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Authoritarian regimes in the 21st century have increasingly turned to using information control rather than kinetic force to respond to threats to their rule. This paper studies an often overlooked type of information control: strategic labeling and public statements by regime sources in response to protests. Labeling protesters as violent criminals may increase support for repression by signaling that protests are illegitimate and deviant. Regime sources, compared to more independent sources, could increase support for repression even more when paired with such an accusatory label. Accommodative labels should have opposing effects—decreasing support for repression. The argument is tested with a survey experiment in China which labels environmental protests. Accusatory labels increase support for repression of protests. Regime sources, meanwhile, have no advantage over non-governmental sources in shifting opinion. The findings suggest that negative labels de-legitimize protesters and legitimize repression while the sources matter less in this contentious authoritarian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a quest for economies of scale, access to technologies, and, most importantly, expansion of market share, Chinese public companies have been engaged in several consecutive waves of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) involving mostly domestically domiciled non-listed targets from the same or adjacent industries. Relying on a comprehensive panel dataset of 7,998 transactions completed between 1993 and 2020 by 2,842 publicly listed acquirers domiciled in China, the paper attempts to establish whether M&A deals allow acquirers to improve their market share and, consequently, their relative market position. We use dynamic panel regression and ordered logit models to establish and quantify the link between deal characteristics and the post-deal market share of the combined entities. Our empirical findings demonstrate that corporate consolidations exercise no significant impact on the relative competitive positioning of firms. Only acquisitions by industry leaders produce a sizeable increase in the latter's market share and lead to higher industry concentration. Most consolidations occur among outsiders exhibiting a high degree of similarity, relatively lower profitability, and stagnant market shares within the more competitive industries with higher rates of firm creation. These consolidations, often in the form of mergers, are not effective in advancing the combined entities' competitive positioning. Despite the fact that the bulk of corporate consolidations appears unlikely to constitute a threat to competition in the medium term, careful regulatory oversight may be warranted within the currently fragmented and highly commoditized industries, which appear likely to consolidate at the fastest pace. JEL Classification: G30, G32. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's manufacturing industry has emerged as a major contributor to both the nation's economic growth and global trade. Achieving high-quality development in this sector is not only crucial for China's sustainable progress but also holds significant implications for the global economy. Considering the importance of Chinese manufacturing industry, this paper establishes a framework for exploring the mechanism of manufacture industry's high-quality development in China's three economic regions based on the Driver-Pressure-State-Response (DPSR) model and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). SEM is established for analyzing the multiple paths of manufacture industry's high-quality development in the eastern, middle and western economic region of China. The findings reveal distinct patterns in each region. In the eastern region, a unidirectional path of "Driver-Pressure-State-Response" is confirmed, with a particular emphasis on quality improvement and efficiency increase. The middle region exhibits a leapfrog path characterized by "Driver-Pressure-State" and "Pressure-Response," where quality improvement and dynamic conversion play critical roles. Conversely, the western region demonstrates an interrupt path of "Pressure-State-Response," highlighting the significance of structural rationalization and dynamic conversion. Based on these results, sustainable solutions and suggestions for promoting high-quality development in the manufacturing industry are proposed, providing valuable targeted insights for the transformation and advancement of China's manufacturing sector. This study makes a novel contribution by developing a DPSR-SEM model and expands literature and knowledge in high-quality development of manufacturing industry. Practically, this study can guide decision-makers, managers, and stakeholders in understanding the interactions between driving forces, pressures, states, and responses in the context of manufacturing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to reduce the environmental pollution of economic development, countries around the world pursue high-quality economic development model. However, the relationship between R&D investment agglomeration and high-quality economic development has not been thoroughly revealed in existing studies. Taking 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2009 to 2018 as research samples, this paper empirically examines the relationship between regional R&D investment agglomeration and high-quality economic development by using system GMM method and spatial econometric model. Theoretical analysis shows that regional R&D investment agglomeration promotes regional high-quality economic development by increasing regional knowledge capital, improving innovation efficiency, and promoting knowledge spillovers through scale effect, synergy effect, and spillover effect, respectively. The empirical results show that regional R&D investment agglomeration can significantly promote regional high-quality economic development. The degree of regional integrated innovation can positively adjust the promotion effect of regional R&D investment agglomeration on regional high-quality economic development. Regional R&D investment agglomeration can effectively promote the high-quality economic development of surrounding regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper seeks to understand whether the current basic endowment insurance policy has properly played the role of supporting the elderly needs through intergenerational support within the family. Theoretically, there are problems of the imbalanced structure of pension security, retirees' comparatively higher pension and the low-level security of young people's in-service income, and drawbacks of the existing endowment insurance system, both have a certain causal relationship with "gnawing the old." Data on China's family tracking survey in 2016 (CFPS2016), Probit model, IV and PSM robustness testing methods were also used to study the relationship between parents' pensions and their grownup children's "gnawing-the-old" behavior. The results show that: (1) Compared with young people from families without pension income, those with pensioned parent(s) will less possibly choose to work; the parents' financial assistance behavior would restrain the children's intention to work and increase the possibility of "gnawing the old"; (2) Neither the amount of pension income nor financial assistance given to the children is significantly related to young people's "gnawing the old"; (3) Young people's "gnawing the