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During 1980, many Western countries launched public administration reforms. These reform waves also blew over to many Asian countries. With the advent of globalization and the rise of knowledge-based society, education and innovation are regarded as the driving forces behind social and economic growth and development. To enhance the national capacity, education reforms have also become common agendas among nation states since the 1980s. This paper aims at critically reviewing and comparing major policies and strategies of the higher education reform adopted by the respective government in Greater China, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan and Singapore. The key research questions are why these countries attempted to reform their higher education and if these countries achieve the desired results and comply with good governance. In this paper, four areas, "Rule of Law," "Transparency," "Effectiveness," and "Accountability" are evaluated to examine how these selected cases' governance in higher education have been implemented in the past 30 years.

Like all organisations, good governance is a fundamental requirement for the responsible and accountable management of universities in general and open universities in particular. This is to ensure that these (open) universities remain relevant to their mission of facilitating unfettered access to higher education for citizens and at the same time continue being reliable contributors to personal and institutional developments, the vital ingredients to maintaining sustained national development. While several studies have, in the past, been conducted on governance of universities, almost all of them have centred around conventional, face-to-face institutions. Not much published literature is in evidence on the governance of Open Universities. This paper, drawing from a study on the governance of a few open universities in Asia, tries to discuss the nature of their challenges, and the lessons that can be drawn from their practices and experience. The study focused on aspects relating to institutional autonomies such as curriculum, budgeting and financial management, admission standards, conferment of qualifications, academic staff appointments, development and promotions and research policies. Our findings indicate that, similar to conventional systems, the state plays a crucial role in many aspects of governance both in publicly funded and privately supported institutions. Recent attempts at governance transformation towards greater institutional autonomies is beginning to show limited changes in some but not all jurisdictions studied.

There is a huge funding gap in the abandoned mines ecological restoration in China. It is of great research value to explore how PPP model can better introduce social capital into the low-profit ecological restoration of abandoned mines. Based on the innovation perspective of the central government's reward and punishment system, this paper constructs an evolutionary game model of "local government-social capital", analyzes the interaction and behavior mechanism of core stakeholders in the operation process of abandoned mines ecological restoration PPP mode, and discusses the influence of evolutionary equilibrium strategy and parameters change on evolutionary strategy under different scenarios by Matlab simulation. The research shows that the abandoned mines ecological restoration needs the support of the central government. When the local government lightly punishes the low-quality service of social capital, the central government needs to pay higher costs to promote all parties to actively participate in the operation and supervision of the PPP project. The revenue and cost of government supervision, the operating subsidy for social capital and the cost saved by social capital in providing bad service are the key factors affecting the evolution of the game between government and social capital. Punishment can effectively spur social capital to keep the contract and operate in the project, but the punishment effect will be ineffective without government supervision. Finally, some suggestions are put forward, such as establishing a long-term supervision mechanism and a reasonable income mechanism for PPP projects, increasing penalties for violations, attracting third parties to reduce supervision costs and strengthening communication between the two parties, so as to make the project take into account the economic performance of social capital and the social welfare of government departments, and achieve dual Pareto improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

The incomplete enforcement of environmental regulations in China is a serious issue in environmental protection affairs, and this paper attempts to provide a new explanation for its prevalence from the perspective of strategic interaction. Under Chinese decentralization, environmental regulations are seen by local governments as a tool to compete for scarce resources, which leads to strategic interactions between regions. Therefore, under the theoretical framework of regional policy spillovers, this paper examines the strategic interaction behavior of local governments in environmental regulation with a spatial econometric approach research methodology based on panel data of 29 Chinese provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) from 2015 to 2019, taking spatial interdependence and the strategic interaction relationship of local governments as the entry point. The study finds that the intensity of environmental regulation in a region is not only related to the characteristics of the region, but also related to the intensity of environmental regulation in competing provinces, and there is a significant strategic interaction of environmental regulation behavior between regions, which is manifested as complementary spatial strategies. If the neighboring provinces invest more in environmental regulation, the region will also strengthen its level of environmental regulation accordingly, showing the contagiousness of non-complete enforcement of environmental regulation. At the same time, the complementary strategic interaction behavior of environmental regulation between regions has weakened since 2017, which highlights the role of green environmental performance assessment. Based on this, this paper proposes to provide a policy reference to avoid the environmental regulation enforcement dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the concept of rhetorical agency to understand and analyse the parallel and paradoxical agencies teachers are offered, and limited by, under discourses of globalisation within education. The paper identifies typical arguments, reactions, narratives and metaphors of globalisation. It discusses some of the consequences these have on the premises of teacher agencies locally, nationally and globally. The article raises normative questions on the kind of agencies that are necessary for teachers in an open and glocalised world. It suggests new interpretations of the "bildung" tradition as a constructive rhetorical agency to respond to and balance the needs of local, national and global interest in education.

