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Gaining wide prominence in the global health arena, scaling-up increases the coverage of health innovations emerging from pilots and experimental projects to a larger scale. However, scaling-up in the health sector should not follow a linear 'pilot-diffusion' pathway in order to better facilitate local adaptation and policy refinement. This paper puts forth 'scaling-up through piloting' as a distinctive pathway for the strategic management of scaling-up in the health sector. It analyses the recent development of provider payment reforms in China, focusing particularly on the ongoing pilot programmes, namely diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) and diagnosis-intervention packet (DIP), that are being piloted in a dual-track fashion since 2020. Data were drawn from extensive documentary analysis and 20 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including decision-makers and implementers. This paper finds that scaling-up through piloting helps Chinese policymakers minimize the vast uncertainties associated with complex payment reforms and maximize the local adaptability of provider payment innovations. This pathway has forged a phased implementation process, allowing new payment models to be tested, evaluated, compared and adjusted in a full spectrum of local contexts before national rollout. The phased implementation creates a 'slower is faster' effect, helping reduce long-term negative consequences arising from improperly managed scaling-up in a complex system. Error detection and correction and recalibration of new policy tools can support national-level policy refinement in a more robust and dynamic fashion. Several key factors have been identified as crucial for strategic scaling-up: necessary central steering, a pragmatic piloting design, strong technical capacity and effective policy learning mechanisms [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of hypertension in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) using the results of a regional study. The studies were reviewed using PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Biology Medicine, Wan Fang Data and Chinese Science Citation Database. After screening articles and data extraction, Stata V.16 was used for statistical analysis. This study was registered in the Prospective Register Systematic Reviews (CRD42020170649). A total of 2126 articles were identified, and nine papers were finally included. Random-effects modelling showed that the pooled prevalence of hypertension among Chinese patients with T2DM was 54% (95% CI 47 to 61%). Subgroup analysis showed that the prevalence in men (59.8%; 95% CI 49.0 to 70.7%) was higher than that in women (40.2%; 95% CI 29.3 to 59.2%). The prevalence in North China was higher than that in East China. The prevalence in institution-based settings (56%; 95% CI 48 to 64%) was higher than that in community-based settings (51%; 95% CI 34 to 69%). Appropriate preventive measures should be undertaken, such as health education, to control and reduce the risk of hypertension in diabetic patients and reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops case studies of the UK and China to analyse divergent national financial regulatory approaches to FinTech as a novel political economy of platforms. Regulating with platforms is core to the approach taken in the UK, where start-up and early-career platforms are enrolled into an innovation-friendly financial regulation regime that promotes consumption and competition balanced with stability. In China, meanwhile, measures are being instituted to enhance rules and restrictions imposed on FinTech platforms. BigTech-led FinTech expansion was encouraged to expedite financial reforms to fuel economic growth and ensure authoritarian state control, but regulation is now shown to be working against the furtherance of platform power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled facial recognition technology (FRT) in the provision of vital services that depend on accurate identification of individuals within China's public and private sectors prompted an urgent need to foster discussions regarding regulatory, societal, and ethical concerns. While there are safety and efficiency gains to be obtained through the use of FRT where establishing identity is necessary, these result in potential trade-offs against the individuals' fundamental rights, most notably, the violation of the right to privacy, and personal information where individuals are neither informed of nor consented to the collection, use, or storage. To address such concerns, China has put in place laws. The adequacy of which in addressing the concerns remains. This paper argues that, while significant progress has been made with the promulgation of several legislations, much more needs to be undertaken in terms of ensuring transparency in decision-making on public uses and obtaining prior mandatory authorization before the deployment of FRT. The paper further suggests the engagement of a multi-disciplinary team of experts to support and guide research, development, and deployment of AI-enabled FRT and other biometric technology as a positive step forward together with the possible adoption of adaptive governance as a framework for future policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This structured review aimed to discuss the existing literature on therapeutic hypothermia for moderate to severe neonatal encephalopathy exclusively in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).Methods: Medline, Embase, CINHAL and Cochrane Registry were searched for original papers with therapeutic hypothermia (TH) for treating neonatal encephalopathy in LMIC with no language restrictions. The search identified 1413 papers from 1990 to 31 August 2021.Results: Twenty-one original papers were included after duplicates removal and full-text screening in the final review. Fourteen randomized control studies and seven non-randomized studies were discussed with various modes of cooling (servo-controlled, phase changing material, traditional methods), complications during cooling, mortality and long-term neurodevelopmental assessment. Although there is sufficient evidence in LMIC favouring cooling for the reduction in mortality and improving the neurodevelopmental outcomes, nonetheless these studies were widely heterogeneous in terms of method of cooling, tools for assessing developmental outcomes, age at assessment and variations in neuroimaging tools and reporting.Conclusion: Therapeutic hypothermia is beneficial in LMICs with low certainty of evidence in reducing mortality and improving neurodevelopmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The popularity of social networks turns them into a legal method for promoting a healthy lifestyle, which benefits not only people but also different countries' governments. This research paper aimed to examine the Keep fitness app integrated into WeChat, Weibo and QQ as regards long-term improvements in health-related behaviors (physical activity, nutrition, health responsibility, spiritual growth, interpersonal relationships and stress management) and assess the associated risk of increased social media addiction. Students from Lishui University in China (N  = 300) participated in this study, and they were formed into control and experimental groups. The Healthy Lifestyle Behavior Scale and Social Media Disorder Scale were used as psychometric instruments. The Keep app was found to improve respondents' scores on the parameters of physical activity, nutrition and health responsibility (P  = 0.00). However, the level of dependence on social media did not change in either the control or the experimental group during the year of research (P  ≥ 0.05). It is concluded that fitness apps can be an effective tool to promote healthy lifestyles among young people in China and other countries. The feasibility of government investment in fitness apps to promote healthy lifestyles is substantiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Bank today faces parallel challenges to its operations and governance. The institution has since its founding provided financing on favourable terms to developing country governments to support national development efforts. Alongside these country demands, there are now calls for a new set of mandates and activities associated with global public goods. Advocates would have the Bank allocate large sums toward climate mitigation, pandemic response and preparedness, and other activities that may or may not align with national priorities in developing countries. The ability of the World Bank to strike an appropriate balance between country demands and global goods depends on the institution's shareholders. Yet, the deterioration in the bilateral relationship between the United States and China now threatens to undermine effective governance at the institution. This paper considers the challenge of competing demands on World Bank resources and the degree to which a resolution could depend on an agreement between the United States and China, one that sets the strategic direction of the institution and addresses the growing impasse on the question of China's shareholding in the Bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combining eight years of panel data with an event study approach, this study shows that rural Chinese women's labor supply falls following the birth of a child. In contrast, men's labor supply does not fall after birth. Furthermore, a woman's labor supply falls more following the birth of a son than a daughter. Following the birth of a son relative to a daughter, household cigarette consumption declines, and a mother's leisure time, her probability of school enrollment, and her participation in decision-making increase. There are no increases in other investments in boys complementary to mothers' time, such as food expenditures, breastfeeding, or immunizations. These results are consistent with the idea that mothers are rewarded more for having a son, leading them to have more leisure and work less. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates whether the devolution reform of forestland to household management improves allocative efficiency and household welfare through participation in forestland rental markets. Using a household panel dataset from three Chinese provinces, we find positive effects of the emerging forestland rental markets: with the reform, forestland was transferred to forestland-constrained and labour-rich households and households with higher levels of productivity in forestry. Participation in forestland rental markets increases household per-capita income and decreases the likelihood of income falling below the poverty line. We do not find any support for forestland captured by land-richer, wealthier, larger or powerful households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on policy coordination between government agencies reveals little about how coordination is managed in centralized political systems. This paper, therefore, presents a dynamic and quantitative analysis of policy coordination in China based on the science and technology (S&T) policy documents issued by China's central government agencies in the period 1978–2019. From a series of snapshots depicting inter-agency policy development in five historical stages over this timeframe, we find that (1) policy coordination has developed steadily and has mainly occurred to interpret macro strategies and put in place more detailed implementation measures. (2) Ministries under the purview of the State Council have played a leading role in policy coordination, while other types of agencies have cooperated in more supporting roles. (3) Coordination efforts have mainly focused on inclusive and national demand-oriented themes, such as high-tech industrialization, rural S&T, and social development. This research offers a panoramic view of policy coordination trajectories and mechanisms in centralized political systems. As such, it adds to the analysis methods available for quantitatively studying policy documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of policy capacity is often used to explain the success or failure of governments or countries in conceiving of, developing, and implementing policies, but is often poorly systematised. Wu et al provide a framework for understanding types of policy capacity, arguing that three kinds of capacity, distributed across policy systems, are needed for effective implementation. This paper applies that framework to a discussion of China, a country that has been managing a fundamental transformation since at least the late 1970s, which has underpinned the country's growth and development. The paper focuses on a subset of China's reforms - reforms to the healthcare system since the 1990s. Discussion of policy capacity shows (1) that policy capacity is dynamic and adaptive, in response to changing challenges due to rapid transformation in the country; (2) that the development and distribution of capacities has, overall, been government-directed, with strong research and analytical support from public think tanks and universities; (3) that understanding of policy capacity is evolving, with government paying increasing attention to the need to develop a learning state and society in response to increasingly complex problems of development. Examination of the Chinese case has relevance for how other countries develop and adapt policy capacities over time to manage rapid transformation, uncertainty and shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent shifts in political sociology have moved away from reification of the state to focus more on symbolic and everyday sociocultural perceptions of political units. Yet the launching points for most research has been state-led programs. To remedy this gap, this paper takes a relatively non-political activity, domestic tourism, and builds a theoretical model of how the circulation of tourist bodies provides legitimation for the material, symbolic, and territorial projects of the nation-state. Using qualitative content analysis of online travel diaries for domestic vacations taken in China from 2006–2019, I find that travel practices are integral to perceptions of and bodily engagement with the geography, history, ethno-culture, and modernization projects of the nation-state. I argue that tourist practices naturalize and confirm knowledge and classifications about the nation-state, making abstract political conceptions into experiential realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subnational disparities in most health systems often defy 'one-size-fits-all' approach in policy implementation. When local authorities implement a national policy in a decentralized context, they behave as a strategic policy actor in specifying the central mandates, selecting appropriate tools and setting key implementation parameters. Local policy discretion leads to diverse policy mixes across regions, thus complicating evidence-based evaluations of policy impacts. When measuring complex policy reforms, mainstream policy evaluation methodologies have tended to adopt simplified policy proxies that often disguise distinct policy choices across localities, leaving the heterogeneous effects of the same generic policy largely unknown. Using the emerging 'text-as-data' methodology and drawing from subnational policy documents, this study developed a novel approach to policy measurement through analysing policy big data. We applied this approach to examine the impacts of China's Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI) on individuals' out-of-pocket (OOP) spending. We found substantial disparities in policy choices across prefectures when categorizing the UEBMI policy framework into benefit-expansion and cost-containment reforms. Overall, the UEBMI policies lowered enrollees' OOP spending in prefectures that embraced both benefit-expansion and cost-containment