old" behaviors are different according to their parents' professions and living areas; (4) The gap between parents' pension income and children's in-service income also adds to the causes of "gnawing the old." The policy implications of these findings are discussed particularly the formulation of a scientific mechanism for pension income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green port construction has a profound impact on China's international climate commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050. To examine the carbon emission reduction potential of 20 major ports in the Yangtze River Delta port cluster of China, this study takes the perspective of environmental efficiency and employs dynamic exogenous variable DEA in efficiency evaluation. The results show the increasing environmental efficiency of the ports in the Yangtze River Delta, rising from 0.5116 in 2013 to 0.7276 in 2019. Also, there are significant spatial differences in efficiency. After considering exogenous variable, the average efficiency has increased from 0.5537 to 0.6276, indicating that regional green development is a critical factor in port environmental efficiency evaluation. Finally, the overall efficiency of input and output have risen, the slackness of carbon emission shows a trend of decreasing, and there is great potential for reducing carbon emissions from the perspective of port environmental efficiency. The previous studies paid less attention to dynamic efficiency, exogenous variables, and carbon emission. Therefore, this paper is the first comprehensive examination on the carbon emission reduction potential of China's Yangtze River Delta port cluster from the perspective of dynamic environmental efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbon emission trading market (carbon market) is an important policy tool for China to achieve the goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality" through market mechanism. This paper uses panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2019 to examine the emission reduction effect (ERE) of China's carbon market pilots using multi-period Difference-in-Differences (DID)method, and then analyzes the factors influencing ERE and the economic impact of carbon market. According to the Bacon decomposition and a series of robustness tests, the results reveal that China's carbon market pilots have significant ERE. Both the expansion of the carbon market scale and the improvement of market activity level can significantly boost the carbon market's ERE. Meanwhile, the establishment of carbon market has no negative impact on the economic growth. Therefore, we propose to accelerate the construction of the national carbon market, incorporating more industries in a systematic manner, expand the scale of the carbon market, steadily promote the innovation of carbon financial instruments, improve the activity of the carbon market, so as to promote the transformation of China's green and low-carbon economy and achieve the emission reduction target as scheduled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many studies on variables related to burnout among preschool teachers, but the results of these studies are inconsistent. This study explored the variables most associated with preschool teachers' burnout through meta-analysis. The researchers conducted an extensive search of the China Knowledge Network (CNKI), Vip journal, and Wanfang databases. A total of 59 papers were included through strict inclusion criteria, and a total of 14 variables were analyzed. The results indicate that the variables that have large effect sizes with burnout are turnover intention (r = 0.7124), job stress (r = 0.4744), teacher efficacy (r = −0.4331), and job satisfaction (r = −0.4229). This study provides a data reference for the prevention and improvement of burnout among preschool teachers in China, and will also provide directions for further research to follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to the contributions to the review symposium on How China Escaped Shock Therapy. I discuss the strategy of economic system reform that started from the non-essential parts of the industrial system in order to eventually transform the commanding heights; the spatial dimension of reform in relation to "dual circulation" and the coastal development strategy; the nature and meaning of Chinese gradualism; and China's price stabilization strategies of the 1980s in relation to later inflationary challenges. Finally, I reflect on the symposium as a dialogue between economic geography and a history of ideas in action that I pursued in my book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critical engagement with Isabella Weber's fascinating new book, How China Escaped Shock Therapy. It foregrounds the book's contributions to knowledge on a hitherto under-explored topic – why shock therapy advocates were unsuccessful in launching all-out price liberalisation across China during the 1980s – and introduces new questions through assessing Weber's analysis vis-à-vis three geographical aspects of Chinese political-economic evolution: (a) the role of landownership control and redistribution in stabilising the Chinese economy following the Communist Party of China's (CPC) revolutionary victory in 1949; (b) the path-dependent effects of Mao-era (1949-1976) landownership institutions on economic reforms during the 1980s; and (c) Deng Xiaoping's approach to the multi-dimensional emergence of coastal-oriented industrialisation. These three aspects collectively accentuate how the territorial configuration and regulation of the Chinese political economy, so fundamental for producing and sustaining CPC regime durability, undermined the neoclassical bias towards price liberalisation. Understanding the geographical preconditions that underpin post-1949 Chinese political-economic evolution is therefore crucial for understanding why shock therapy was ultimately deemed incongruent with CPC rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All walks of life actively promoted emerging technologies when modern agricultural science and technology from the West were introduced to China in the late Qing Dynasty. Despite agricultural machinery being highly popular during the more than 100 years since, traditional farm tools have not been completely replaced and have instead gradually become symbols representing traditional farming culture. From the perspective of ecology and health, this paper discusses the values, scientific notions and corresponding styles of production and life associated with traditional agricultural tools as well as the multicultural values regarding traditional agricultural culture in modern society in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consolidating the results of poverty alleviation and achieving carbon neutrality are serious challenges for global sustainable development, and it is essential to explore the relationship between these goals, and then offer scientific responses. