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Since the 1970s, a continuous exchange of information about conservation between Europe and East Asia has greatly influenced approaches to the treatment of paper objects as well as the tools and materials used. This knowledge is often disseminated and absorbed in a purely practical manner, stripped out of its wider cultural context. However, what is considered 'appropriate' treatment is closely linked to how a particular culture has historically interacted with artworks and arguably the lack of broader cultural perspectives can lead to misguided assumptions in the evaluation of those practices. This article reflects on the differences between European and East Asian cultures of paper conservation. By taking into consideration the relevant cultural, philosophical and historical contexts, the article aims to explore how approaches to conservation, as well as to the profession itself, have developed in these two different parts of the world. It further encourages paper conservators to reflect on their own training and practices while offering an understanding of how these approaches can sometimes be mutually exclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a case study of how the Renminbi won the currency war in Shanghai between 1949 and 1950. This case study supports the proposition of chartalism and MMT that money is a creature of the state, and in two ways deepens our understanding of the role of the state in the sovereign currency system. First, taxation is not the only way to drive money. The Shanghai government also drove money by supplying goods. Second, the outcome of a currency war depends on many historical factors, and the government plays an important role by changing the conventions that shape people's monetary behavior. The Shanghai government adopted anti-inflation policies to transform the conventions of valuing commodities and metallic currencies over paper currencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the results of published research into China's urban planning history since 2011. A total of 1,057 articles were selected, including 198 theses, 465 journal papers, and 394 conference papers. It provides quantitative statistics and analysis of the literature, using CiteSpace to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the data. Based on quantitative analysis and supported by the literature, this paper qualitatively concludes and summarizes the research hotspots and evolution of Chinese urban planning history from five dimensions: planning practice, system construction, thought and theory, figures, and discipline. The achievements delve into the exploration of motivations and mechanisms, planning ideology, methodology, practice subjects, and preparation process based on a staged review of the historical process of practice and a summary of its characteristics, which shows a process from partial to holistic and fragmented to systematic in general terms, contributing to the formation of a complete planning history research system. A comprehensive analysis of quantitative statistics, knowledge mapping of literature, and important research content reveals the characteristics of research into the history of Chinese urban planning over the past decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A logistics network structure plays a significant role in enhancing comprehensive logistics services and achieving high-quality development. However, few studies have summarised the application research on China's logistics network structure. Thus, this study conducted a literature review to summarise such research. Data from 2009 to 2021 were collected from 60 papers from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and 13 from Scopus. This study analyzed the literature using descriptive analysis and research states based on the research questions. The descriptive analysis revealed information such as documents, trends, subject areas, and keywords for Chinese and foreign papers using VOSviewer and Gephi software. The research flow revealed the research object, method, and results using ArcGIS visualisation, research features, and perspectives. Finally, this study proposes contributions to practice and theory in three ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Chinese authorities have installed visa restrictions and strict quarantine rules to prevent foreigners from spreading new infections to the country. This has disrupted a trend of increasing European Union (EU)-China travel and socio-economic exchanges. EU citizens living in or travelling to China have had to deal with the consequences of Beijing's so-called Zero-Covid strategy. In view of quasi-closed borders, many Europeans have given up on living in or travelling to China. Those who have stayed have come up with strategies of adaptation, while European-owned firms have reacted by adopting initiatives such as doing business online or localising staff. Overall, the Chinese visa restrictions have added a new dimension to the debate on asymmetries in EU-China relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the past decade, there has been a surge in auditing research that exploits Chinese data, much of which is published in top tier journals. China has been an attractive setting for auditing research due to the highly granular nature of the available data on public audits and the unique features of Chinese institutions. These advantages have allowed researchers to use Chinese data to study important auditing questions that US data is unable to address. But the popularity of Chinese data among researchers means that most of the obvious questions that lend themselves to the use of Chinese data are likely to be exhausted. In addition, newly mandated disclosures in the US and Europe are quickly making Chinese data much less unique than it used to be. Now that the "low hanging fruit" is gone, researchers who plan to use Chinese data will have to be more creative. This paper suggests some strategies, going forward, that are designed to further exploit the richness of Chinese data to address important questions in the auditing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) has become increasingly popular among policymakers because of its potential to drive economic growth. In many countries, the promotion of EE has been linked with innovation policy but little research has been done to examine whether such policy can facilitate EE's development. Using