reforms. In contrast, the policies produced ill effects on OOP spending of UEBMI enrollees and uninsured workers in prefectures that carried out only benefit-expansion or cost-containment reforms. The micro-level impacts of UEBMI enrolment on OOP spending were conditional on whether prefectural benefit-expansion and cost-containment reforms were undertaken in concert. Only in prefectures that promulgated both types of reforms did UEBMI enrolment reduce OOP spending. These findings contribute to a comprehensive text-mining measurement approach to locally diverse policy efforts and an integration of macro-level policy analysis and micro-level individual analysis. Contextualizing policy measurements would improve the methodological rigour of health policy evaluations. This paper concludes with implications for health policymakers in China and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss the process of financialisation of developing countries and emerging economies (DEEs) from the perspective of critical realism (CR). We argue that the emergence of financialisation depends on the inherent tendency of the imbalance between the accumulation of productive and financial capital being actualised, and emphasise how government's intentional actions under current social structures relate to this process. We use China as a case study to illustrate how DEEs can resist financialisation and maintain productive accumulation during development. We elaborate on various institutional and policy adjustments undertaken by China during different phases that promoted productive accumulation and how China avoided financialisation for much of its growth period. Our discussion helps to explain why China's limited financialisation compared to other DEEs who experienced financialisation featured by dependency. We conclude by highlighting new potential risks and sources of financialisation faced by the Chinese economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health management information systems (HMISs) are essential in programme planning, budgeting, monitoring and evidence-informed decision-making. This paper focuses on donor transitions in two upper-middle-income countries, China and Georgia, and explores how national HMIS adaptations were made and what facilitated or limited successful and sustainable transitions. This comparative analytical case study uses a policy triangle framework and a mixed-methods approach to explore how and why adaptations in the HMIS occurred under the Gavi Alliance and the Global Fund–supported programmes in China and Georgia. A review of published and grey literature, key informant interviews and administrative data analysis informed the study findings. Contextual factors such as the global and country context, and health system and programme needs drove HMIS developments. Other factors included accountability on a national and international level; improvements in HMIS governance by establishing national regulations for clear mandates of data collection and reporting rules and creating institutional spaces for data use; investing in hardware, software and human resources to ensure regular and reliable data generation; and capacitating national players to use data in evidence-based decision-making for programme and transition planning, budgeting and outcome monitoring. Not all the HMIS initiatives supported by donors were sustained and transitioned. For the successful adaptation and sustainable transition, five interlinked and closely coordinated support areas need to be considered: (1) coupling programme design with a good understanding of the country context while considering domestic and external demands for information, (2) regulating appropriate governance and management arrangements enhancing country ownership, (3) avoiding silo HMIS solutions and taking integrative approach, (4) ensuring the transition of funding onto domestic budget and enforcing fulfilment of the government's financial commitments and finally (5) investing in technologies and skilled human resources for the HMIS throughout all levels of the health system. Neglecting any of these elements risks not delivering sustainable outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From global production network (GPN) theory, this study explores the configurations of emerging Southern market-driven production networks through the case of China's industrial robot industry which has emerged with increasing automation in production. This paper argues that to serve the Chinese high- and middle-end customers, global lead firms from Western economies have established regional production networks by localising production, connecting with global component suppliers in/outside China and collaborating with Chinese system integrators. However, Chinese capable firms have organised domestic production networks for the low and middle-end through integrating with domestic component suppliers and system integrators. This study adapts the GPN framework, mostly highlighting Western markets, by examining markets and firms in the Global South and revealing new configurations of production networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For regions that are deeply integrated into the global economy, the question of how to remain competitive and resilient in times of uncertainty is a key concern. While strategic coupling is a useful concept for understanding local-global economic dynamics, the idea that a region can simultaneously couple into multiple production networks organised at different spatial scales and that regional actors can increase their autonomy by creatively combining different coupling scenarios has been little explored. This paper explores how regional institutional innovations can facilitate such multiple couplings. We focus on the industrial chain chief model in China's Zhejiang province, which emerged against the backdrop of the U.S.-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that this institutional innovation offers a different way of thinking for regions that have long been exposed to the influence of globalisation, and that it increases the agency of local actors in global production networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: Urbanization in developing countries is usually accompanied by migration to cities, making it a challenge to unpack the independent relationships between migration, urbanization and health, particularly in the presence of health-selective migration. Since 1978, unprecedented planned urbanization has taken place in China and further increases to the urban population are expected. This paper explored the impacts of urbanization in China through a comparative study of in situ urbanized population.Methods: Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), a nationally representative dataset for people aged 45 years or older, we compared self-assessed general health, depressive symptoms and waist circumference among three groups: (i) in situ urbanized-rural residents; (ii) rural residents; and (iii) urban residents. Using a model informed by the literature on the social determinants of health in later life, we investigated the patterning and drivers of differences in health outcomes between these three groups, in order to explore the impact of urbanization independent of the impact of migration.Results: There are consistent advantages in health and less depression among urbanized-rural residents compared with the rural group; and this group has even better health outcomes than the urban group after adjusting for early life differences. However, this relationship is reversed for waist circumference. Socioeconomic circumstances and factors related to a planned urbanization partly explain these effects.Conclusions: Urbanization in China has, on average, had an independent and positive effect on health and well-being. Planned urbanization could benefit people's health in developing countries. It is likely that improved infrastructure is a key