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019, this paper conducted the 2SLS model by compromising the merits of the Regression Discontinuity principle with the STIRPAT model to study the interaction between poverty alleviation and carbon reduction. The study found that: (1) the implementation of poverty alleviation aggravates the problem of carbon emissions, and the main mechanism is that poverty alleviation promotes consumption and production by increasing the wealth of farmers, thereby increasing carbon emissions. (2) Carbon reduction weakens the achievement of poverty alleviation significantly, but the mitigation effect presents an "inverted U"-shaped curve, which first increases and then wanes. (3) Farmers' income and the development of rural transportation play a role in acting on the negative effects of carbon reduction. By integrating poverty theory and energy management, this article reveals the complex relationship between two important policies in China and offers relevant policy recommendations, which will not only promote the advancement of rural revitalization but also promote global sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas mediate climate transformations and generate new forms of climate urbanism. Looking at climate action in the twelve fastest-growing cities in China with under one million people, this paper proposes a perspective on urban climate politics 'from elsewhere' that foregrounds the potential role of smaller urban areas in mediating climate transformations. The analysis reveals three climate action strategies that reflect practical, institutional, and personal spheres of climate transformations. Planning action in the personal sphere provides opportunities for urban transformations. A perspective 'from elsewhere' calls for greater attention to planning for diverse change strategies for climate transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of digital platforms as a new form of business organisation concentrates power in the United States and China. Platform capitalism further intersects with and reinforces pre-existing trends towards state capitalism, where states more actively direct economies in response to economic turbulence and heightened geopolitical tension. The concentration of global business power within two states, combined with the increasing capacity for these states to leverage and direct platform activities for their own geopolitical–economic ends, has catalyzed the rise of 'state platform capitalism' (SPC). This paper develops the notion of SPC as an emergent logic of competition for both states and firms – in particular, the ways in which Beijing and Washington instrumentalise and mobilise domestic platform firms in pursuit of geopolitical–economic objectives, while platforms become increasingly interdependent with their home state institutions. Competition in the global political economy is increasingly centred on the recruitment of users and nations to these rival state-platform nexuses (national 'stacks') as a means of establishing and exercising extraterritorial economic and political power. Empirically, we identify variations between American and Chinese modes of practicing state platform capitalism, and we examine three axes within which this competition unfolds internationally: currencies, standards and cybersecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent formulations of state capitalism tend to present it as a distinct system, anchored in China, in opposition to a neoliberal model represented by the United States and its global armatures. As an alternative to this binarism, this paper argues for Gillian Hart's relational-comparative approach to the geographies of the new state capitalism. It outlines three of Hart's theoretical-methodological principles—multiple trajectories, conjunctural analysis, and articulation—and demonstrates how they can be used to analyze the interrelations between "statist" and "liberal" development trajectories, through an empirical account of conjunctural struggles in and between China and the World Bank during the Tiananmen Square crisis. It argues that Tiananmen was an inflection point in the relation between the development trajectories of the Chinese state and the World Bank, where conflicts over the continuity of economic reform were simultaneously struggles over the boundaries of the state. Examining these institutions conjuncturally shows that China's "state capitalism" is not an opposite of the Bank's liberal model, but has been, in part, produced through power-laden contests over the meaning and materiality of state and market in multiple arenas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous scholarship in qualitative methodologies commonly classifies researchers' status in the field into insiders or outsiders. However, the prevalence of participatory observation in numerous social science disciplines has blurred the insider/outsider dichotomy and highlighted that the levels of researchers' involvement in the field are becoming contextspecific and far more complex than just insider or outsider. Inspired by this tendency in fieldwork methodology, this paper seeks insights from a theory in communication studies, role theory, to understand researchers' status regarding the roles they adopt in their interactions with research participants. Through reference to relevant sociological and psychological schools of thought, this paper highlights discourse as a crucial instrument for researchers' role-making in fieldwork. This study draws on the author's experience conducting fieldwork in a Central China city to demonstrate how a researcher engages in shifting field contexts by intentionally assuming numerous roles. To explore state-firm relations in local development, the author recruited two groups of research participants: government officials and business managers. The author actively learned and employed comparable discursive techniques in interactions with each group of participants, thereby assuming various roles in different contexts. These findings underscore the purposeful self-presentation and intentional role-playing/change as effective means for human geographers and researchers in extensive disciplines to be involved in participant groups for gathering data more efficiently. Meanwhile, the author's self-reflection also illuminates the consequent impacts on research outcomes and ethical issues due to the involvement of researchers in their participants, therefore highlighting the necessity for detachment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military experience, as a special early experience exerts a very profound impact on individual decision making. This paper investigates the impact of military experience on male labor force entrepreneurial choices and its underlying mechanisms, using the 2014 to 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey data. It is found that military experience significantly reduces the probability of individual entrepreneurship. The analysis of the influence mechanism shows that military experience inhibits survival entrepreneurship mainly by increasing employment opportunities in state-owned units, increasing the probability of becoming a member of the Communist Party of China(CPC), and accumulating human capital. This paper also finds that the inhibitory effect of military experience on individual entrepreneurship varies across household registration groups and is more significant for laborers with non-agricultural household. This paper not only reveals the impact of the military experience on individual entrepreneurship choices, but also provides empirical evidence for the development of innovation and entrepreneurship policies in emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial inclusion refers to a process that ensures the ease of access, availability, and usage of the financial system for all members of an economy. This paper aims to study financial inclusion's impact on enterprise innovation and compare the different effects of traditional and digital financial inclusion. Existing papers mainly focus on