the case study method to examine the growth of China's unicorns, which are productive entrepreneurial outputs of EE, this paper investigates the process of EE's emergence and development, and the role of government policies, including innovation policy, in promoting EE's growth. The paper advances three policy implications derived from the case study; first, the important role of government policies in creating institutional contexts; second, developing informal institutions, and third, implementing a systemic intervention, to promote EE's emergence and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to assess the non-linearities between the ESG activities and firm performance in case of an emerging market. China is identified as a case study for the present examination. Even though this research objective has been explored by past researcher, the evidence presented in literature is not conclusive. The paper hypothesizes that such conflicting or inconclusive results can potentially be attributed to wrong modeling, datasets that include both developing and the developed markets, and the prevalent endogeneity issue in corporate governance literature. For the purpose of this paper, the author uses the dynamic panel approach of First difference and the System Generalized Method of Moments. The findings from the analysis of 232 Chinese listed firm show a positive association between ESG activities and the firm performance. However, the relationship is nonlinear. In other words, the relationship between ESG activities and the firm performance is inverted U-shaped. This indicates the relationship is positive up to a certain threshold and once the ESG activities cross that threshold it start to have negative effect. The key insight from this research is that the firm has to find their threshold of ESG activities to gain maximum benefits from such activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2021 the Chinese Government unexpectedly released what has become known colloquially as the 'Double-Reduction' policy. The policy decreed the reduction of homework pressure on students and greater control of private tutorial companies. In this paper, we set out to understand why the Chinese central government launched the 'Double-Reduction' policy in mid−2021 by using narratives to analyse the three most circulated explanations for the policy and its timing. We use data from a range of formal and informal policy texts. The three narratives, including one policy narrative dominant in the official discourse and two alternative ones, constructed the causal stories about the policy's rationale from multiple perspectives. The combination of multiple perspectives and a narrative approach helps reveal the policy event's complexity and lays a foundation for researchers interested in tracking the development trajectory of this new policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aim to document and analyze the long arc of connectivity between China and Latin America. First, using analytical international trade and economic tools, we provide a new economic perspective of the First Globalization–-the Ming and early Qing China's economic and business links with Latin America and Europe. Second, due to U.S. government trade policies toward China in the 1990s, the Second China's Globalization was ushered in with its entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO). During this second phase, China exchanged manufactured goods with minerals and resources from Latin America. Finally, the tough technology and trade stance by the Trump and Biden Administrations prompted China to intensify the third phase of China interaction with Latin America. For the 2020s and beyond, one important pillar of the Third China-Latin America-Europe Globalization is heightened efforts for China to increase its digital-AI, telecommunication and platform business presence and access into the Latin American markets. To enrich our analysis, we will provide Chinese-style digital-AI business and economic models to help illustrate our discussions. Throughout our paper, we want to point out that government policies were instrumental in bringing forth these Three Globalizations that involve China-Latin America-Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer attention is a significant feature in the horizontal cross-loading of EU countries when there are many uncertainties in the decision-making. Taking the case of the 28-EU countries' interactive media attention during China's second Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum in April 2019, this paper explores the two questions of who pays attention to whose action to the BRI, and what are the determinants of the peer attentions? The measurements from the network analysis identify the positions and roles of EU countries in the attention network. The gravity model further examines the determinants on different levels of peer attention flows. The findings suggest that the peer attention network the EU countries formulate is a core-periphery structure where big powers and forerunners construct the core and connect other big power and peripheral countries from the nearby to the far-reaching. Substantively, this paper contributes to the literature on the horizontal interaction of countries in response to China's engagement. Methodologically, the network analysis is an innovative method to study how a country receives the influence imposed by a single country, by a cluster of countries and the peer attention network as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is aimed at exploring whether high housing prices constitute a boon or a bane for entrepreneurship in Chinese cities. Drawing upon a panel dataset for Chinese cities at the prefectural level and above for the period 2003 to 2016, this paper identifies an inverted U-shape pattern of association between housing price and urban entrepreneurship. It also finds significant inter-city housing price spillovers in first-tier urban agglomerations in which a housing price surge in first-tier cities has an inverted U-shape relationship with entrepreneurship in surrounding cities. The empirical results of this study act as a reminder to Chinese policy makers to adopt a cautious and balanced attitude towards the development of the real estate market and have important policy implications for the planning and governance of mega urban agglomerations in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we reexamine the