After nearly forty years of development, China's land consolidation policies (CLCP) have become an important tool for promoting rural revitalization and sustainable development. However, as a major land management policy, there is still a lack of quantitative evaluation research on its text. This paper establishes an evaluation system for CLCP using text analysis and the PMC-Index model. Based on a reasonable definition of the connotation of land consolidation, this paper collects 313 related policies issued by China's central government from 1982 to 2022, using text analysis to sort out the characteristics of issuance time, policy types, issuing institutions, and cooperation networks. By combining the outcomes of text mining with the previous research results to set evaluation indicators for the PMC-Index model, it distinguishes between comprehensive policies and specialized policies and separately evaluates them. Then, the PMC-Surface is established to clearly display the calculation results. The results show that the evaluation scores of comprehensive policies and specialized policies showed an upward trend over time. This indicates that the content of CLCP is constantly being enriched and expanded. The evaluation scores for different dimensions of comprehensive policies are relatively balanced, whereas there are significant differences in the evaluation scores of various dimensions of specialized policies. Both comprehensive policies and specialized policies have weaknesses in policy functions, incentives and constraints, and implementation guarantees, so improvements may be needed in these areas in the future. This study provides valuable insights into the advantages and disadvantages of a single land consolidation policy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important means of environmental regulation, environmental punishment lacks in empirical evidence on its impact on regional green technology innovation in China. Based on panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2020, this paper systematically examines the relationship between environmental punishment and regional green technology innovation. It is found that environmental punishment has the quantity and quality enhancing effects on regional green technology innovation, and the quantity enhancing effect is greater than the quality enhancing effect. There is no significant effect difference between monetary punishment and non monetary punishment on green technology innovation effect, but the effect of punishment on institutions is obviously greater than that of punishment on individuals. And the performance of ecological provinces and provinces with better legal environment is also relatively better. Environmental punishment enhances the quantity and quality of green technology innovation through pressure, and improves the quality of green technology innovation through deterrence. Besides, in China, deterrence promotes regional green technology innovation together with the Central Government's environmental protection inspection, the national green manufacturing strategies and other policies concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is one of the largest challenges facing mankind, and the question of how to reduce carbon emissions has raised extensive concern all over the world. However, due to the lack of mechanisms to explain the impact of political factors on environmental regulatory tools, the evaluation of carbon emissions reduction is insufficient in the majority of previous studies. How to better explore the path of carbon emissions reduction has become the key for China to achieve carbon neutralization as soon as possible. Based on a quasi-natural experiment regarding China's carbon emission trading policy, this paper adopts a difference-in-differences model to address the impact of political mobility on China's carbon emissions trading policy, and the selected pilot and non-pilot provinces of this policy in China enabled the model to be matched. Using a panel database with 30 provincial administrative units as the observation objects, the results show that China's carbon emissions trading policy and the horizontal mobility experience of the provincial governors exert a significant positive effect on carbon emission reduction. Additionally, this study identifies a latent factor previously ignored by the existing literature: the correlation between political factors and carbon emissions. This verifies our theoretical hypothesis that officials transferred from the provincial level tend to have higher performance regarding carbon emission reduction. This paper also provides suggestions for the central government to further plan and implement carbon emission reduction policies and mobilize the incentives of local officials in environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural entrepreneurship has been seen by the central government of China as a key means to rural vitalization. However, research focus on the long-term developmental status of rural entrepreneurship at local scale has been limited. According to industry types of differentiation, this research describes rural enterprises registered in the administrative area of Mianyang, southwest China, from 2011 to 2020. The spatial-temporal distribution rule of rural entrepreneurship is explored via a quantitative approach focused on spatial analysis and correlation analysis, as well as the application of geocoding on web data. How contexts such as the natural base, socio-economic condition, and institutional arrangements impact this distribution are empirically explored and discussed. The paper adds spatial-temporal insights into the role of the context of rural entrepreneurship. In particular, the paper highlights that rural entrepreneurship is a process potentially best explored at the regional scale and that physical condition and institutional support play central roles in rural entrepreneurship in southwest China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Chinese Central Government has put great emphasis on the marine economy, since it has been a new driving force of the national economic development. Yet, the relationship between marine economic development and energy efficiency remains unknown. In this paper, we investigate whether marine economic development affected energy efficiency. We focused on the Zhoushan Archipelago, the first National New Area for marine economic development in China. We applied panel data approach to construct the counterfactual of Zhoushan Archipelago. We compared Zhoushan and its counterfactual, the synthetic Zhoushan, and viewed the difference between them, after the Zhoushan Archipelago New Area, as the impact of marine economic development on energy efficiency. We found that compared with its counterfactual, the real Zhoushan had a more substantial improvement in energy efficiency after the National New Area construction. We estimated that the construction of the National New Area for Marine Economy increased energy efficiency by about 10 percentage points. We also applied the bootstrapping technique to illustrate the significance of the estimated results. The results suggest that the Zhoushan Archipelago New Area construction had a statistically significant impact on energy efficiency. In addition, we conducted two tests, including leave-one-out tests and permutation tests, to check the robustness of estimated results, which also serve as an illustration of significance of the estimated results from an alternative empirical perspective. The results from these two tests are similar to each other, both indicating that the Zhoushan Archipelago New Area construction had a statistically significant positive impact on energy efficiency. Overall, our results suggest that marine economic development had a sizable improvement in energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-efficiency is a key indicator to measure the level of regional sustainable