digital financial inclusion's influence. Based on China's data, this paper fills the gap by constructing an index system to measure traditional financial inclusion and discussing the impact mechanism of the two kinds of financial inclusion on enterprise innovation (output and efficiency). The results illustrate that traditional financial inclusion inhibits the innovation output of enterprises, while digital financial inclusion has a positive effect. However, both traditional and digital financial inclusion is still in the stage of constraining the innovation efficiency of enterprises. Moreover, the two types of financial inclusion function differently for enterprises of different sizes and ownership. Evidence from China is expected to reveal the features of this relationship and inspire research in more economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible to form "soft autocracy" that manages citizens by taking away their sense of resistance? This paper suggests that the rise of entertainment media in autocracies enables the rulers to maintain their resilience through a soft approach, thereby avoiding costly heavy-handed measures. Such a soft approach can work because entertainment media, like "fictitious pleasure drugs," undo audiences' sophistication so that people are susceptible to autocratic propaganda. By analyzing a Chinese data set, via instrumented regressions, this paper shows that a one standard deviation increase in people's interest in entertainment media is associated with an increase of almost 20% in both their satisfaction with the current regime and their anti-Western hostility. Furthermore, the findings show a positive relationship between people's entertainment media interest and their acceptation of indoctrination by state media. In short, entertainment media contribute to China's regime stability through "amusing ordinary citizens to loyalty." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia is China's main log supplier and has implemented a series of log export control policies. The implementation of Russia's export control policy has inevitably had an impact on China's timber processing industry. This paper uses breakpoint regression to analyse the impact of the increase in the import price of logs under the Russian log export control policy on the market price of timber products in China. The results show that under the control policy, the increase in log import prices had a significant positive impact on the timber product market when April 2008, January 2010 and January 2019 were the breakpoints. Due to the lag effects in price transmission, the impact on China's timber product market was not reflected when July 2007 and January 2018 were the breakpoints. Based on the research conclusions, this paper puts forward some suggestions from the perspective of China's log supply security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the publication of the National Action Plan for Scientific Literacy (2021-2035) and the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Modern Science and Technology Museum System (2021-2025), and based on a review of the history and characteristics of various science popularization venues, this paper analyses the mission of those venues in advocating scientific methods, disseminating scientific ideas and promoting the scientific spirit and the scientist spirit. It discusses the requirements for science popularization venues to strengthen scientific culture. Finally, the paper provides suggestions for fulfilling the guiding role of scientific culture through promoting the modern science and technology museum system, including enhancing strategic awareness, strengthening academic research and breaking disciplinary barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the patron-client connection between local governments and their superiors improve or hurt the local economic development? Although recent research suggests that patron-client connections boost local economic performance, this paper investigates the potential costs and risks of connection-driven economic development. With a difference-in-differences design applied to Chinese prefecture-level cities, I find that politically connected cities were more likely to win their superior's support to obtain the projects approved by the four-trillion-Yuan stimulus enacted in 2008 and increased the city's public investment in infrastructure. Meanwhile, these politically connected cities accumulated more public debts than other unconnected cities. Furthermore, those cities that lacked such political connections were more likely to promote private investment by introducing business-friendly policies. These results show that patron-client connections make an economic development model that features government investment and public debts more possible than the one that depends on vibrant entrepreneurship and private investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's urban commercial banks are more likely to face risks with the rapid development of Internet finance. However, few studies unfold the impact of Internet finance on the risk-taking level of urban commercial banks and explore their role path in depth. To study the relationship between the two and their path of action, this paper takes 62 city commercial banks in China from 2011 to 2020 as research objects and makes empirical tests by Stata. The intermediary effect model is used to study its impact path from the perspectives of assets, liabilities, and intermediate services. The conclusions are as follows: (1) Internet finance aggravates the risk-taking of urban commercial banks; (2) This effect shows heterogeneity in listed and nonlisted, trans-region and non-trans-region urban commercial banks; (3) Net interest margin, debt structure, and non-interest income show the mediating effect when Internet finance affects the risk-taking of urban commercial banks. The results are beneficial for urban commercial banks to change their business strategies with their characteristics and achieve sustainable and healthy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the technological innovation efficiency of industrial enterprises above designated size and its influencing factors under the China's economic census industry classification, using the stochastic frontier approach to estimates the innovation efficiency of the 34 industry from 2008 to 2018. Taking the sales revenue of new products as the dependent variable, R&D capital stock and R&D personnel equivalent are taken as the independent variable, control variables are reasonably selected. The characteristics and influencing factors of innovation efficiency between industries are analyzed. The results show that the innovation efficiency of all industries in China is steadily improving, and the difference between industries is gradually narrowing. Industries with high innovation efficiency are related to future competition and national economy and people's livelihood, while industries with low innovation efficiency are concentrated in mining and supply industry. The low input and low output industries are in the majority. The influence of innovation capital input on output is greater than that of personnel input. The proportion of state-owned property rights and capital constraints have a negative effect on innovation output, while the sales income has a positive effect on innovation output. Therefore, China should further improve the innovation efficiency of industrial industries, adopt classified policies, and increase the number of industries