literature on money demand in China published both in English and Chinese language. Over the past 30 years, there has been a regular stream of papers assessing the Chinese money demand function. The literature mostly focuses on income elasticity, stability, and, especially important for China, the adequate choice and quality of data. In particular, regarding the stability of money demand, we find a substantial publication bias towards rejecting stability. When controlling for publication bias and focusing on longer time periods, our paper strongly suggests a stable long-run money demand in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanizing villages are erstwhile rural villages that are spatially enveloped and are characterized by their dual relation to the state, which expresses itself as an issue of citizenship; of land ownership; of governance; and building regulations. This paper transcends the current focus on villages in Southern China, by comparing village urbanization between China and India through four narratives of village extensions. Four parallel readings are offered, namely that urban villages are characterized by; shared tenure rooted in their rural past; inherited administrative boundaries that are re-imbued with new legal designations; emulation of traditional practices; and sustained modes of self-governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the concept of the Plantationocene through an analysis of sugarcane plantations in Guangxi province, China. It argues that although these plantations are owned and operated by local villagers, they are de facto controlled by corporations, and subject to state intervention through a 'zoning scheme'. They are constructed and operated according to the same logic as other plantations all over the world, namely, the logic of extraction based on cheap land and labor. By demonstrating that plantations are not necessarily large-scale and do not always entail the alienation of land and labor, this paper hopes to empirically broaden the concept of the Plantationocene and to highlight the extractive nature of and the power relations around plantations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient Chinese civilisation developed two ideas about the ordering of large human spaces. The first was tianxia or 'all under heaven', the inclusive and cosmopolitan world as a whole, with no exterior, and governance on the basis of shared values and benefits, which first shaped statecraft in the Western Zhou dynasty (1047–1771 BCE). Second, the centralised nation-state which emerged in the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Both strands have been influential through Chinese history. In the last twenty years discussion of tianxia has revived, especially through Zhao Tingyang, stimulated by globalisation and the need for practical relations beyond the nation state. This paper proposes one version of tianxia as a heuristic for understanding, rethinking and remaking ethical relations in worldwide higher education. It reviews different understandings of tianxia in China, identifies a world-centred (rather than China-centred) tianxia , and discusses the potentials of tianxia in higher education. Tianxia is appropriate to world higher education because of its spatiality and its ethical commitment to universal benefit in diverse settings on the basis of mutual respect. The article suggests four clusters of relational values that could constitute a tianxia order in higher education, and compares tianxia to existing practices of globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy innovation is critical to improve governance capacity; however, contemporary research mainly focuses on diffusion and adoption, disregarding the next stage, namely institutionalization. Taking the diffusion and institutionalization of China's "One Visit at Most" reform as a case study and using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, this paper examines the conditions and paths that lead local governments to institutionalize this reform. The results show that four paths lead from innovation to institutionalization: policy system and idea embeddedness, spontaneous competition, learning by seizing momentum, and entrepreneurial breakthrough. These findings extend the research on policy adoption, diffusion, and institutionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, Chinese FDI has become an integral investment source for African countries and has, therefore, engendered studies seeking to understand the determinants of these flows. In a quest to identify the factors that stimulate these flows, this paper assesses whether the ease of starting a business induces Chinese FDI flow to Africa. The analysis is based on panel data for 46 African countries between 2004 and 2018. The results from fixed-effects estimations suggest that Chinese FDI is attracted by the ease of starting a business in African economies. This finding also holds for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and is robust across all estimations. The results also provide corroborating evidence that identifies Chinese FDI as market and resource-seeking, attracted to large markets and economies with abundant natural resources. The findings suggest that improving business regulations could be a stimulant for Chinese FDI flow to Africa. In evaluating the nexus between Chinese FDI and business start-ups, this paper provides new evidence to complement the dated studies on this theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, 285 Chinese core journal papers involving early childhood sports in the CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) database from 1993 to 2022 were selected as samples. Text mining and data statistical analysis tools, such as BICOMB2.0, SPSS22.0, UCINET6.0, EXCEL2016, and other research methods in bibliometrics, such as word frequency analysis, co word clustering analysis, multidimensional scale analysis, and strategic coordinate map analysis, were used to explore the status and evolutionary trends of early childhood sports in China. The results are as follows: Since 2011, the annual number of documents has indicated a wave-like increasing trend every year, reaching its peak in 2020. In total, 237 institutions participated in this study. The journal distribution of papers in this field was close to the 1:4:16 ratio of Bradford's law. A relatively stable periodic group was formed. 