development. The county is the basic spatial unit of socio-economic activities and sustainable policy implementation in China. Hence, this paper conducts eco-efficiency analysis at the county scale in order to provide reference for the central and local governments to formulate differentiated eco-efficiency enhancement policies, further promote Chinese ecological sustainable development, and advance the construction of ecological civilization with high quality. Based on the Super-Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model and the Malmquist index, the paper constructed an eco-efficiency measurement method and analyzed the variation characteristics, influencing factors, spatial pattern of eco-efficiency in Chinese counties from 2000 to 2020. The results showed that: (1) The eco-efficiency of the county unit was generally low in China and was roughly distributed in a pyramid. The county-level eco-efficiency had a spatial distribution pattern of being high in the west and low in the east, and high in the south and low in the north, with significant non-equilibrium. There was a positive correlation between eco-efficiency of neighboring counties in China. (2) The per-capita GDP has a significant positive correlation with eco-efficiency, while energy consumption, arable land area and eco-efficiency have a negative correlation. The redundancy rate of input indicators was high in Chinese counties. (3) During the study period, the eco-efficiency of most counties displayed a fluctuating growth trend. The growth was mainly driven by technological progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades of rapid development, China has always attached great importance to the redevelopment of rural areas. Since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the rural revitalization strategy proposed at the meeting has always received extensive attention. In 2019, the Chinese central government released a document on its rural revitalization strategy. In the document, Guizhou Province was listed as a key area to receive focus on pursuing rural revitalization. Meanwhile, the Guizhou government also formulated The Implementation Opinions on the People's Government of Guizhou Province's Rural Revitalization Strategy. The aim of this paper is to try to establish a model according to the rural revitalization strategy proposed by the Guizhou government and extracts the main influencing factors from its analysis. Through the analysis of the data collected during the process of the rural revitalization, the paper undertakes a deep analysis of the evaluation and studies an optimized approach to the revitalization to provide a referenced review for other villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of Chinese real estate market shifted from eco nomic fundamentals to non-fundamentals, but consensus conclusions are still rarely reached. This is because institutional perspectives and national subjects are still lacking. Based on critical realistic approach, this paper integrates a state–society relationship and institution provision, constructing an analytical framework for the role of state capacity in the institutional construction of the real estate market. In terms of the intervention of the state on actors in the Chinese real estate market, the central government influences local governments, interest groups, and society at large through its administrative, extracting, and market service capacities, respectively, forming a chain of interests that serves the state–society relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author investigates rural Chinese citizens' encounters of structural and institutional inequalities and social (im)mobility. The author addresses social (im)mobility from a holistic perspective (i.e., in institutional, occupational, social, educational, cultural and political dimensions). In this regard, the author explores if a range of parental disadvantages serve as significant hindrances to the acquisition of social mobilising opportunities among the next generations in rural Chinese contexts. Here a holistic presentation helps understand the nuanced relationship between institutional barriers (i.e., rural hukou status) and alternative obstacles to social mobility; and explore, in part, how parental inheritance of rural hukou status would bar individuals' from socially mobilising and result in some forms of unsustainability. Previous research on China restrictively measures social (im)mobility from limited perspectives, failing to fully and accurately reflect the extent of social (im)mobility Chinese populations face. This paper is a comprehensive literature review where relevant Chinese literature, exclusively found in the e-library system of the University of Cambridge, is included and thoroughly discussed. Articles that include the keywords of "hukou", "China", "social mobility" and (a) "economic", (b) "social", (c) "cultural", (d) "linguistic" or (e) "political" are extensively studied, in a hope to understand the existing scholarship on multifaceted social (im)mobility in Chinese contexts. The author argues that, despite the 2014 hukou reform, further loosening the requirements for rural-to-urban hukou conversion should be prioritised by the Central Government of China in order to ensure the rural-urban divide and structural and institutional inequalities rural hukou holders face can curtain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the rise and fall of the Administrative Bureau of Prohibited Drugs in 1920s Shanghai. It identifies the factors associated with the endeavours of the central government to experiment with establishing a Bureau dedicated to regulating refined drugs and the reasons why the Bureau operated for just about two years. It argues that the concerns regarding the widespread of refined drugs and the expected profits of regulating the business pushed the central government to experiment establishing the Bureau. Moreover, this experiment was a tool with which the Beiyang government aimed to centralise its authorities on the issue of drug control. However, the room for manoeuvring the Bureau was limited, mainly because of the resilience of the drug economy and the politicised regulations. Struggling in the narrow space between the colonial powers, the merchant groups, and the local authorities acting under the influence of warlords, the Bureau was doomed to be short-lived. Its history reveals the resilience of both licit and illicit drug economy and the power struggles that resulted from efforts to regulate refined drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The promulgation of the Supervision Law in China reflects the central government's determination to combat 'corruption' at a new level. The National Supervisory Commission was established as an independent commission with broad-ranging supervisory powers, along with other supervisory commissions at local level. While these commissions' jurisdiction over 'dutyrelated crimes' is prescribed in detail by law, what 'duty-related violations' are and how the commissions supervise them remain blind spots in the Supervision Law. This article argues that such ambiguities can lead to politicisation of the 'anti-corruption' mission. Moreover, the present threefold litigation system in China has not stipulated judicial reviews of the supervisory commissions' power and has instead left the question to judicial construction. This paper analyses supervision-related administrative judgments from 2018 to 2021 to summarise the three channels through which supervisory commissions can become involved in administrative litigation, yet none of them support the undertaking of judicial review. In this respect, the vague definition of duty-related violations, combined with the lack of an effective judicial review mechanism, can have adverse effects on the rule of law project that China has been striving to build over the past four decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore recent national human resource development (NHRD) practices in China through a literature review focusing on programs and activities that represent the roles and interactions among the government, industry and universities. Design/methodology/approach: To effectively consolidate previous work and conceptualize the recent development of the NHRD practices in China, a semi-narrative literature review was used to explore and analyze NHRD-related functions and activities. Findings: Findings from the literature review showed that although the central government still plays a predominant role in China, universities and corporations are increasingly playing a critical role in developing an innovative and skilled workforce. At the regional level, NHRD initiatives in China have been increasingly undertaken by universities, industry and government–industry–university collaborations. The authors also found a disparity between developed and underdeveloped regions in terms of NHRD in China. Research limitations/implications: This study used the triple helix model as a framework that provides an insightful lens for researchers to examine how various social entities interact with each other and jointly contribute to NHRD. Further case studies are needed to generate evidence-based knowledge to the NHRD literature. Practical implications: A more systematic NHRD leadership structure at both the national and local level is desired to unleash the potential of bottom-up development and active government–industry–university collaboration. To counter regional divergence in NHRD in China, intra- and cross-regional collaborations are helpful in improving resources distribution and workforce development. Originality/value: Based on open system theory, this study focused on programs and activities that represent the roles and interactions among the government, industry and university in Chinese NHRD through the lens of the triple helix model. In addition, this study offers a conceptual model of Chinese NHRD to help scholars and practitioners understand the transitional efforts in NHRD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land planning plays an important role in the economic and social development of a developing country, such as China. Studies have started to focus on the topic of central and local relations in land planning systems; however, the picture of central–local relations presented by different studies has not been classified and distinguished. From the perspectives of structure, process, and culture, this paper reviews recent studies on the relationship between central and local governments in land planning governance and summarizes the existing research status and shortcomings, aiming to point out directions for future research. The results indicate that (1) existing studies provide a simple sketch of central–local relations, focusing on the structural and process perspectives and paying less attention to the cultural perspective; (2) the points of view among these studies conflict, leading to a lack of systematic theory and consensus regarding central–local relations in land planning; and (3) the process perspective is currently a hot topic that involves issues of central and local behavior, such as land planning execution, planning policy innovation, and public goods provision, but studies do not adopt an in-depth methodology. Therefore, we suggest that future research should be developed in four dimensions, namely the construction of a conceptual model, the expansion of existing theories, the application of new methods, and the integration of research perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of 18th and 19th CPC Central Committees' reforms on "social governance," this paper will explore subsequent developments in local governance in China. This is an appropriate focus because earlier research has largely tended to overlook the different ways that local governments behave in balancing the requirements of upper-level, national government with the needs and will of society. By using interviews and participant observation to examine the case of Xicheng District Beijing, this paper finds that, when local government faces pressure from central government, it tends to downplay consideration of the people's voice and instead it uses monetary compensation to appease people's anger at not being listened to. However, when local government is afforded more freedom, it is more likely to try and address people's needs and demands and reconcile these with central government's plan, so as to balance the needs of the two. The analysis of the post-2012 reforms identifies three Project Types to illustrate different approaches to local governance. Owing to government's dominant role, Types One and Two are more akin to what empowerment theory dubs "collaborative betterment." In contrast, Type Three projects give local communities far greater say in determining policy priorities and implementation methods. For this reason, they broadly resonate with the notion of "collaborative empowerment," although ultimately government remains a veto-player. A further key finding is that local governance is not only shaped by the central government's plan, nor the demands of society, but to a significant degree, by the mediating role of local government officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The local government bond system of China has experienced a series of changes from its initial creation to its abolition and then to a recovery again. During the period, the central government always dominated the changing direction of the local government bond system. However, as fiscal decentralization reform has progressed, the institutional needs of local governments and investors have gradually gained attention. As a result, the size and variety of local government bonds are expanding. Through the introduction of analysis of system change based on situation structure performance (SSP), this paper uses Machine Learning (ML) approaches to predict the risk of government debt of China in the context of changing the local government bond system. Besides, this research work includes the comprehensive weight assignment for government debt hazard, fiscal revenue forecasting, default risk calculation, and finally an analysis of the validity of government debt hazard. The system may provide financial signal advice and strategy reference for dealing with hazards in early payment, organizing debt repayment significance order, optimizing fiscal revenue and cost structure, and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The security of medical insurance fund is very important to health equity. In China, the expenditure of medical insurance fund has increased sharply year after year, and the balance of local medical insurance fund is difficult to sustain. To realize the equitable distribution of the medical insurance burden, the central government has to continuously increase transfer payments, which causes regional unfairness in the distribution of central financial resources. This paper explores the influence of central transfer payments on the balance of medical insurance fund, influential mechanisms, and the strategic behavior of local governments. Methods: First, we constructed a dynamic game model between central government and local governments and analyzed the mechanism of central transfer payments affecting the balance of local medical insurance fund. Then, based on the provincial panel data of 28 provincial administrative regions in China from 2004 to 2014, an empirical test was made. The spatial regression model was constructed, and the transfer payments obtained by neighboring provinces in the previous year were taken as instrumental variables. Results: Central transfer payments led to strategic behaviors by local governments that resulted in increased local health insurance fund expenditures and lower balance rates. Moreover, the central transfer payments