with low input and high output. The conclusion of the paper is of reference value to the development of China's 14th five-year industry and the medium and long term planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pushed by social demands, China has continuously developed its low-medium speed maglev transportation systems in recent decades. However, with the increase of the running mileage of the train, high frequency vibration of suspension frame gradually appears. In this paper, a method to analyze the high frequency vibration of suspension frame by detecting the current of traction motor is proposed. Field measurements of suspension frame vibration and traction motor current of low-medium maglev train were conducted on a maglev line that has been commercially put into operation. The test results show that the speed of the measured maglev train was closely correlated with vibration accelerations of the suspension frame in three directions, but as the speed increased, the influence it imposed on the suspension frame vibration waned. The dominant frequency of traction motor resultant current was consistent with the dominant frequency of the suspension frame vibration acceleration. The switching frequency of traction inverter was the main cause of high frequency vibration of suspension frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can delegates in authoritarian legislatures influence policy outcomes? The existing literature provides extensive knowledge on how delegates behave but relatively little evidence on how government processes delegate policy participation and whether such participation changes policy. Based on a unique dataset of government responses to delegates' policy proposals in China, this paper proposes a new distributive theory of authoritarian legislature and explains the conditions under which delegates can influence policy. The findings show that proposals requesting particularistic benefits are more likely to receive acceptance when they are made by delegates representing regime allies, whereas proposals requesting universalistic benefits are more likely to attain acceptance if they come from delegates representing the public. This finding can shed new light on authoritarian legislatures and their influence on policy. It also reveals a new theory of how autocrats make tradeoffs in allocating resources to accommodate competing policy demands and provide public goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some but not other officials selected for promotion in single-party regimes? Understanding inner-elite dynamics of these regimes is important for explaining their resilience. Recent evidence suggests that these polities prioritize patronage connections over competence, when deciding who receives advancement at the top echelons of power hierarchy. By contrast, this paper proposes that, besides patronage, competence (demonstrated as an official's ability to maintain social stability) also contributes to the promotion of top officials. While it is widely acknowledged that social stability is a key concern for autocracies, prior quantitative research on career outcomes of single-party elites has largely ignored this criterion for promotion. We argue that evaluating officials based on their ability to minimize protests demonstrates another dimension of competence (in addition to economic growth) that is designed to address the problem of authoritarian control, that is, managing popular discontent. We test this argument in the context of China, using a sample of 116 party secretaries in 2003–2017 who faced a total of 10,085 labor protests. Our findings are consistent with this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of a left-right ideological dimension helps citizens and parties organize their thinking about politics. While the left-right dimension is traditionally organized around questions of inequality and change in democracies, its meaning under authoritarian rule remains uncertain. This paper uses two national surveys to investigate the policy, partisan, and symbolic content of the left-right dimension in China. The analysis of these surveys reveals that while many Chinese citizens are willing to locate themselves on the left-right scale, their placements are distorted by a variety of perceptual bias known as differential item functioning. The labels of left and right do not carry a consistent programmatic meaning, and the partisan and symbolic content of these ideological labels is limited. One implication of the absence of a shared ideological understanding is that it prevents Chinese citizens from developing the type of vocabulary necessary for exercising political agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the cognitive structure of death and long-term changes of death cognition after catastrophes for Chinese college students. Two months before Wenchuan earthquake, a week after, a year after, and ten years after, a total of 1507 participants' associated words of death were collected, after clustering high-frequency words' similarity coefficients, results showed that death was represented by four advanced clusters: death contact, death anxiety and its reminders, deathafter, and defense mechanism; a week after earthquake, death anxiety and its reminders, defense mechanism were activated; a year after, death contact, afterdeath were appreciated, death anxiety and its reminders, defense mechanism were underappreciated, this phenomenon still existed even ten years later, which suggests that the earthquake permanently changed their death cognition, and this change stabilized one year later. In addition, this paper provides an effective method to uncover cognitive structure of one certain concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State capitalism is experiencing a revival as a term to capture the current capitalist constellations and departures from neoliberalism. Unlike, neoliberalism, however, the term state capitalism has a long history reaching back to the age of imperialism in the late 19th century. Although state capitalism has been used as a prerogative term by Marxists, liberals, and neoliberals alike, it has served as a programmatic label for developmentalist and neomercantilist projects in reaction to imperialism in the periphery. This paper argues that we need to bring the intellectual history of state capitalism into the 'new state capitalism' debate. China has played a major role in the revival of state capitalism in the social sciences, but the long history of China's engagement with state capitalism as a concept and program dating back to the late Qing reformers has been overlooked for the most part. State capitalism is by no means new to China, from Liang Qichao, Sun Yatsen, and Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping, the idea that China had to create a modern nation-state and industrial capitalism in the name of economic progress and to get ahead in the global competition is a recurring theme. What is new is that for the first time, the ambition to use state capitalism as a means to catch up with the West is bearing fruits in ways that could undermine the predominance of Western economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an Exchange section dedicated to the question of the new state capitalism. It is suggested that the new state capitalism, both as an ascendant concept and as marker of socioinstitutional facts on the ground, signals a significant geohistorical moment, perhaps not a new "era" as such, but a notable inflection point. This warrants critical attention, even if first-generation treatments of the phenomenon itself may have been somewhat wanting. Contributions follow from Ilias Alami, Jennifer Bair, Isabella Weber, Marion Werner, and Heather Whiteside, each of whom provide a critical take on (debates around) the new state capitalism from their own theoretical perspective and vantage point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study on the wastepaper-recycling behavior among college students in Hong Kong, China. Overview of the theory of planned behavior; Method; Results; Discussion.