driver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2000s, Chinese government has sought to encourage the growth of private health insurance (PHI) while simultaneously expanding the breadth of coverage in its social health insurance (SHI) system. This paper examines how the prevalence of PHI has changed during this period and the extent to which PHI contributed to the growth of horizontal and geographical inequities with a focus on healthcare utilization. National data from China Health and Nutrition Survey between 2000 and 2015 were analysed using a multilevel modelling approach. The analysis investigated the impact of SHI membership as related to PHI uptake, PHI enrolees' utilization of health services and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses. This study found being covered by an SHI scheme reduced the uptake of PHI between 2004 and 2015. Having PHI caused an increase in utilizing outpatient care but did not affect OOP expenses. Coverage prevalence of PHI in a residential community was positively associated with the average level of healthcare utilization. Coverage prevalence of PHI and its effects on healthcare utilization varied geographically. The findings suggest that expanding the role of PHI was not effective without clear support from government policy. Furthermore, the expansion of PHI may cause an increase in horizontal and geographical inequities in healthcare utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bonus system used in Chinese hospitals has been criticized for eroding doctors’ professional ethics and aggravating patient expense. This research article focuses on one system to improve hospital performance, the balanced scorecard (BSC). We use three data sources to examine the diffusion and implementation of the BSC in China: a questionnaire survey in Shandong Province, a print-media indicators and content analysis of the published BSC papers and semi-structured interviews with managers of Chinese hospitals that use the BSC. The research evidence shows that bonus systems are important, partially because of the poor pay of hospital professionals, and the BSC is perceived as providing a fair system to award such bonuses. This helps explain the relative endurance of the BSC in Chinese hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In China, the government has encouraged the participation of private sector facilities in primary care to improve health care quality.Objective: We compare health care utilization patterns among patients who select private versus public community health centres (CHCs) for reimbursed outpatient services.Methods: This paper uses data from the Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance scheme from 2013 to 2016 in one of the largest cities in China. We used a Poisson model and a logistic model to examine outcomes on monthly outpatient visits and the probability of hospitalization, respectively.Results: Compared with being a user of a public CHC, being a user of a private CHC is associated with a 26.2% lower incidence rate of outpatient visits to hospitals [95% confidence interval (CI): 30.1-21.8%] and no difference in rates of visits to CHCs or hospitalization. Among patients with diabetes or hypertension, being a user of a private CHC is associated with a 12.9% lower incidence rate of outpatient visits to CHCs (95% CI: 19.8-5.4%), a 25.6% lower incidence rate of outpatient visits to hospitals (95% CI: 21.4-19.5%) and 22.3% higher odds of hospitalization (95% CI: 3.5-44.7%).Conclusion: Being a user of a private CHC is associated with a reduction in outpatient visits to hospitals, which aligns with the goal of reducing hospital congestion at the outpatient level. For patients with chronic diseases, being a user of a private CHC is associated with a higher probability of hospitalization. More research is needed to understand the reason for this difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the medical activities of Hu Tingguang, an early nineteenth-century Chinese healer who specialized in treating traumatic injuries. Hu aimed to improve the state of medical knowledge about injuries by writing a comprehensive treatise titled Compilation of Teachings on Traumatology, completed in 1815. This work notably included a set of medical cases describing the experiences of Hu and his father, which Hu used to teach readers how to employ and adapt different therapies: bone setting, petty surgery, and drugs. By examining how Hu dealt with different forms of damage to the body's material form, this paper shows how manual therapies could be a focus of medical creativity and innovation. It also contributes to a growing corpus of scholarship exploring the way that awareness of and concern with the structure of the body historically shaped Chinese medical thought and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, as elsewhere, the number of a firm's patent applications is regularly considered to be an indicator of its innovation capability. China's patent system, however, is peculiar in that government subsidies and official targets play a notable role in influencing individuals' patenting behaviour. Using company survey data, this paper examines the influence of firms' formal ties with the Communist Party of China (CPC) on their patenting behaviour. Taking the example of private small and medium-sized firms in the electronics industry of the Pearl River Delta, it establishes that the presence of CPC offices can be the strongest single predictor for patenting even when other factors are taken into account. This seems particularly noteworthy because earlier studies found that small and medium-sized firms in the Pearl River Delta were less susceptible to central government influence than other Chinese firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel multilevel gravity model of migration to study the under-researched topic of urban to urban migration in China. Many previous studies have looked at rural to urban migration in the context of urbanisation and economic development, and at return migration. Very few have looked at what is becoming more important in increasingly urbanised countries, which is the movement from one urban location to another. In the study, we develop a new method that allows for the interconnections between migration flows: between those that share an origin, those that share a destination, and where there is a reciprocal flow between places. A conventional gravity model of migration ignores those connections, risking erroneous estimation of the regression parameters and of their statistical significance. It also ignores that those connections are of substantive interest—they reveal the interconnections between places regarding the numbers of migrants that they send and receive. We motivate and illustrate the advantages of our approach using 2010 interprovincial migration census data for China. The results obtained from the model confirm the effect of distance, of population size and of regional income levels. They show that there is greater variation in the numbers of migrants received by provinces than there is in the numbers sent, and that reciprocal migration between pairs of provinces is an important feature of what is happening in China, especially between the neighbouring provinces of Sichuan and Tibet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideational definition of culture has hindered a meaningful debate of the role that culture plays in the discipline of International Relations. Focusing on the behavior side of culture instead, this paper proposes the Cultural Constructivist approach that takes account of both the cultural and the social in interstate relations. Academic puzzles in contemporary China's relations with Japan, the former Soviet Union, and the United States are better explained by taking into account China's cultural behavior pattern and its role in the country's identity construction of these other states. Cultural Constructivism is a falsifiable theory that enables us to see under which circumstances