12 cluster themes have been formed in the field of children's sports in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of structural distortions on resource allocation among industries, regions (provinces), and ownerships in China, using data from 2003 to 2019. This paper innovatively develops an empirical model to measure multi-dimensional structural distortions and assesses the resource misallocation degrees regarding industries, regions, and ownerships. The results indicate that China's most serious resource misallocation is related to industries, followed by regions and ownerships, and the most severe capital misallocation is associated with ownership, and labor misallocation exists in industries. The present study contributes to the literature by creating an innovative two-layer empirical model to address the limitations of Hsieh and Klenow's model. The findings have identified which group (industry, region, and ownership) is excessive or insufficient in resource usage, and the results have profound policy and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative activities are increasingly decentralized and globally dispersed, which provides new upgrading opportunities for emerging market firms. However, little is known about how latecomer firms (re-)organize their research and development (R&D) over time as conditions for upgrading change. This paper systematically maps the R&D networks of China's lead firms in the wind turbine industry. The empirical findings reveal that latecomer firms not only exploit but increasingly co-create vanguard knowledge in global R&D networks through organizational diversification. Taking an evolutionary perspective, the paper extends our understanding of the changing nature of upgrading mechanisms and provides new insights into the reorganization of innovation processes in an era of technological change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the impact of exchange rate changes on the trade balance of China and its major trading partners. In the past, many studies have been focussed on the linear effect of exchange rate change, but in this paper, a non-linear Autoregressive Distribution Lag (NARDL) model is proposed. Empirical results show that there are nonlinear and asymmetric effects on the trade balance of exchange rate. In particular, the effect of exchange rate appreciation on Sino-US trade balance is more significant than that of depreciation. A genuine devaluation of the domestic currency would improve the balance of the domestic trade. However, the opposite effect is found in the case of Sino-Japan and the Euro, and the depreciation of the currency will make the trade balance worse. These results provide a solid basis for understanding the relation of exchange rate variation and trade balance. In terms of economic reality, it is also a useful reference for adjusting exchange rate and commercial policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the importance of non-state actors in international relations is now widely acknowledged, formal state-to-state ties remain an essential measure of a state's strength in the international community. When traditional components of sovereignty are eroded, what options remain open to states seeking to forestall international isolation? Drawing on a case study of Taiwan, this paper explores the potential and the pitfalls of using paradiplomacy as a substitute for traditional diplomacy. I argue that Taiwan uses paradiplomacy for three primary purposes: as a 'hedge' against weakness in the central-level US-Taiwan relationship; as a tool for developing long-term relationships with rising political stars; and as a performative strategy for asserting Taiwan's statehood by showing others that it acts like a state. While paradiplomacy enables Taiwan to strengthen ties to US policymakers, these efforts have become increasingly complicated as mainland Chinese influence on local US politics increases. This paper thus sheds light on paradiplomacy in the US-Taiwan relationship, but also on the ways in which American federalism can complicate US foreign policy toward East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores a case of public contention against the censoring of a feature article about a COVID-19 whistleblower on the Chinese social media, WeChat. Moving beyond the normative theory of the public sphere and publics, we draw on Kavada and Poell's theory of 'contentious publicness' which is flexible enough to capture the complexity, diversity and hybridity of digital contention in the context of China. Through a combination of textual analysis and participatory observation, this article analyses how citizens challenged the censorship system and attempted to keep Dr Fen's story online through what we call 'relay activism'. Informed by the three dimensions of 'contentious publicness', we analyse the materiality of the communication infrastructure of WeChat and the temporal and spatial relations of the public contention (focusing primarily on WeChat and GitHub). In doing this, the paper contributes a more comprehensive approach to examining the social, structural and participatory characteristics of the contestation of censorship in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analyzing Douyin users' mediated interactions with interracial couples in everyday contexts, this paper addresses the convergence of anti-blackness and domestic gender tension on Chinese social media. It introduces the perspective of 'multiple triangulations' to examine discussions of four types of interracial relationships on Douyin: black women and Chinese men, black men and Chinese women, white women and Chinese men, and white men and Chinese women. This approach complicates explanations of why Chinese social media users have been rejecting blackness in a potentially mixed-race China in relation to whiteness and Chineseness. It also illuminates how they have encoded gender tension in marriages in China into anti-black discourses. Additionally, this research highlights the race-blind digital infrastructure and the dynamic connotations of anti-black racism in contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational reform in China has brought about many Western educational approaches for teachers to consider as part of their pedagogy. An example of this is the theory of multiple intelligences (MI theory). This paper presents how a theory grounded in a Western context is locally reconceptualised by kindergarten teachers who grew up in a different context. A