This paper investigates Chinese gay men's consumption of domestic pornography on international social network platforms following the country's anti-porn campaigns targeting live streaming. Set against the backdrop of China's illiberal digital landscape characterized by rapid platformization and evolving Internet governance, the paper draws on in-depth interviews with twenty-one Chinese young gay men to explore how they take advantage of digital platforms and algorithms to creatively and resiliently carve out a space for expressing same-sex desires in a precarious environment. It argues that, although these creative acts of sexual citizenship empower gay men in self-understanding and community-building, they are also critically limited by China's intertwining neoliberal and illiberal cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the knowledge and attitudes of participants and potential participants in clinical trials toward electronic informed consent. We conducted a survey-based cross-sectional study in Hunan Province, China in March 2021. A total of 547 respondents were included in this study. All questions in an 8-item survey section assessing participants' knowledge of electronic informed consent received correct answers from at least 70% of participants. In terms of attitude scores, most participants (86.3%) believed that electronic informed consent is more convenient than the paper-based version, and more than half (51.2%) believed that electronic informed consent could completely replace the paper-based version. Responses indicated that common concerns about electronic informed consent were its security and confidentiality, legal benefits, and implications for rights protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on data collected during ethnographic fieldwork in a factory in south-east China to describe the significance of a group of activities colloquially known as "pulling the sheep's wool" (haoyangmao). This wide-ranging set of thrift-oriented practices involves gaining rewards and discounts by collecting various credits and points, most often through activities conducted on online shopping, news and payment platforms. Recent studies have sought to reposition thrift as a morally-infused consumptive practice for the creation of value, through which the concept of the house is enacted. However, this paper demonstrates how thrift is viewed by labourers as a kind of "work". As such, it is able to act in a factory environment largely unmoored from notions of domesticity, instead delineating social boundaries between production line workers and managers, fostering communal behaviours amongst labourers and—through a process of earmarking—allowing for workers to direct a greater share of their wages toward household economies. We argue that this conception of thrift as labour actually reworks the way that consumption conjoins with production, challenging our received understandings of consumption, while also providing new possibilities for the creation of both value and personhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores a cohort of Burmese students' lived experiences at a border high school in China and demonstrates that their multilingual practices and identity positionings constitute exclusionary effects that limit their interactions with their local Chinese teachers and peers. The paper argues that these Burmese students' in-group interactions reproduce the process of exclusion, further complicating their identity positionings. This paper confirms the established fact that transnational students are marginalized in a variety of national contexts in complex ways, and draws attention to in-group differences among transnational students with diverse backgrounds. These findings have implications for multilingual practices and education policy makers, and for a more inclusive pedagogical approach to reducing marginalization and educating students of diverse linguistic, cultural, and racial backgrounds for global citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon neutrality is an important policy in the current global response to climate change and has been widely recognized by various industries. In the process of promoting carbon neutrality, new energy plays a pivotal role. In this study, the definition and connotation of new energy and its role and specific operation in the energy transition of carbon neutrality are firstly explained. Promoting new energy development requires significant green and low-carbon investments. Taking China as an example, this paper analyzes the opportunities brought by the carbon neutral process to the field of green finance and analyzes the main features and development trends of green finance in China at present. Then this paper proposes policy recommendations to strengthen the development of green finance in China in terms of improving the green financial policy system, enhancing the supply capacity of green financial services, and optimizing the supporting environment for green financial development. Finally, this paper analyzes the measures and experiences of the United States in promoting low-carbon development and proposes countermeasures for China's low-carbon development on the basis of the five major relationships that need attention in China's carbon-neutral process. That is, strengthen the top-level design and improve the regulatory policy system; optimize the energy structure and increase the proportion of clean energy; optimize the industrial structure and reduce energy consumption in key industries; build a complete low-carbon technology system and promote low-carbon technology research and development and demonstration applications, and encourage local conditions to explore low-carbon development paths. The development of green finance can contribute to the advancement of new energy technologies, thus contributing to the achievement of carbon neutrality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital economy is integral in driving economic growth, particularly of high-quality standards. Against the backdrop of the ''Double Carbon'' project, exploring the impact of the digital economy on green agricultural development bears tremendous practical significance. Thus, this study aims to investigate how the digital economy affects agricultural green total factor productivity (GTFP). The entropy-TOPSIS method and SBM-GML index are used to measure core variables quantitatively. In addition, two-way fixed effects panel data models, Tobit, and intermediary effect models are implemented. Three research findings emerge. First, China's agricultural GTFP level generally experiences an upward trend, and the development of the digital economy has a significant positive effect on increasing agricultural GTFP. Second, the digital economy mainly promotes agricultural technology innovation that boosts agricultural GTFP. Third, Western China experiences a more significant positive effect of the digital economy on agricultural GTFP than Central and