demonstrated "path dependence". Central transfer payments had a significant negative influence on the local NCMS fund balance rate. The local government subsidy and per capita GDP had a significant positive impact on the local NCMS fund balance rate. The obtained transfer payments of local governments had a significant space correlation. This study based on NCMS data remains valid. Conclusions: Central transfer payments induced the strategic behavior of local governments, which neglected to supervise the expenditure of medical insurance fund, reducing the efficiency of medical insurance fund management and use. The financial resources of medical insurance fund are unevenly distributed among provinces. Measures such as strengthening the supervision ability and initiatives of local governments, refining the central transfer payment mechanism, promoting the economic growth of western regions, and increasing rates for individual contributions appropriately can ensure that the medical insurance fund are used well and distributed equitably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is the foundation of every country's survival and development. This paper analyzes the interaction between the business environment, agricultural opening-up and high-quality agricultural economy from the perspective of China's provinces. According to the panel data of 31 provinces and municipalities in China from 2009 to 2019, the empirical analysis was carried out based on the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model. The results show that there is a quantitative interaction between China's business environment, agricultural opening-up and high-quality agricultural development, and the long-term time effect is very obvious. Specifically, (1) the impact of the business environment and the high-quality development of agriculture on itself is decreasing year by year. The agriculture opening-up itself has a strong impact and has always maintained strong stability. (2) The high-quality development of the agricultural economy has little impact on the business environment and the opening of agriculture to the outside world, but it has a certain stable and continuous effect. It is particularly important that the agricultural opening-up has an increasingly strong effect on the business environment and the high-quality development of the agricultural economy as time progresses. Therefore, we must always adhere to the agriculture opening-up. The regional business environment and the agriculture opening-up can jointly promote the high-quality development of the agricultural economy. The research results can provide a basis and reference for the central and local governments to formulate relevant agricultural development policies and provide a reference for relevant agricultural economic entities and enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the installed capacity of wind power is greatly affected by the subsidy policy, this paper predicts the installed wind power capacity in China under different policy scenarios. Firstly, a new two-parameter variable-weight buffer operator is proposed to quantify the impact of the policy shock, whose optimal parameters are obtained by the genetic algorithm, and combined with the grey GM(1,1) model to predict the installed capacity of wind power in China under the cessation of subsidy policy. Then, the GM(1,1) model with optimized background value is used to predict the installed capacity under continued subsidy. Finally, two policy subsidy strategy models are constructed based on the forecast data to simulate the future trend of wind power installed capacity under different subsidy policies and explore the strength of wind power subsidies in China during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period (2021–2025). The results show that both the GM(1,1) model based on the two-parameter variable-weight buffer operator and the GM(1,1) model with optimized background value have high fitting accuracy, with errors of 0.15% and 4.93%, respectively. Furthermore, in the case of the central government's subsidy cancellation, the local government should take over the central government's subsidy policy and adjust the subsidy intensity to 0.57–1 times of that during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period (2015–2020) to achieve the national planning target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, although coal mine accidents in China have decreased, they still occur frequently. Most previous studies on the evolutionary game of safety mining are limited to a focus on system dynamics and two-party game problems and lack a spatial graphic analysis of strategy evolution. The parameters adopted are too few, and the influencing factors considered are too simple. The purpose of the paper is to introduce more parameters to study which will have an important impact on the strategy choices of participants and the evolution path of the strategy over time. We construct a tripartite evolutionary game model of coal mining enterprises, local governments, and central governments. As our method, a payment matrix of participants and replicated dynamic equations is established, and we also implement parameter simulation in MATLAB. In summary, we found that the reward and punishment mechanism plays an important role in safe coal mining. Specifically, (1) intensifying rewards and penalties for coal mining enterprises and local governments will help encourage coal mining enterprises to implement safe production measures and local governments to implement central government safety supervision policies. However, increased rewards will reduce central government's willingness to adopt incentive strategies. (2) The central government's reward for coal mining enterprises' safe production must be greater than the increased cost of safe production to encourage enterprises to implement such production. Economic incentives for local governments must be greater than the benefits of rent-seeking; only then will local governments choose to strictly implement supervision policies. (3) Increasing sales revenue and rent-seeking costs of coal mining enterprises can also encourage them to implement safe production. Therefore, a well-designed reward and punishment mechanism will change the behaviour of coal enterprises and improve the probability of safe production. The research presented in this paper further works on improving safe coal mining production and designing reasonable reward and punishment mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, the promulgation of the Supervision Law in China professed the central government's determination to combat 'corruption' at a new level. By putting 'all public officials exerting public powers' under supervision, these newlyestablished supervisory commissions have unified the dual-track and dual-leadership supervision system that came into force since 1954. In this respect, some have argued that the supervision reform is a step forward toward promoting the Rule of Law in China. However, this paper argues that there are some key ambiguities to be clarified in this law, especially with regard to non-typical corruptions - the vaguely-defined supervised object of 'duty-related violations'. By comparing this notion with similar concepts in other countries, particularly the 'maladministration' under the jurisdiction of an ombudsman, this paper suggests that the supervisory power for anticorruption needs to be checked by other state powers so as not to degenerate into a new discretionary power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on basic organizational theories, this paper revisits studies about intergovernmental relationships in China and proposes a systematic explanation framework from the perspective of the allocation mechanism of authority and accountability. The institutional feature of government organization is unfolded from two dimensions, authority and accountability. In China, the