qualitative case study was selected to investigate seven kindergarten teachers' understandings of MI theory in China. Three methods were employed to gather data; semi-structured interviews, field observations and documentation. Evidence from the three sources were analysed using a thematic approach. This paper reports contextual factors that had an influence on the teachers' understandings of MI theory and thus its implementation, and argues that the introduction of new educational theories or approaches should be grounded in the local context in which the teaching will be embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ambitious, contentious, and world-spanning project. Using Chinese Communist Party (CCP) documents, this paper examines one of the stated purposes of the BRI: to address regional inequality between China's east and west, focusing upon Xinjiang. Through an analysis of regional economic data, the demographics of Xinjiang and Xinjiang governing bodies, and a case study of the Chinese steel industry, this paper shows that the BRI has so far failed to check increasing regional inequality in China and that job opportunities for local communities in Xinjiang are constrained by social and political factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media greatly facilitates people's access to information; however, it can also lead to information overload and exposure to uncomfortable content that may cause individuals to avoid it. As a result, two types of influencing mechanisms emerge: information exposure and information avoidance, which may impact users' behaviors. Currently, there is limited understanding of the simultaneous effects of social media information exposure and avoidance on individuals' behavioral intentions towards climate change mitigation. Using survey data for 1056 Chinese Gen-Z undergraduates and based on the extended theory of planned behavior, this paper utilizes a partial least squares structural equation model to examine the effects of social media information exposure and information avoidance on individual low-carbon behavioral intention. The results show that information exposure on social media has a positive relationship with behavioral attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, and then increasing the low-carbon behavioral intention. Information avoidance has a negative association with three factors, respectively, and decreases the low-carbon behavioral intention. Additionally, exposure to social media information has the greatest impact on the subjective norm and the least impact on behavioral attitude; information avoidance has the greatest impact on behavioral attitude, whereas perceived behavioral control is the least affected. Drawing from the results, we propose policy recommendations that facilitate information exposure while addressing avoidance in shaping low-carbon behavioral intentions. Those implications would help reconcile the two opposing effects while promoting public engagement in climate activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Area Development & Policy is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

China's government has launched the innovative city pilot (ICP) policy since 2008 and taken green development as the principle goal of innovative city construction. However, whether or not the ICP policy shapes green development remains largely unknown. Leveraging variation in the timing of the ICP policy implementation across cities, we investigate the causal impact of innovative city construction on green development, as measured by green total-factor productivity (GTFP). Our staggered difference-in-differences (DID) estimator shows that cities which implement the ICP policy experience a 5.3% increase in GTFP. This effect appears one year after the introduction of ICP policy and shows an upward trend over time. Our mechanism analysis further confirms that the ICP policy effect is driven by green innovation effect, which is realized through the support of innovation policy and increased investment in innovation. Finally, substantial heterogeneity is explained by geographic location, environmental constraint, resource endowment, city size and different levels of innovation. Our paper underscores the pivotal role of innovative cities in promoting green development, which warrants nationwide expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has called for firms to prioritize reducing carbon emissions, however strategies to do so with external partners through institutional conformity and integration are lacking in research and practice. Drawing upon the resource-based view and institutional theory, the study in this paper proposes and tests a series of research hypotheses with Chinese firms. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse data and findings reveal carbon emissions reduction and low carbon institutional pressures are crucial forces driving external low carbon supply chain integration with external suppliers and customers. Further, low carbon supply chain integration overall positively impacts a firm's environmental performance, external customer integration positively impacts a firm's financial performance, and environmental performance plays a mediating role between external low carbon supply chain integration and financial performance. This study contributes by shedding new light on two patterns of external low carbon supply chain integration compared to prior studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I describe the practice of sharing and eating wild meat amongst the Orochen in northeast China, a community of hunters who are no longer allowed to hunt due to state conservation policies. I show how for Orochen meat is the material intermediary between the human and nonhuman worlds, offered to the fire before meals and to animal spirit-masters during hunting. I suggest this demands reflection of what we might call the ontology of meat: that is, how it is experienced as an extra-ordinary and relational substance with the 'lived' capacity to act. I show how this contrasts with the Chinese state, which sees wild meat as a material substance only and, in the context of conservation, as something to be measured and controlled through the protection of wild animals. I suggest that, for the Orochen, to eat and share wild meat is an act of everyday resistance embedded in secrecy, as well as a way of rendering into action their ontology of relational existence and participation