Eastern China. Finally, based on the findings, this paper proposes relevant policy recommendations to promote green and sustainable agriculture development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the technological innovation efficiency of industrial enterprises above designated size and its influencing factors under the China's economic census industry classification, using the stochastic frontier approach to estimates the innovation efficiency of the 34 industry from 2008 to 2018. Taking the sales revenue of new products as the dependent variable, R&D capital stock and R&D personnel equivalent are taken as the independent variable, control variables are reasonably selected. The characteristics and influencing factors of innovation efficiency between industries are analyzed. The results show that the innovation efficiency of all industries in China is steadily improving, and the difference between industries is gradually narrowing. Industries with high innovation efficiency are related to future competition and national economy and people's livelihood, while industries with low innovation efficiency are concentrated in mining and supply industry. The low input and low output industries are in the majority. The influence of innovation capital input on output is greater than that of personnel input. The proportion of state-owned property rights and capital constraints have a negative effect on innovation output, while the sales income has a positive effect on innovation output. Therefore, China should further improve the innovation efficiency of industrial industries, adopt classified policies, and increase the number of industries with low input and high output. The conclusion of the paper is of reference value to the development of China's 14th five-year industry and the medium and long term planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SMEs' internationalization research focused mainly on measuring their international performance, especially in IT-based and knowledge-intensive industries while little attention was paid to investigating the opportunity-based view of firm internationalization especially in the context of traditional SMES. The main objectives of the present study were twofold. First, building on the opportunity-based view of firm internationalization, this study investigated the international opportunity identification (IOI) and international opportunity exploitation (IOE) among Chinese traditional SMEs. Second, this research examined the direct influence of SMEs managers' adaptive marketing capabilities (AMCs), global mindset (GM), and collaborative intensity (CI) on IOI and IOE with emphasis on the potential moderating influence of environmental dynamism (ED). The initial phase of this research employed exploratory interviews with eight SMEs managers. Exploratory findings showed that Chinese SMEs adopt both entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial internationalization behaviors in identifying and exploiting international opportunities. Later, an empirical investigation using 327 valid responses from managers/founders of traditional internationalized SMEs in China showed that AMCs, GM, and CI had a significant positive influence on both IOI and IOE. Further, ED was found to play a significant moderating impact on the relationship between AMCs and IOI, GM and IOI, and CI and IOE. This paper ends with clarifying a set of theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women are becoming the majority in China's universities and colleges. This study examines gender differences in post-college plans of China's college students under the new social context. Drawing on survey data from college students across 15 universities in Beijing, this study identifies a gendered post-college planning process. Descriptive findings show that the majority of students plan to go to graduate school, while women are less likely to have a graduate school plan and more likely to be unclear about their future than men. Multivariate analyses show that these gender gaps can be partly attributed to women's underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Moreover, family socioeconomic resources and anticipated parenthood timing are associated with post-college plans, and these associations are more pronounced among women. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for research on the formation of gender stratification in education and career in the global context of women's progress in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a globalized environment, a major shock or event can reverberate across tourism interdependent countries over time. This paper aims to empirically examine how economic policy uncertainty (EPU) emanating from a large country may influence inbound and outbound tourism in other countries. Using Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR) model and two alternative measures of EPU, the study finds the modeled effects of EPU are dependent on the source of EPU measures, level of internationalization, and type of trade-weights used. Notably, the results show the "decline-rebound-overshoot" effect of EPU shock on tourism demand, and capture the link between capital flight and outbound travel from China in times of surge in EPU. This research highlights that GVAR is able to capture previously unobserved empirical insights because assessing the international impact of shocks such as economic crises, pandemics, and political instability necessitates accounting for cross-sectional interdependence in tourism flows between many countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female science and technology (S&T) workers have played an increasingly important role in scientific research in China and have made remarkable contributions to that field. Using scientific surveys and publicly available awards data, this paper examines the specific status of female S&T workers, including the workforce structure, their domestic contributions and their international influence. Our analysis reveals the problems encountered by female S&T workers in research output, working time, development opportunities and professional voice, as well as the challenges they face during pregnancy and postnatal nursing. To solve these problems, relevant government departments should introduce more effective steps, respect women's contributions, step up publicity and provide effective assurance policies to promote the long-term and in-depth development of female scientific researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women scientists are an important part of the community of science and technology (S&T) professionals and are an indispensable force in China's S&T undertakings. Using data relating to women scientists from the 'Project on the Collection of Historic Data of Chinese Scientists' Academic Life', this paper reviews the academic growth processes of women scientists in China. It analyses the complex factors that have affected them (such as family background, education, marriage, choice of major, research environment and social culture) and sums up their experiences of success. Finally, specific measures for boosting the status and role of female S&T professionals are proposed based on the realities and problems that they face in their career development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change has caused governments worldwide to take actions to improve their energy efficiency. This paper investigates how China's Top-1000 program, a command-and-control type of energy-saving mandate, has