authority and accountability of different hierarchies are strongly related but not clearly defined. Theories such as 'Federalism, Chinese Style' are the basis for different conditions. The trade-off between control and incentive, specification, and coordination should be given more consideration with optimal analyses. As the main accountability practicing mechanism, Cadre management from upper-layer hierarchies greatly affects the allocation mechanism between different hierarchies. However, the tournament theory about promotion lacks vision, empirical bases, and explanation power. This paper studies the project system from an organizational perspective and indicates that the subcontracting form differs from regional decentralization, which accentuates interdepartmental competition and expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between human behaviour and vulnerability is interactive, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. This paper analyses vulnerability and human behaviour in the core areas of Qilian Mountains National Park, which is located in Qilian and Sunan counties. We used the vulnerability index and grey correlation degree methods to analyse the data. The results show that from 2005 to 2017, the vulnerability degree in the Qilian Mountain area decreased gradually (Qilian County vulnerability decreased from 0.0357 to − 0.2237, and Sunan County vulnerability decreased from 0.1428 to − 0.4489). In 2017, the degree had reached its lowest value due to central and local government policy (− 0.2237 and − 0.4489). Considering that human behaviour contributed to the vulnerability degree, we find that land use and agricultural development mode, the acceleration of industrialisation and changes in the spatial patterns of human activities, and the development of urbanization and changes in resident identities are the main concepts driving the relationship between human behaviour and vulnerability. The innovative assessment indicators developed in this study can be applied to thoroughly explore the relationship between human behaviour and vulnerability and to find the influencing factors. Under certain conditions, this approach can be applied to vulnerability research in specific countries and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the stress effect of cross-regional transfer of resource-exhausted enterprises from eastern China to central and Western China. A tripartite evolutionary game model including the central government, the local government of the operation recipient region, and the resource-exhausted transfer enterprises is established under the assumption of limited rationality. By analysing the evolutionary equilibrium and using MATLAB, for example, analysis, the relationship between equilibrium probability and various parameters, as well as the key influencing factors of equilibrium strategy were explored. The research shows, first, that the degree of punishment imposed by the central government on the local governments, the implementation of regulation by the local governments, and the amount of rewards/punishments implemented by the local governments for transfer enterprises are the key factors affecting evolutionary stability. Second, it shows that the local governments' penalty for transfer enterprises has a significant impact on the convergence speed of enterprises' strategic choice to "Completely Control Pollution." Finally, from the perspective of the relationships between the central government and the local governments, as well as with transfer enterprises, countermeasures and suggestions are put forward to effectively prevent the stress effect of the cross-regional transfer behaviour of resource-exhausted enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing emphasis on sustainable development, green policies have become a crucial factor influencing both environmental pollution and the career progression of officials in China and other countries. However, the mechanisms behind this relationship remain unclear. This paper aims to enhance the understanding of how environmental pollution impacts official promotion by analyzing the performance of provincial leaders in China and their incentives to address pollution. Using provincial panel data from 1998 to 2020 and a probit model, our study uncovers significant findings. We demonstrate that the intensified green attention by China's central government has notably reduced the promotion prospects for provincial officials with poor environmental protection records, particularly since 2013. Furthermore, our research extends the analysis of micro-level mechanisms, illustrating how the central government's political incentives effectively influence local environmental governance. This study underscores the central government's capability to leverage its personnel system to achieve desired outcomes in sustainable development. • Analysis unveils incentives for provincial governors to tackle pollution issues. • Green attention from top leadership lowers promotion chances for officials with poor environmental records. • Impact is stronger during periods of heightened national environmental awareness. • Central government's green attention influences local leaders' priorities towards quality or quantity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reveals the contemporary Chinese state's active role in shaping the country's religion-related intangible cultural heritage (ICH) safeguarding, through a systematic review of China's official inventories of national representative ICH projects and extensive investigations of relevant local practices and initiatives. Although China is ruled by a political party officially embracing an atheist ideology, various elements of the contemporary Chinese state have been proactively involved in safeguarding religion-related ICH. The Chinese state's involvement in de facto religion-related ICH safeguarding predates its adoption of explicit ICH safeguarding narratives. Still, the Chinese state's practices and initiatives in safeguarding religion-related ICH flourished after ratifying the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2004. Since then, China's central government has established a nationwide framework to recognise representative ICH items, including religion-related ones. Beyond Beijing, various local state agencies have also developed noticeable enthusiasm for supporting the safeguarding of religion-related ICH. In addition to engaging directly with ICH safeguarding, the contemporary Chinese state has also shaped China's religion-related ICH by working closely with some academics and religious groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a significant decision support tool, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has been legally necessitated since 2003 when the Environmental Impact Assessment Law of the P.R. China was put into effect. However, the different national development targets and the social and economic development gaps between the western region and the eastern region of China greatly influence the SEA implementation. This paper demonstrates the differences in the SEA implementation between the western region and the eastern region of China and discusses the reasons for the disparities. Reviewing government policies and conducting in-depth interviews are selected as the two main research methods. The disparities of SEA implementation existing in intervention time, alternatives, public participation, and monitoring are presented. The differences are caused by the impacts of local SEA regulations and policies, institutions and experts, public attitudes, local government attitudes, strength of Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB), funding, national government strategies, and policies and regulations of environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central-local relation is a critical but overlooked perspective for understanding China's land system. During