culture intervenes in a country's foreign policy making. A cultural behavior pattern has complicated the PRC's relations with Japan and the former Soviet Union, but material constraints and cultural differences prevented its ascendance to the main stage of Sino- US relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although an authoritarian regime is often assumed to manipulate its various statistics for political needs and to maintain its legitimacy, we know little about how such manipulation is accomplished and under what circumstances. Using data collected from yearly published official crime reports, a unique source for crime victim surveys, interviews with the police and detailed ethnographic work in Guangzhou city, this paper demonstrates how the manufacturing of official crime statics serves to legitimize the authoritarian regime in China. In particular, I examine the myth of the 'great crime decline' in the first decade of 21st century when official crime statistics declined by more than two-thirds in the city and argue that the decrease is a result of statistical manipulation instead of a reflection of the actual crime situation. I argue that, compared with Western democracies, crime statistics should be more fully understood as part of a legitimization apparatus in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of reliable anthropogenic emission inventories is essential for both understanding the sources of air pollution and designing effective air-pollution-control measures in China. However, it is challenging to quantify emissions in China accurately, given the variety of contributing sources, the complexity of the technology mix and the lack of reliable measurements. Over the last two decades, tremendous efforts have been made to improve the accuracy of emission inventories, and significant improvements have been realized.More reliable statistics and survey-based data have been used to reduce the uncertainties in activity rates and technology distributions. Local emission factors and source profiles covering various sources have been measured and reported. Based on these local databases, improved emission inventory models have been developed for power plants, large industrial plants and the residential, transportation and agricultural sectors. In this paper, we review the progress that has been made in developing inventories of anthropogenic emissions in China. We first highlight the major updates that have been made to emission inventory models and the underlying data by source category.We then summarize the sector-based estimates of emissions of different species contained in current inventories. The progress that has been made in the development of model-ready emissions is also presented. Finally, we suggest future directions for further improving the accuracy of emission inventories in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tobacco control in China, the world's largest producer and consumer of tobacco, began in the 1980s with the first national prevalence survey and a conference on tobacco held in Tianjin. Since then, there have been dozens of research papers, partial restrictions on smoking and tobacco advertising, public education campaigns, and the ratification of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, but progress has been slow. The state-owned tobacco industry remains a major obstacle to tobacco control. Recent developments: In the last few years, tobacco control efforts have accelerated beyond expectations. The triggering event was the publication on tobacco by the Chinese Central Party School, the ideological think tank of the Communist Party, followed by a spate of activity: directives to government officials; regulations issued by the Ministry of Education, the People's Liberation Army and the Healthy City Standards; tobacco clauses in national advertising and philanthropy laws; the creation of a Smoke-free Beijing; an increase in tobacco taxation; and a national smoke-free law currently in draft. Areas timely for policy research and action: There is a crucial need for China to build upon these recent developments, in accepting the economic research evidence of the debit of tobacco to the economy; in implementing robust, comprehensive legislation; in increasing cigarette price through taxation and, most challenging of all, to tackle the power and influence of the state tobacco monopoly over tobacco control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background With the rapid development of the global economy and the acceleration of urbanization, air pollution has become a major environmental problem threatening human health. There is limited evidence on the acute effects of air pollution on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Methods From 2014 to 2019, we collected data on daily admissions for COPD patients from a city in China. We used the generalized additive model together with distributed lag models to fit the associations of air pollutants with hospital admissions. Results We observed significant increments in the number of daily admissions (0.086–0.109%) for COPD for a unit range increase in air quality index, PM 2.5 and PM 10 over four lag days. The impact of air pollution on the number of daily admissions was mainly reflected in the COPD patients who were hospitalized through outpatient departments and tertiary hospitals. Discussion Short-term exposure to outdoor air pollution may induce the occurrence or exacerbation of COPD patients; therefore, government departments should strengthen the management of air pollution, improve supervision and control mechanisms, pay attention to the quality of medical services, and reduce the adverse effects of air pollution on patients' health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's three-decade infrastructure investment boom shows few signs of abating. Is China's economic growth a consequence of its purposeful investment? Is China a prodigy in delivering infrastructure from which rich democracies could learn? The prevalent view in economics literature and policies derived from it is that a high level of infrastructure investment is a precursor to economic growth. China is especially held up as a model to emulate. Politicians in rich democracies display awe and envy of the scale of infrastructure Chinese leaders are able to build. Based on the largest dataset of its kind, this paper punctures the twin myths that (i) infrastructure creates economic value, and that (ii) China has a distinct advantage in its delivery. Far from being an engine of economic growth, the typical infrastructure investment fails to deliver a positive risk-adjusted return. Moreover, China's track record in delivering infrastructure is no better than that of rich democracies. Investing in unproductive projects results initially in a boom, as long as construction is ongoing, followed by a bust, when forecasted benefits fail to materialize and projects therefore become a drag on the economy. Where investments are debt-financed, overinvesting in unproductive projects results in the build-up of debt, monetary expansion, instability in financial markets, and economic fragility, exactly as we see in China today. We conclude that poorly managed infrastructure investments are a main explanation of surfacing economic and financial problems in China. We predict that, unless China shifts to a lower level of higher-quality infrastructure investments, the country is headed for an infrastructure- led national financial and economic crisis, which is likely also to be a crisis for the international economy. China's infrastructure investment model is not one to follow for other countries but one to avoid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the illegal networks in tiger parts trading from the demand (client's) and the supply (criminal's) perspective by drawing on fieldwork interview data collected from seven tiger parts trading network across three Chinese cities--Lhasa, Xining and Kunming, in 2011. The