in the wider socio-cosmic economy of sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing artificial intelligence (AI) is a priority on China’s state agenda, yet the constitutive state roles in AI development are understudied. Against the background of the coexistence of authoritarianism and market liberalism in the governance of the Chinese economy, state rescaling is a useful lens to understand how China is developing this new strategic sector. This paper proposes an analytical framework reifying vertical and horizontal scalar relations via the rescaling lens and three state roles (owner, promoter, and supervisor) to explore how government-business relationships are made. More than 100 Chinese AI policy documents have been collected from central, provincial, and city levels for a systematic multi-scalar policy analysis. As a result, this paper captures both downscaling/upscaling within the state hierarchy and statization/destatization between state and non-state actors in China’s AI development. A series of intertwined state rescaling practices manifest themselves in the state roles figuring in three functionalities of government-business relationships (sponsorship, cultivation, and disciplining). It is argued that the state roles are not pre-given modalities in a setting of a specific industry. The restructuring and even revolutionizing effects of AI in the socio-economic systems prompt non-state actors to respond proactively, which shapes the variegated functionalities of government-business relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades, China emerged as Africa's main partner in digital development. Sino-African cooperation in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector meets African demand for advanced technologies and know-how while helping China to position itself in the global ICT sector. Albeit crucial for Africa's digital development in the short term, this paper argues that the breadth of Sino-African cooperation carries important long-term consequences that could afford China latent control over Africa's digital development. Drawing on Susan Strange's pillars of structural power, this paper considers how the rollout of fiber-optic network cables underpins Chinese control over production, how the construction of data centers might impinge on security, and how research partnerships enhance norms and standards in future innovation—the knowledge pillar. The paper argues that the enabling force of Sino-African cooperation in these three realms is Chinese finance. To test this claim, I conduct a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of 42 states in Sub-Saharan Africa, showing that Chinese aid and, to a lesser extent, Chinese loans are the main drivers of Sino-African ties in the ICT sector. The paper concludes that Chinese financial support not only promotes Africa's digital development but also paves the way to Chinese structural power in the ICT sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While institutional environment is increasingly affecting supply chains, the effects of institutional forces on firm agility remains largely unexplored. This paper integrates institutional theory with the organisational justice and agility literature to explore whether institutional forces (i.e. legal protection, the importance of guanxi, and government support) affect agility of local and foreign firms in China through organisational justice. Results from structural equation modelling of survey data from 241 manufacturers in China demonstrate that Chinese firms gained agility through procedural, distributive, and interactional justice created by the three institutional forces. Gaining less justice from all three institutional forces (especially guanxi), the agility of foreign firms relied on only distributive justice. Legal protection and guanxi worked for Chinese firms, whereas foreign firms are somewhat disadvantaged in this regard and relied mostly on government support to provide distributive justice for building agility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the genealogy of competitive indices in international trade and theoretically develops a measure of export threat which estimates direct competition in vertical market segments. We identify the assumption of homogeneity in these export threat measures as a weakness that undermines accuracy. Hence, we develop a new measure of export threat, the direct intra-market threat (DIMT), which incorporates relative vertical and market share changes over time to accurately estimate a country’s direct threat to other exporters in a third market. We argue that the market segmentation method applied in complement to the DIMT estimate provides an all-encompassing methodology in the estimation of export threat, which we argue is superior to the Dynamic Index of Competitive Threat (DICT) and Direct Threat methodologies. The paper uses the case of China and India (CHINDIA) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to assess the empirical estimates of the DIMT relative to DICT and Direct Threat over the period 2000–2021. Our study is motivated by a research gap in the estimation of the competitive threat posed by a large, diversified exporter on Small Island Developing States (SIDS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before COVID-19, visitors from China, were a prime target for the European tourism industries. Yet, their mobility was constrained by the Schengen visa requirement for any trip to a European Union (EU)’s Member States. While the literature on Schengen visa policy has highlighted the repressive practices of street-level bureaucrats processing visa applications abroad, this article seeks to understand how Schengen visa policy is implemented when the objective is to attract potential visitors rather than drive them away. The paper argues that the economic imperative to attract Chinese tourists to Europe is turning local consular cooperation from Schengen into local consular competition. To support this claim and using ethnographic methods as well as a relational approach to implementation, the paper develops the concept of visa marketing to analyse the race to attractiveness between French and Italian consulates based in Beijing, the capital of China. Visa marketing refers to the use of visa procedures (receipt conditions, reliability, processing speed, etc.) by consulates as sales arguments to advertise the destination they represent. In essence, the article