London Metal Exchange (LME) and the New York Commodity Exchange (COMEX). Copper prices initially showed a downward trend until March 2020, but after the outbreak of COVID-19, they continued to rise and reached a record high in May 2021. The rise in copper demand also stimulated the continuous growth of copper production. However, a significant amount of smelting flue gas is produced in the copper smelting process. The main component of the flue gas is SO2 and other acid gases, which pollute the environmental atmosphere. At the same time, due to the Chinese government's effective control of the pandemic, China's economy continued to grow. Therefore, as one of the world's largest copper consumers and producers, China's futures market has attracted attention for its influence on copper pricing and the pollution caused by copper smelting. In this paper, we used the grey entropy method to compare the influence of copper prices on the three futures markets and changes in China's air pollution in recent years. Our results show that before the pandemic, the influence of the LME futures copper price was the same as the COMEX but greater than the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE). After the outbreak of the pandemic, the influence of the SHFE copper futures price significantly improved and slightly exceeded the LME and COMEX. This result echoes our finding that SO2 has caused serious air pollution in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economy has made significant strides in the past three decades. As a direct result of China's "one belt, one road" (OBOR) initiative, the country's rate of industrialization and urbanization is currently the fastest in the entire world. This rapid development is largely dependent on the enormous amounts of energy currently being consumed and forms the foundation of the world's high levels of carbon emissions. It is generally agreed that the production of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, is the primary contributor to the current state of climate change. In this paper, a CO2 emission prediction model based on Bi-LSTM is constructed. In order to conduct empirical tests on the model, this study uses data from South Asian countries and China from 2001 to 2020. China's CO2 emissions from 2022 to 2030 were predicted along with those of other countries in order to study the combined effects of the scientific and technological progress, industrial structures, and energy structure factors affecting CO2 emissions. When compared with the LSTM and GRU methods, the Bi-LSTM model's results produced lower MAE, MSE, and MAPE values, indicating that it performs better. According to the findings, carbon emissions represent a significant problem that will become much worse in the future due to China and India's high emissions, particularly in the next 10 years, if the government does not implement policies that help reduce those emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economic development is characterized by openness, and trade and investment are important engines for promoting economic development. China's economy is now in a transitional period, during which excessive carbon emission reduction would inevitably hinder economic development. In this context, improving carbon emission efficiency is an effective way to achieve sustainable development. This paper deals with the relationships among foreign direct investment, technological innovation and carbon emission efficiency. Our research findings include the following. First, carbon efficiency shows regional differences. East China has the highest mean value of carbon emission efficiency, followed by central China and west China over the sample period. Second, FDI exerts both direct and indirect impacts on carbon emission efficiency through technological innovation, which confirms the intermediate effect of technological innovation. Finally, sub-sample analysis indicates that the impact of FDI and technological innovation on carbon emission efficiency show regional heterogeneity. According to these findings, we offer policy recommendations as follows. The government should stimulate independent innovation, promote technological progress in renewable energy and green energy, and attract environmentally friendly foreign investment to improve carbon emission efficiency and boost green development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This perspective paper elaborates on how the burden of environmental issues on public health and the economy led China's government to declare its revised environmental policies or "war on pollution". It explains the importance of photovoltaic solar (PV), electric vehicles (EV), and carbon capture and storage (CCS) in helping China to mitigate its environmental concerns while maintaining economic growth. China already leads PV solar and EV manufacturing; however, it has not made a tangible contribution to CCS technology yet. On the other hand, CCS is far behind its envisaged role in contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and supporting countries to meet their net carbon zero targets. China's existing coal power plants are good candidates to be retrofitted with CCS. Similar to PV and EV technologies, China could influence this technology globally, by reducing the uncertainties, demonstrating the viability, and driving the costs lower. China's revised policies have been effective and shown global impacts, but their implementations remain as strong as the political will behind them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To cope with the global financial crisis, China's governments issued huge amount of debt to support public infrastructure projects. These financing mechanisms brought about rapid economic restoration, as well as large amounts of debt accumulation. Among other outcomes of this were increasing the leverage in property markets and advancing the extent of financialization in China's local economy. Financialization level measures the proportion of the total volume of financing provided by the financial system to the real economy, which covers all the generated debts connecting within real economy and financial system. In this study, we outline the mechanism of housing-centered debt expansion process, land-based financing for local governments and trends of housing financialization in local China. Most importantly, the functions of land in such mechanism is highly emphasized. We run fixed-effect and random-effect models to testify the correlation between the kernel variables—financialization level and real estate investment and public infrastructure. To lower the endogenous problems in the estimation, we use instrumental variables (IV) methods and estimate by the two-stage OLS (2SLS) method. The results show that 1% increase (or decrease) of financialization level (measured by the indicator of Aggregate Financing to Real Economy as percentage of GDP) brings about a significant increase (or decrease) of 48% of real estate investment and 59% of public infrastructure investment nationally. Based on the results, we deduce an overview of debt-driven mechanism in China's local economy named dual financing circulation, which contains two parallel financing circuits, governmental financing based on lands as collateral and market financing based on properties. Finally, the study reveals some new trends of financialization in property markets. Therefore, the major originality of paper is theoretically combining the governmental and private financing circuits as a whole framework