networks in the three cities were all centralized and independent of each other. Such structure derives from the low risk of arrest and is best suited to deal with the limited number of tiger part products. None of the traders involved were full time, professional tiger parts products traders and should be classified as opportunistic criminals. This article contributes to a broader understanding of criminal networks and to the development of green criminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China the use of public procurement as an innovation policy instrument has been closely associated with the drive to promote indigenous innovation. Implementation was largely through the use of catalogues intended to signal and to formally accredit the supply and demand of technologically-oriented products. This paper reviews these experiences by examining the wider context and three case studies. Accreditation is shown to carry a risk of protectionism. Signaling performs a function analogous to a technology roadmap and was assisted by giving listed technologies priority for public procurement. For both types of instrument the intended mechanism did not work as planned but the broader role they sought to fill was an important factor in bringing innovations to market. The appropriateness and effectiveness of such instruments are shown to be dependent upon the state of both the innovation and the procurement systems in which they are set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last century and a half, global technological leadership has shifted from Great Britain to the USA. In this paper we argue that China is positioning itself to assume global leadership in technology within the coming few decades. We identify three sources of competitive advantage for China's ascent in the global technology stakes: its massive domestic market, its centralized power and willingness to employ state-sponsored industrial policy and government support, and the process of globalization that continues to transform markets worldwide. After acknowledging skep- tical views of China's capacity to achieve global technology leadership, we survey the present state of affairs and assess its prospects for growth based on statistical evidence and multiple examples. We argue that the three sources of competitive advantage we explicate offer China a path to imminent global technological leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese universities have undergone a massive transformation in recent decades. In addition to a dramatic increase in the number of universities and students, universities have shifted from primarily providing education to emphasizing research. Omnipresent political control is to be replaced by stronger academic self-organization. The result so far is a growing stratification of Chinese universities, with a few select research universities receiving the bulk of government research funding and a large number of universities with very little public funding for research which focus primarily on education. The rapidly changing landscape, with growing numbers but also increasing stratification and with conflicting relations between political control and selforganization, has given rise to tensions within universities and within the higher education system. In this paper, we identify these tensions and discuss their implications for China's quest to establish world-class universities and to achieve the transition to an innovationoriented nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the theory and concepts of health promotion, this paper proposes a logic model for HIV/AIDS prevention and control which provides a structure for describing planned actions and predicted impacts/outcomes from comprehensive HIV prevention interventions. The potential usefulness of the model is examined by reviewing the evolution of HIV prevention and management in China, drawing on evidence from interventions reported from a mixture of study designs and formats. It reports that HIV interventions in China can be considered in two distinctive phases, before and after 2003 when China commenced its 'official' response to the HIV epidemic. The logic model was useful in comparing actions taken over these two periods highlighting the importance of political leadership in distinguishing between the two phases, and the continuing importance of systematic and broadly based public education and communication. We conclude that the logic model can not only be used as a planning model, but can also be applied retrospectively to assess successes and failures in national and local responses to HIV in complex social settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand the roles universities play in regional innovation systems in China. Specifically, it examines how Chinese practice concerning the engagement of the universities with society for promoting regional innovation systems differs from Western practices from the perspective of the Triple Helix. It focuses on China’s leading metropolis, Shanghai, and takes as a case study the Tongji Creative Cluster which, unlike most other clusters in China, is based on knowledge-intensive services rather than high-tech manufacturing. We find that although it is commonly assumed that the statist Triple Helix model characterises the development of the innovation system in China, the practices of the Tongji Creative Cluster take a different approach, combining both bottom-up initiatives in the initial stage and top-down coordination in later developments. We argue that this model is more useful for China’s regional innovation systems as it can overcome many challenges in the statist model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the characteristics of burns caused by moxibustion. A retrospective survey of the medical records of patients was performed on patients who visited our center from January 2009 to January 2017, treating for burns caused by moxibustion. Data were extracted and evaluated, including demographics, site and extent of burns, type and treatment duration of moxibustion, practitioners, and cost. A total of 82 consecutive patients treated for moxibustion-induced burns were included. The average patient age was 42.4 years, with the male to female ratio of 1.2:1. Burns caused by direct and indirect moxibustion were 7 and 75 cases, respectively. Averagely, moxibustion was performed 3.6 times a week for 3.7 weeks and lasts for 16.2 minutes each treatment. The average distance for indirect moxibustion was 3.4 cm (ranged from 2 to 5 cm) away from the acupoints. First-degree and superficial partial thickness burns, deep partial thickness burns, and full thickness burns were present in 16, 59, and 7 cases, respectively. Most of the burns were minor burns, with diameter less than 2 cm (69 cases). The most common sites were the lower extremities (46 cases), followed by abdomen (29 cases) and upper extremities (5 cases). The average cost for inpatients and outpatients was 5 164 and 2 192 RMB, respectively. Majority of moxibustion-induced burns are minor burns, and there is a high probability of the burn being deep if it occurs in the lower extremities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context collapse occurs on social media platforms when different groups are mixed into one audience. To advance the understanding of the extensive and complex coping strategies people use to address context collapse, this study makes a conceptual distinction between passively adapting by sharing context-free, general information (context adaptation) and rebuilding contexts to satisfy the diverse needs of impression management (context restoration). This study in-depth interviewed 51 WeChat users (30 working professionals and 21 college students) in urban China. The results identified strategies for context restoration through reconstructing contextual boundaries on psychological, relational, spatial, and temporal dimensions. These findings highlight individual (effort