presents a case of domestic actors appropriating common visa regimes, engaging in competition to entice foreign consumers to their territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How important is Google for scientific research? This paper exploits the exogenous shock represented by Google's sudden withdrawal of its services from mainland China to assess the importance of access to information for the knowledge production function of scientific scholars in the field of economics. For economists, a type of scholar with a simple knowledge production function, results from difference-in-difference analyses, which compare their scientific output to scholars located in the neighbouring regions, show that the scientific productivity declines by about 28% in volume and 30% in terms of citations. These results are consistent with the view that information accessibility is an important driver of scientific progress. Considering that the negative effect of the shock is stronger for top scholars located in China, Google's sudden exit bears the risk that researchers lose touch with the research frontier and persistently lag behind their foreign peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International production networks in machinery industry have formed three large clusters, each of which is in East Asia, North America, and Europe. This paper investigates the recent evolvement of the connection between Factory Asia and Factory North America with highlighting the role of Latin American countries as a mediator. For this purpose, we utilized trade matrices and gravity equations to measure each country's level of commitment to each bilateral machinery trade after controlling the size of the economies, distance, and others. Our major findings are threefold: first, Mexico is the only Latin American country that plays a connecting role between two Factories. Second, in 2010–2019, the linkage of exports to Mexico from not only China but also other East Asian countries is strengthened particularly in machinery parts and components. Third, export linkage of China with Mexico is further intensified in 2019–2021 particularly in machinery parts and components due to the US-China confrontation, the USMCA, and other factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's relationship with Latin America countries experienced a process of significant expansion over the past two decades. Even though Latin America was not considered as part of the BRI when it was first established, China designed its economic strategy toward the region by emphasizing investment, financial and industrial capacity cooperation, besides trade. Afterwards, China invited Latin American countries to participate in the BRI at the China–Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Ministerial Forum in Santiago in January 2018. Twenty-one Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have signed up to the BRI. However, there are few LAC countries that have not done so, among them the region's largest economies such as Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, although Brazil is with full AIIB membership. This paper focuses on the specific economic relations between China and Mexico, as far as Mexico is the less involved LA country into the BRI, and Mexico's position toward China is more aligned with that of its North American partners than to the Latin American countries. This article analyzes the specific situation of Mexico, characterized by its deep integration and dependency on the US market and examines the current economic relations of China and Mexico, considering the impact of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement on the bilateral economic relations. The structure of bilateral trade between Mexico and China is also examined, using the Grubel-Lloyd Index (GLI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is quickly becoming the largest official lender in the world. For Latin America, China is overtaking multilateral lenders such as the World Bank as the biggest holder of debt in the region. When this is added to the trade relationship with Latin America that has grown rapidly in the twenty first century, initially driven by China's demand for commodities, the linkage between the two now goes even deeper. It further means that a potential stop to Chinese funding due to a domestic financial crisis would have an even more widespread impact on Latin America. This paper analyses China's overseas lending strategy and how it has deepened the relationship with Latin America. It then turns to the potential of a Chinese financial crisis and the significant implications for the Latin American region. The article concludes with policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sino-Latin American trade have increased substantially for decades. However, the increasing trade imbalances between China and several Latin American countries have yielded growing trade frictions. In this paper, we re-calculate the bilateral trade balance using the value-added content in trade and measure the contribution of Sino-Latin American trade to economic growth. The results show that gross trade statistics seriously overestimate the real bilateral trade imbalance, and China's trade surplus with Mexico decreased by over 50%. The composition of Sino-Latin American trade suggests that most Latin American economies are complementary with Chinese economy. The South-South trade has been increasingly important for both China's and Latin America's economic development. We foresee an optimistic future of relations and continuously increasing trade between China and Latin America. Meanwhile, more efforts should be made to settle trade frictions and intensify Sino-Latin American relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family pressure pushes a considerable proportion of Chinese queer individuals into heterosexual marriage. Few investigations have been solely devoted to examining family pressure. For a comprehensive picture of the issue, this study presents the results of a systematic review that identified 32 relevant papers to answer three research questions: (1) What are the antecedents (i.e., the drivers and sources) of family pressure to enter into heterosexual marriage? (2) What conditions shape the different manifestations of this pressure? (3) What are the consequences of being exposed to family pressure? Analysis revealed 10 drivers (reproduction, performing heteronormativity, maintaining