affected the operational choices of firms, and in turn, their profitability. We apply the propensity score matching method to find "identical twins" for the participants in the Top- 1000 program, then conduct a difference-in-differences analysis on the matched sample. Our findings suggest that the profitability of the enterprises targeted for energy savings decreased by one-third, mainly due to increased production costs. The targeted enterprises tended to increase their fixed assets per capita, which was associated with improvements in energy efficiency. Furthermore, compared to similar untargeted enterprises, there was a significant slowdown in the production growths of the targeted enterprises, raising concerns about carbon leakage due to increased production by less efficient producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expanding the supplies of new energy can not only reduce CO2 emissions, but also alleviate energy shortage. This paper applies the quantile regression to investigate the new energy industry in China. The results show that economic growth exerts the greatest effect on the new energy industry in the lower 10th quantile province. This is because these provinces have the developed economies, demand for a higher ecological environment and new energy resources. Foreign energy dependence has a minimal impact on the new energy industry in the 25th-50th quantile province, due to their minimal oil importation. The contribution of technological progress to the upper 90th quantile province is the lowest, because their R&D capabilities are the weakest. The impact of energy consumption structure decreases in steps from the lower 10th quantile provinces to the upper 90th quantile provinces. The agricultural sector promotes the new energy industry in most provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the case building's cooling effect, energy saving, and carbon sequestration with green facade and green roof. The west and east GF is covered with wisteria, and the GR is planted with different kinds of vegetables. The cooling effect of the GF and GR is analyzed by field test. The cooling energy saving of the GF and GR is deeply discussed with EnergyPlus software simulation. Carbon sequestrations of the GF and GR are calculated considering both plant photosynthetic and energy saving with the field test and simulation. The results show that the average external surface temperature reduction of the west GF, east GF, and GR is 4.5°C, 4.2°C, and 9.7°C on sunny days, 1.3°C, 1.3°C, and 1.4°C respectively on cloudy days. The total cooling energy saving of the GF and GR is 4.75 kWh/m2. The cooling energy saving of the GR with seven kinds of vegetables varies from 529.6 to 2936.3 kWh, which is related to the LAI and height of vegetables. The daily cooling energy saving in hot sunny weather scenario is almost three times that in cool sunny. The carbon sequestration ability per planted GF area is 1.4 kg C/m2, and per planted GR area with seven different vegetables varies from 0.88 to 2.21 kg C/m2, in which the strongest is peanut, and the weakest is lettuce. At last, the cooling energy savings of GF in different orientations on hot, warm, and cool sunny days are discussed, which is shown that the cooling energy saving effect of the different oriented GF mainly depends on the received solar radiation amount in this orientation. The results of this research can provide some assistance in improving the design of the building GR and GF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores China's increasing media engagement with Latin American partners. It examines the case of Mundo China (MC), a China-news segment broadcast by the Brazilian news channel BandNews TV and co-produced in partnership with CCTV. By conducting content analysis, we assess how China is presented, contrast the framing of China before and since the partnership agreement, and compare the televised image of China between BandNews TV and other news channels in Brazil. The findings show that MC has assisted in diversifying and balancing the ratio of positive frames in relation to the overall China-related reporting across the broadcasters sampled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyber dating abuse victimization (CDAV) among female adolescents is common and harmful; however, little is known regarding how CDAV relates to victims' experiential avoidance in the Chinese context. Drawing from general strain theory, this cross-sectional study investigated possible differences in the relationships among CDAV, experiential avoidance, and self-compassion according to female adolescents' levels of interpersonal flexibility (low vs. high). A sample of 420 female adolescents aged 13 to 17 years (mean age = 15.78 years) who had been in intimate relationships during the past year participated in a voluntary and anonymous paper-and-pencil survey. Participants completed four self-reported measures on CDAV experience, self-compassion, experiential avoidance, and interpersonal flexibility. The findings indicated that nearly 49% of participants had experienced CDAV in the last year; CDAV exposure was directly linked with experiential avoidance and indirectly related to experiential avoidance through self-compassion. Moderation analyses showed that the negative associations between CDAV and experiential avoidance and self-compassion were only significant among participants with low interpersonal flexibility. These findings deepen the understanding of CDAV as a risk factor for reduced self-compassion and increased experiential avoidance in female adolescents. However, high interpersonal flexibility is a potential protector. This study has implications for the prevention of experiential avoidance among female adolescents exposed to CDAV and supports incorporating self-compassion and interpersonal flexibility skills to combat the negative outcomes of CDAV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities identified the Chinese blind massage policy as "reserved employment" in its Concluding Observations in 2012. In response, this paper reviewed the policy on blind massage in China and discussed its effectiveness and social impact. Methods: Adopting a historical perspective, this paper describes the development stages of the blind massage policy in China. It reveals the social construction process of the blind massage policy. Government data were provided to help analyze the positive and negative effects of the policy according to the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Results: The blind massage policy is a national strategy involving semi-reserved employment to improve the low employment rate of people with visual impairments in China. It promoted employment of people with visual impairments at the start, but, as the system of the blind massage gradually took shape, it restricted these individuals from choosing a career freely. The blind massage policy has resulted in deep-rooted social prejudices, and it demonstrates disability-based discrimination and charity-oriented practices. Discussion: The Chinese blind massage policy is discriminatory and does not reflect the modern concept of disability rights advocated in the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Implications for Practitioners: The Chinese government needs to promote institutional reforms to provide better education and employment for people with visual impairments to change the limited content of vocational training and eliminate discriminatory policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]