for better understanding the financialized local economy of China and putting forward some policy implementations, such as reducing and setting ceilings on leverage of real estate developers in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous development of China's economy and society, people and the government have higher and higher requirements for food safety. Testing for food dopants and toxins can prevent the occurrence of various adverse health phenomena in the world's population. By deploying new and powerful sensors that enable rapid sensing processes, the food industry can help detect trace adulteration and toxic substances. At present, as a common food safety detection method, lateral flow immunochromatography (LFI) is widely used in food safety testing, environmental testing and clinical medical treatment because of its advantages of simplicity, speed, specificity and low cost, and plays a pivotal role in ensuring food safety. This paper mainly focuses on the application of lateral flow immunochromatography and new technologies combined with test strips in food safety detection, such as aptamers, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, quantum dots, electrochemical test strip detection technology, biosensor test strip detection, etc. In addition, sensing principles such as fluorescence resonance energy transfer can also more effective. Different methods have different characteristics. The following is a review of the application of these technologies in food safety detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether China's economy can maintain sustainable growth has been debated both in China and internationally, and the most representative critique has been summarized in the "Krugman Query". Faced with such doubts, how to achieve a "win-win" for economic growth and environmental protection has become one of the central objectives of local government work while striving for the new vision of development. Taking China's carbon trading pilot policy as an example, and based on panel data of 30 provincial administrative regions in China from 2001 to 2018, this paper uses the Data Envelopment Analysis-Malmquist index model and the Propensity Score Matching-Difference in Difference method to measure the level of green economic growth from two aspects: green development mode and economic growth effect, and further explore the impact of China's carbon trading system on green economic growth. The results show that the implementation of the carbon trading system promoted both the green development level and economic growth of pilot cities, and positively affected green total factor productivity, refuting the "Krugman Query". Finally, the study puts forward a series of recommendations in strengthening environmental regulation, improving green technology innovation, and developing low-carbon industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper first constructs an index system through the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) model and conducts a comprehensive evaluation of China's agricultural environment according to the entropy weight TOPSIS model. Second, a coupling coordination degree model is established to calculate the degree of coupling coordination between the agricultural economy and the environment in each province. Finally, a spatial Durbin model is established to analyze the influencing factors of China's agricultural economy. Results show that: ① the overall environment in the eastern region has little change, and the overall level is relatively backward; the agricultural environment in the central region is uneven; the agricultural environment in the western region is quite different from north to south. ② The regions with a high level of coupling coordination are mainly concentrated in the central and southern regions, and the performance is relatively intensive. The agricultural economy and the environment in the western region are extremely uncoordinated, and as is the overall coupling coordination between the agricultural economy and the environment in the eastern region in general. Further improvement is also needed. ③ Fixed asset investment, total power of agricultural machinery, rural electricity consumption, rural population, and rural per capita disposable income all have important influences on China's agricultural economy. ④ The rural population size has a positive and the largest effect on the agricultural economy, whereas rural per capita disposable income has a negative effect on the agricultural economy. Moreover, improving farmers' enthusiasm for farming is one of the key issues to be solved urgently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of the Chinese economy has stimulated consumer demand and brought huge opportunities for the retail industry. Previous studies have emphasized the importance of estimating regional consumption potentiality. However, the determinants of retail sales are yet to be systematically studied, especially at the micro level. As a result, the realization of sustainable development goals in the retail industry is restricted. In this paper, we studied the determinants of retail sales from two aspects—location-based socioeconomic factors and spatial competition between shops. Using 12,500 retail shops as our sample and by adopting a grid-division strategy, we found that regional retail sales can be positively impacted by nearby population, road length, and most non-commercial points of interest (POIs). By contrast, the number of other commercial facilities, such as catering facilities and shopping malls, and the area of geographic barriers often caused negative impacts on retail sales. As to the competition effects, we found that the isolation and decentralization of shops in one area have a marginally positive effect on sales performance within a threshold distance of 226.19 m for a central grid and a threshold distance of 514.85 m for surrounding grids, respectively. This study explores the determinants of micro-level retail sales and provides decision makers with practical and realistic approaches for generating better site selection and marketing strategies, thus realizing the sustainable development goals of the retail industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, Chinese State-Owned Enterprises have emerged as among the most active investors in Mekong Basin hydropower development. This paper uses a political economy analysis to examine the forces that drive Chinese State-Owned Enterprises to invest in hydropower in the Mekong Basin. We focus our analysis on the Lancang (Upper Mekong River) in China and in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), with an emphasis on Cambodia. The analysis reveals how powerful political and economic forces from within China and the GMS influence the pace, location and scale of investments in hydropower. These forces include foreign exchange reserves, trade packages and foreign direct investment, and political alliances. Combining the political economy and nexus approaches, we conclude that although policies from China recognize interconnections across the nexus, political and economic forces craft narratives that downplay or disregard these nexus interconnections and trade-offs. This in turn, influences how trade-offs and interconnections in hydropower development are managed and recognized in both local and transboundary contexts, thereby, creating potentially significant negative impacts on livelihoods, food security and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]