face, experiencing stigmatized homosexuality, fulfilling familism, later-life care expectations, financial leverage, satisfying parental expectations of marriage, protecting parental emotions, and inquiries about marriage) and four sources (queer people themselves, parents, important others, and society); four conditions (gender, age, living arrangements, and family structure); and five consequences (resignation to heterosexual relationships, negativity toward queer identity, familial distancing, adjusted negotiation strategies for sexual autonomy, and emotional distress). Findings were used to formulate an extended definition of family pressure and to tentatively propose a conceptual model of family pressure for antecedents. The strengths and limitations of the study are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the environmental tax reform implemented in 2018 in China as a quasi-experiment, this paper employs PSM, DID, and DDD methods to investigate the causal impact of environmental tax on air pollution. Viewing those provinces that choose to set a higher tax rate than the original pollution fee rate as the treatment group and provinces that do not increase the tax rate as the control group, this paper provides robust evidence that the environmental tax reform is effective in reducing PM2.5 and SO2 concentration level, while the effect is smaller and inconsistent for NO2. A back-of-the-envelope welfare analysis suggests that a 1-unit increase in the environmental tax rate is associated with a reduction of 5,616 in total deaths and a welfare gain of $28.256 billion in 2005 USD for all Chinese households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on women/gender in host communities has shifted towards a feminist perspective. In line with this trend, this paper further explores women's self-awakening and self-growth in a host community by considering feminine subjectivity based on Foucault's perspective, which is a critical feminism topic. This paper presents the case of the Cheongsam Sisters, a local women's group that participates in leisure activities in Yangshuo, China. Based on longitudinal and anthropological research, this work describes and interprets Cheongsam Sisters' feminine subjectivities at the individual level and the collective level. It is found that tourism development not only changes the gender structure in the host community but also provides conditions for the formation of feminine subjectivities. Furthermore, in the tourism context, the emergence of feminine subjectivities is a dynamic process, which means the feminine subjectivity iterate from the individual level to the collective level along with Cheongsam Sisters' practices. With these findings, this paper contributes to the literature on tourism impact by linking feminine subjectivity, women and tourism, which is critical to endogenous and sustainable development in underdeveloped destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese mammoth investment projects abroad, and especially those under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) umbrella, are receiving heavy scrutiny in academic and policy circles. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence to evaluate their impact. This paper employs a difference- in-differences approach and a pair of new datasets on government spending and economic activity compiled by the World Bank to examine the local impacts of the Chinese-Pakistan Economic Corridor in Pakistan. It finds that the 2013 announcement of CPEC was accompanied by a disproportionate increase in government spending in CPEC districts. However, in the six years after it was first announced, CPEC has not directly contributed a significant increase in economic activity in the districts along its path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Sino-Uzbek relations by critically assessing the positivist depictions of CA states in their relations with larger countries like China. It uses the post-positivist and constructivist framework and adaptations made from the four-factor analysis framework adopted in the case of Uzbekistan to demonstrate avenues in which Uzbekistan demonstrates active agency in relations with China. This paper argues that Uzbekistan and other CA states utilize nudging strategies which refer to a subtle and often indirect way of encouraging or guiding China's behavior in a particular direction as opposed to so-called "nagging" which associates with persistent and repetitive pressuring China to perform a certain function. Accordingly, Uzbekistan's approach to China can be described as the nudging strategy of designing the environment or context which makes China's choices in its relations with Uzbekistan easier and more attractive in favor of policy decisions desired by the Uzbek government. As is depicted in the narrative of cooperation road maps, Uzbekistan's approach involved both indirect signaling of certain policy preferences, choice-preserving (involving diversification of foreign partners), and positive reinforcement (through various policy incentives). This contrasts the persistent and repetitive pressuring, criticism, threats, or guilt-tripping, seen in relations between China and other Western states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of services trade in China with a panel of 42 trading partners during the period of 2000–2014. Using augmented Gravity model, the estimated results from Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) show that the sectoral output of China and its trading partners, sharing of common borders, fixed telephone subscription in China, exchange rate, perception of lower corruption in partner countries contribute positively to services trade between China and its trading partners. On the contrary but not surprisingly, trade restrictiveness and distance between capitals of China and its trading partners are negatively associated with services trade between China and its counterparts. Greater availability and adoption of information and communication technology in partner countries, proxied by fixed telephone subscription, appear to have a negative (positive) effect on China's services exports (imports). On the policy front, this paper suggests that the Chinese government should devise policies to deal with non-tariff trade restrictions and improve the country's telecommunication infrastructure to address the services trade gaps with its trading partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]