the last decades, the central government has decentralized considerable autonomy of land development to local governments to encourage the latter to adopt their advantages in local information for economic growth. However, the local government pursues more development-oriented goals, leading land to be an endowment for jurisdiction competition, fiscal revenue maximization, and officials' career advancement at the local level. The discretion of local government, however, is constrained by the central authority. Land quotas, land approval, and, perhaps most importantly, nomenklatura, all of which are controlled by the central government, undermine the credibility and irreversibility of decentralization. We call such a central-local relation limited decentralization, a framework that could be applied to explain a range of land issues such as farmland protection and real estate regulation. Although we believe the central government is the principal determinant of the degree of decentralization, we also acknowledge that the initiative of local governments is essential. The interactions between central and local governments result in rights definition, power distribution, and, consequently, land use policy change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest policy classification is critical to conducting comparisons and understanding performance variations across cases. Chinese-style forest policy has been in a black box to many outsiders, who tend to assume a decentralization policy model due to a great diversity of forest and socio-economic conditions in China. To test this hypothesis, we used the policy prescriptiveness framework to classify on-the-ground forest practice policies in central government and eight provinces, covering extensive territorial variations. We found that the eight subnational cases that implemented local policies appeared to be consistent with central policies, but there were also subtle differences within them. Our findings show that China utilized centralized and top-down policy models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government promulgated the National Nutrition Plan 2017–2030 to provide scientific guidance for agrifood consumption and enhance nutrition intake. We categorized the sample into pre-2018 and post-2018 periods. By evaluating the effects of the National Nutrition Plan 2017–2030 through economic theory and a translog revenue function model based on financial statement data from 2015 to 2022, our findings indicate that the National Nutrition Plan 2017–2030 has increased the overall agrifood sales of listed agrifood enterprises, but the increase in agrifood sales produced by large listed agrifood enterprises has been slight. Finally, we offer policy recommendations for regulatory authorities and develop strategies for agrifood firms to encourage local food procurement. This study also contributes to our understanding of China's agrifood industry dynamics and underscores the significance of the National Nutrition Plan 2017–2030 in enhancing nutritional intake and fostering sustainable growth in China's agriculture industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comparative assessment of fiscal decentralization in China and India, including the standard components of expenditure and revenue assignments and institutions for intergovern-mental transfers, as well as the nature of sub-national authorities over general economic activity. In particular, the case of China, where town and village enterprises have been very active, is contrasted with that of India, where local governments remain circumscribed in their authority, despite decentralizing reforms. The implications of differences in decentralization for fiscal outcomes and economic growth are discussed. The characterization of each country in terms of concepts of federalism, i.e., competitive, cooperative and market preserving federalism, is discussed, in attempting to abstract from the two cases to more general lessons for fiscal decentralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of this paper is that governments of some otherwise enlightened states are increasingly fearful of acknowledging the restraints imposed on them by existing international law. They are also reluctant to enter into new commitments by way of international conventions that would expand the reach of international law. The paper asks whether these fears are based on a true understanding of international law or on some distorted view of it. It will draw comparisons and some contrasts between Australia and the United States in their reactions to a number of recent events as well as to some enduring situations of contemporary relevance. Had time (and the limits of my research) permitted, one might also have examined public attitudes toward international law in China, Japan, and Russia in this context, where similar fears appear to be entertained. France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, also enlightened states, appear by contrast to belong to a group more dedicated to international law. As Robert Kagan has recently remarked, the experience of two world wars at close quarters, and the formation of the European Union, have made the European countries more dedicated to process, where the United States is more interested in results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the policy to replace the business tax with a value-added tax was launched, local finance has encountered greater difficulties. In recent years, the economic downward pressure has made the dilemma far more serious. Some scholars, even from state level, showed some intentions of recommending that the consumption tax should be changed from the current central tax to a local tax or a shared tax to relieve the pressure of local governments. In this paper, we proved by presenting recent year's tax figures of business, consumption, and local and central fiscals and their growth rate that replacing the consumption tax with a local tax does not exactly correspond to the trend of China's reform of the financial system, the functional orientation of the consumption tax, and the nature of the consumption tax itself and may trigger some problems, and it may still be a better choice for the consumption tax to serve as a central tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competition and cooperation in the environmental governance of cities are popular around the world. However, empirical research based on the prefecture-level city level in China is rare. Since the central government of China proposed to strengthen the construction of ecological civilization, whether there are strategic interactions of "race to the bottom" or "race to the top" among local governments is an important issue of academic and public interest. This paper constructs a game-theoretic model to reveal the strategic interactions of environmental governance among local governments. And then, based on the data of 221 prefecture-level cities collected from 2007 to 2018, the spatial econometric model is used to conduct multi-dimensional testing "race to the bottom" behavior of environmental protection expenditure among local governments. Moreover, this paper further analyses the impact of performance assessment indicators on the strategic interactions of local governments, so as to provide policy reference for improving environmental public welfare. Empirical results suggest that local governments in China show strategic imitation in environmental protection spending decisions, which is manifested as "race to the bottom", and this behavior is gradually weakening with the strengthening of environmental protection assessment. Furthermore, environmental performance indicators relieve the government's strategic imitation, while economic performance indicators intensify the government's strategy imitation. Thus, reasonable performance evaluation indicators are conducive to benign strategic interaction among governments. Finally, the current environmental protection expenditure has not yet significantly affected pollution reduction, providing new evidence for the "race to the bottom" behavior of local governments. Based on the findings of our study, the central government should optimize the performance evaluation system of local officials and strengthen the implementation of the environmental supervision system and accountability mechanism. Meanwhile, the local governments should further increase environmental protection expenditure, and enhance the supervision and utilization efficiency of environmental protection funds. • Strategic interaction among 221 prefecture-level cities in China was multi-dimensionally studied. • It has been found that China's local governments have strategic imitation as "race to the bottom". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, one of the most important and innovative policy initiatives introduced by the Chinese government in the field of environmental protection and ecological civilization construction is the Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI). CEPI is seen as a vital tool to encourage local implementation of environmental protection responsibility. Over the course of its operation (eight years), CEPI has transformed from the "campaign" phase to the "convention" phase. It is noted that while provincial governments face a common high-pressure environment created by CEPI, governance scenarios, behaviors, and performance vary across the country significantly. To better understand local governments' environmental governance behaviors under the transformation of CEPI, an integrated analysis framework consisting of two key elements, "central dominance" and "local proactiveness", is constructed based on the central-local interactions under the principal-agent model. Based on this framework, we conducted a multi-case comparative analysis of four classic cases, with the following findings. (1) Along with the operation of CEPI and its transformation, the interaction between the central and local governments leads to four governance scenarios: "control-active cooperation", "control-passive cooperation", "guidance-active promotion", and "guidance-passive promotion". (2) Influenced by various factors such as pressure by the central government, local governments' capabilities and governance motivations, local governments form governance behaviors with varying degrees of proactiveness and autonomy. (3) After examining the governance performance of varying behaviors, it is found that local government's "active promotion" behavior can achieve higher governance effectiveness in the "convention" phase. Therefore, it is of policy implication that local governments should be guided to transit from "passive cooperation" to "active promotion". This paper has important guiding significance for understanding local environmental governance behaviors under strong top-down institutional pressure. • CEPI is one of the most important policy initiatives introduced by the Chinese gocernment in eco-environmental protection. • The interaction between the central and local governments leads to four different governance scenarios. • Governance scenarios,behaviors and performance of local goverments vary acorss the country significantly under CEPI. • Local government's "active promotion" behavior can achieve higher governance effectiveness in the "convention" phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We try to expand the political promotion tournaments in Chinese local governments from raising GDP to the level of increasing fiscal revenues. From the vantage point of officials' performance appraisal, we investigate the impact of local government officials' political ambitions, represented by the ex-ante commitment level of fiscal revenue targets, on carbon emission intensity (CEI). Utilizing a sample of 209 prefecture-level cities in China spanning 2006 to 2019, this paper empirically scrutinizes the influence of local government political ambition on CEI. The findings reveal that the greater the political ambition of local government officials, the more pronounced the reduction in CEI. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that political ambition contributes to the decline of CEI by elevating the levels of environmental attention and green innovation. This research not only aids in comprehending the rationale and necessity of the political promotion tournaments implemented by the Chinese central government but also offers valuable insights for other developing countries seeking to mitigate CEI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a unique dataset of publicly listed companies in China, we show that the collaborative environmental governance between the central and local governments reduces the effect of local enforcement of regulations on firms' environmentally responsible behaviors. This is consistent with the fact that the Chinese central government uses a command-and-control type of regulations under which the local governments bear the full cost of enforcing the regulations. The local governments do not have the incentive to override the central supervision and therefore, simply lower their standard of enforcement and comply with the central supervision. However, this finding mainly reflects the results from the state-owned enterprises. For the private firms, the central supervision instead strengthens the impact of local enforcement. The heterogeneous results can be explained by the fact that the private firms are more financially constrained compared to the state-owned enterprises. They have the incentives to avoid the costs of complying with the regulations by paying a fine or colluding with the local regulators. The central supervision reduces the asymmetric information and increases the non-compliant firms' chance to get caught for violations or collusion. This explains why once the central government intervenes, those private firms have to improve their environmentally responsible behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the implementation process of economic and environmental policy, a key concerned problem is the inability of some local officials to faithfully implement environmental policies made by the central government in China, as well as many other developing countries. In this paper, a multitask principal-agent model is established to make a comprehensive comparison on the role that the current incentive mechanism (CIM) and the long-term performance-oriented incentive mechanism (LTPOIM) play in policy implementation. In addition, both the incentive effect and the choice of incentive intensity in the LTPOIM are investigated. The results provide the insight that local officials may trade off the efforts of environment protection for economic growth in the CIM. However, local officials are incentivized to allocate higher efforts toward the implementation of environmental policies (IENP) to strengthen environment protection, or invest higher efforts toward IENP and the implementation of economic policies (IECP) to pursue the win-win situation for economy and environment in the LTPOIM. Besides, the chance of distributing higher efforts toward IENP and IECP in the case of complement tasks is higher than that in the case of substitute tasks. The optimal incentive intensities of long-term performance in the case of complement tasks are higher than those in the case of substitute tasks. • The long-term performance-oriented incentive motivates local officials to balance environmental and economic policies. • The central government makes use of the multitask agency problem to gain a win-win situation for economy and environment. • The adjustment of local officials' efforts portfolio and central government's incentive strategies are investigated. • The chance of distributing higher efforts toward two tasks is higher in the case of complement tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]