minimization, self-consciousness, and privacy concerns) and audience factors (the heterogeneity and activeness of the audience) in determining the adoption of specific strategies. This study emphasizes the subjectivity and agency of users in relation to the social media ecosystem and develops a theoretical spectrum systematically situating users' coping behaviors for mitigating context collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Recently, China initiated an ambitious healthcare reform aiming to provide affordable and equitable basic health care to all by 2020. To meet these goals, new policies issued by China’s Ministry of Health mandate clinical pharmacy services be integrated into China’s hospitals. This review aims to highlight the impact of clinical pharmacy services on the quality use of medicines in hospitals in China.Methods Both English and Chinese databases were used. For the English databases, Web of Science, Medline, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts and Embase were searched using the following keywords (‘pharmacists’ OR ‘pharmacy’ OR ‘pharmaceutical services/pharmaceutical care’) AND (‘China’). For the Chinese database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database on disc was searched using the following keywords (‘clinical pharmacist’ OR ‘clinical pharmacy’ OR ‘pharmaceutical care’ OR ‘pharmaceutical services’). Articles were then retrieved from WanFang database and China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database.Results A total of 75 published papers were included in this review. The majority of studies were conducted in the inpatient setting (68%), which included clinical pharmacy interventions such as educating doctors and patients, evaluating and monitoring the implementation of hospital policies and/or reviewing medications on the ward. In the outpatient setting, the majority of studies conducted involved educating patients. Clinical pharmacy services frequently focused on antimicrobials (44%). More than half of these studies employed an administrative intervention alongside the clinical pharmacy service.Conclusion Clinical pharmacy services in China, with its unique healthcare system and cultural nuances, appear to positively influence patient care and the appropriate use of medications. From the published literature, it is expected that clinical pharmacy services can make a strong contribution to China’s healthcare reform with further governmental and educational support. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since Xi Jinping's ascension to power, China's foreign policy behaviour—including in the maritime domain—has become increasingly assertive. While a number of systemic, domestic and individual-level factors have contributed to China's more muscular approach, adequately understanding the dramatic intensification of its assertiveness under Xi requires a careful examination of the foreign policy implications of his strongman rule. This article contributes to such studies by examining how Xi's efforts to consolidate power, particularly through nationalistic appeals and an anti-corruption campaign, have mobilized China's foreign policy actors. I argue that the political environment that Xi has fostered shapes the career incentives of individual actors, motivating them to demonstrate their loyalty through displays of assertiveness. Drawing on a case-study of China's maritime actors, with a focus on their behaviour in the South China Sea, I show how Xi's consolidation of power has elevated the stakes of zealously showcasing support for his call to 'resolutely safeguard' China's sovereignty claims. I find that Xi's emphasis on demonstrations of loyalty often comes at the cost of other interests, such as reassuring potential rivals, suggesting that the current political environment risks pushing foreign policy in an even more assertive direction than perhaps intended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored sensor-based e-government practices in eight pilot "Future Communities" in Zhejiang Province, China. Adopting the approach of "e-government in everyday practice," it examines how grid members at the grassroots level make sense of smart sensors and their mediated governance through the parameters of passive response, collaborative human and nonhuman networks, and calculability. In an emerging sensing environment, grid members are exposed to contradictory governance regimes, experimenting with and performing competing sets of discourses and actions that are either efficient or inefficient, manual or automatic, and progressive or regressive. Neither facilitated nor emptied by sensor-enabled Weberian functions, they actively improvise along with the dynamism of specific local interactions and situations. However, currently sensors and attendant technologies merely leave space for them to engage in ambiguities and negotiations concerning the extent and boundaries of technical solutionism rather than opening up possibilities for empowerment to refine the forms of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broussonetia papyrifera is an important native tree species in China with strong adaptability, wide distribution and economic importance. Climate change is considered as the main threat to ecological processes and global biodiversity. Predicting the potential geographical distribution of B. papyrifera in future climate change scenarios will provide a scientific basis for ecological restoration in China. Principal component analysis and Pearson correlation analysis were conducted to select the environmental variables. The distribution and changes in the potential suitable area for B. papyrifera were predicted using the maximum entropy model and the CIMP6 dataset from 2041 to 2060. The current highly suitable areas for B. papyrifera were mainly located in Guangdong (5.60 × 104 km2), Guangxi (4.39 × 104 km2), Taiwan (2.54 × 104 km2) and Hainan (2.17 × 104 km2). The mean temperature of the coldest quarter (11.54–27.11 °C), precipitation of the driest quarter (51.48–818.40 mm) and precipitation of the wettest quarter (665.51–2302.60 mm) were the main factors limiting the suitable areas for B. papyrifera. The multi-modal average of the highly and the total suitable areas for B. papyrifera were 111.42 × 104 and 349.11 × 104 km2 in the SSP5-8.5 scenario, while those in the SSP1-2.6 scenario were 87.50 × 104 and 328.29 × 104 km2, respectively. The gained suitable areas for B. papyrifera will expand to the western and northern China in the future scenarios. The multi-model averaging results showed that the potential available planting area was 212.66 × 104 and 229.32 × 104 km2 in the SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, respectively, when the suitable area within the farmland range was excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been one of the popular strategies for health promotion. Traditional East Asian medicine (TEAM) is one of the most popular CAM practices in the world and there are suggestions that its holistic utilization is important for users to gain its effects for health promotion. In this context, this study investigates the extent to which TEAM users in East Asian countries utilize various modalities of TEAM holistically. It provides a model that explains cross-national differences in the extent of the holistic use of TEAM between China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Using the 2010 East Asian Social Survey, regression models specify the relationship between the holistic use of TEAM and the geographical location (country). The presence of TEAM doctors who hold the comprehensive and exclusive practice rights over TEAM is found to be conducive to the holistic utilization of various TEAM modalities. Thus, Taiwanese and Koreans use TEAM more holistically than Chinese and even more so than Japanese. The result suggests that the manner in which TEAM is institutionalized affect the extent to which TEAM users utilize various TEAM modalities together and potentially the health promotion effects of TEAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has long suffered from a critical shortage of qualified social workers. To compensate for the inadequacy of formally educated social workers, a number of workers employed in the community neighbourhood committee were granted a social work licence and became registered social workers when they passed licence examinations regardless of whether they had a social work degree. Nevertheless, they are often criticised for a lack of professional competence—they are just registered social workers rather than professional social workers. This study identifies whether licenced community workers have a higher level of professional competence than non-licenced community workers in urban China. Based on a sample of 4,013 participants and the extended regression model, the findings show that the licence promotes the professional competence of community workers, but such promotion is achieved through professional knowledge acquisition rather than professional skills acquisition. Licenced community workers probably perceive stronger professional competence through professional knowledge acquisition, but their professional skills might be inadequate. The findings suggest several implications for the social work licence system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rising level of automation has increasingly attracted scholars' attention. On the other hand, there are many studies of the consequences of social movements, but relatively fewer studies focus on their economic consequences, and even fewer studies have examined their consequences on automation. This article bridges the gap between the two literatures by hypothesizing that a rising number of labor protests will lead to a higher level of automation. We argue that political economy factors influence the adoption of more automation. Protests anticipate higher wages and labor costs; contest for social power with employers and the state, and, in extreme cases, pose a public relations challenge to employers, which will likely push employers to replace human workers with robots. We empirically test the relationship by using two protest event datasets in China, the China Labor Bulletin and Collective Action from Social Media and robot data from the International Federation of Robotics. Statistical analysis shows that provinces and industries that have more protests also tend to concentrate more robots, and the results are robust to most specifications and placebo tests. The findings have implications for both understanding the mechanism explaining rising automation and the consequences of social protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we make sense of China's perceptions of and relationship with the liberal international order (LIO)? The majority of notable works on this topic have been written by foreign scholars who emphasize China's discontent with, or challenges it poses to, the LIO, while Chinese scholars have either focused solely on academic debates or attempted to interpret official foreign policies. This article aims to provide a balanced analysis of China's view of order by examining theoretical thought and policy practices from a Chinese perspective, drawing insights from both Chinese academic writings and government statements. We argue that there exists a perceptual difference between China and the West in understanding the postwar international order, with China emphasizing the functional part of the order and the West regarding it as based on its preferred ideological values. This perceptual difference has caused international suspicion about China's potential intentions to overthrow the LIO. In practice, China's approach has remained pragmatic, interacting dynamically with different subcomponents of the LIO. Although China's recent interactions with the LIO appear more ambitious, internal and external constraints, insufficient capacity, and lack of universally appealing values are preventing the birth of a Chinese version of international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has become the world's largest bilateral creditor to low- and middle-income countries, and yet its participation in collective debt-relief frameworks led by western multilateral institutions—the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Paris Club—has not met those institutions' expectations. Prevailing discussion perceives China's 'reserved' participation as free-riding on or contesting the international sovereign debt regime. This article advances ongoing discussion by drawing a historical parallel between China's current debt-relief approach and that of the United States and the multilateral institutions during and after the debt crisis of the 1980s. The article finds that towards the end of the 1980s, the US transitioned from practicing a new money approach—continued financing for existing projects—to a haircut approach—increasingly writing off debts. Around the same time, multilateral institutions started to become more acceptive of debt forgiveness. Yet China's policy banks, the main financiers of its overseas projects, have been primarily practising a commercially oriented, new money approach. China's rise has therefore revitalized an approach that western private banks once commonly practised and weakened the current international sovereign debt regime that took shape in the post-1980s decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an examination of the extent to which traditional medical knowledge in China can be protected by intellectual property laws. The analysis begins by providing a global picture with regard to the historic origin of intellectual property, exploring the reasons why China does not have indigenous counterparts to the western system of intellectual property rights protecting its traditional knowledge (including traditional medical knowledge) and stating the problems of transplanting western intellectual property standards in China. A discussion follows on how China, under foreign pressure, has made efforts to comply with the changing standards mandated by various international, regional, and bilateral arrangements related to intellectual property, with examples of the development of China's patent law. China's approach towards the protection of traditional medical knowledge in various international fora related to intellectual property is explored. Finally, there is a specific examination of the compatibilities between the western system of intellectual property rights and traditional medical knowledge in China, at the national and community levels. This article argues that the system of intellectual property rights does not easily fit with China's traditional medical knowledge because of China's unique cultural traits, distinctive historical context and wide ethnic, religious, and local community diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing artificial intelligence (AI) technology requires data. In many domains, government data far exceed in magnitude and scope data collected by the private sector, and AI firms often gain access to such data when providing services to the state. We argue that such access can stimulate commercial AI innovation in part because data and trained algorithms are shareable across government and commercial uses. We gather comprehensive information on firms and public security procurement contracts in China's facial recognition AI industry. We quantify the data accessible through contracts by measuring public security agencies' capacity to collect surveillance video. Using a triple-differences strategy, we find that data-rich contracts, compared to data-scarce ones, lead recipient firms to develop significantly and substantially more commercial AI software. Our analysis suggests a contribution of government data to the rise of China's facial recognition AI firms, and that states' data collection and provision policies could shape AI innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]