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Taking the critical political economy approach, this paper continues Dallas Smythe's and Yuezhi Zhao's inquiries into technological development in contemporary China. It examines the trends and struggles of the "BAT" model—named after the three most influential Internet companies in the country, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent—in China's digital expansion, which has been intimately connected to transnational financial capitalism in the past decade. Reflecting on this expansion's all-encompassing socio-political consequences, a blind spot in the successful BAT story, the paper examines whether the BAT model is sustainable for China's social development and, if not, the opportunities and alternatives lie ahead. The paper argues, in view of BAT's financial and infrastructural turn, that how China's ICT sector could move beyond a capital-driven mode of growth and reorient technologies for public and social development is a critical epistemological question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proportion of international students in Chinese higher education is increasing, however, there remains little research that explores their motivations and how their learning of Chinese influences their identities and imagined futures. In this paper, we address the need for research on South-South migration—specifically Sino-African relations—and draw on the concept of linguistic capital to explore what it means for 15 self-funded international students from six different African countries. The findings highlight African youths' negotiation of power matrices in different fields and their desire for Chinese linguistic capital. The acquisition of such capital would position themselves advantageously in terms of employability and social prestige within the geopolitical and geo-economic context of China-Africa relations. In documenting their investment in Chinese language learning, the study compels us to reflect on the intersection of identity, ideology and capital within the language acquisition process and what Chinese language learning has come to mean for those from the peripheral nation-states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the political economy of artificial intelligence (AI) and education in China, through an analysis of government policy and private sector enterprise. While media and policy discourse often portray China's AI development in terms of a unified national strategy, and a burgeoning geopolitical contestation for future global dominance, this analysis will suggest a more nuanced internal complexity, involving differing regional networks and international corporate activity. The first section considers two key policy documents published by the central Chinese government, which are shown to implicate educational institutions as influential actors in national and regional strategies for AI development, with a significant role in plans to train domestic expertise. The second section outlines three prominent private education companies: New Oriental Group, Tomorrow Advancing Life (TAL), and Squirrel AI. These companies are selected to represent important aspects of China's development of educational AI applications, including the influence of a well-established private education sector, and a growing interest in international corporate activity. The paper concludes with the suggestion that while central government policy reserves a significant role for education in the national AI strategy, the private sector is utilising favourable political conditions to rapidly develop educational applications and markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1765 and 1767 Quesnay published Droit naturel and Despotisme de la Chine. I show that these texts are strongly related. I study their various versions and editions, some of which were previously poorly known, and attempt to evaluate their readership. I uncover a lost manuscript and neglected sources of Despotisme de la Chine which help to clarify various points about the text. It is shown that it was finished most probably well before the end of 1766. Its economic contents are briefly described, whether they are similar to other writings of Quesnay or seem to alter his doctrine. It is suggested that Despotisme de la Chine was read by Adam Smith and that he took from it many lines on China found in Wealth of Nations. The paper ends with a proposal of a new edition of Droit naturel and Despotisme de la Chine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequences of the hugely successful expansion of South-South Cooperation since the new millennium. For all the achievements, variations and change over the 1950s-late 1990s, 'SSC 1.0' was characterised by relative neglect within the 'international' development community, and by many orthodox and critical scholars. In the chronological schema of the paper, 'SSC 2.0' refers to the period of remarkable expansion from the early 2000s to the present. The emergence of 'SSC 3.0', I suggest, is currently revealed by a discernible set of shifts driven in large part by the expansionary successes of SSC 2.0, as well as other turns in the global political economy. Three contemporary trends are identified: cooperation narratives that are increasingly 'muscular', nationalistic and pragmatic; difficulties sustaining claims to 'non-interference' in partner countries; and the further erosion of ideational and operational distinctiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do states pursue industrial policies in the context of China's rise? Examining Indonesia and Malaysia's mineral processing sectors, we argue that these countries illustrate two different pathways that states take to bolster their industrial policies. Indonesia has followed the leading sector strategy to increase domestic nickel processing capacity and decrease reliance on resource exports. Chinese firms and the Indonesian government built the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park to house nickel smelters, fostering a new leading sector. Chinese capital in smelting follows what Albert Hirschman has called 'intermediate investments', maximising forward and backward linkages across the Indonesian economy. In contrast, Malaysia has followed the dual economy strategy, where semi-finished goods are imported and assembled into finished ones to be exported abroad. Chinese firms and the Malaysian government established the Malaysia–China Kuantan Industrial Park to import, process and export steel products. However, due to the dual economy strategy, the industrial park impairs the activities of domestic steelmaking companies and inhibits the potential build-up of smelting capacity. In sum, through an examination of an industrial park in each country, our paper connects the literatures on industrial policy and Chinese capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

The rise of China as an economic and political 'driver' of the global economy may presage a new phase of globalization. This paper postulates the emergence of this new phase - a 'Global-Asian Era' (GAE) - as a 'working hypothesis'. It suggests that such an era is likely to be distinct from any of the earlier phases of globalization, and China's global footprint, in terms of its business, economic and political actions and their geopolitical implications, is likely to be markedly different from what has gone before. The paper sketches the reasons for these differences before turning to a discussion of the nature and dynamics of a possible future GAE. Paying particular attention to the developing world, the paper then explores some of the evidence that could be marshalled in support of the hypothesis. It outlines a series of vectors (trade, aid and energy security) along which it is possible to discern some of the ways in which an emergent GAE could be seen as impacting on the developing world. The paper argues that, at least for these vectors, a China-driven GAE is likely to provide dangers as well as opportunities for national development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the development of e-government in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The paper conceptualizes a political economy framework for evaluating the development of e-government in the PRC by integrating socio-economic approaches for the study of state in terms of maximizing service quality and enhancing economy and cost-efficiency, as well as using a model of democracy which sees political deliberation and participation as the potential for the development of a civic society. It argues that while researchers actually aim at capturing a picture of politico-economic development of the states through a close examination of their digital arms, e-governments, their frameworks to examine the latter, are out of the political or economic focus: that is, these conceptual frameworks are simply a mismatch to what they would like to explicate. With a new model applied to the PRC's e-government of the central authorities, we find out that the PRC's egovernment is highly tinted toward a service model, and if any political function that a certain e-government of a certain bureau has to carry out, it is an ideological propaganda or its equivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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

The China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC), which produces one-third of the world’s cigarettes, is the largest tobacco company in the world. Over the past 60 years, the CNTC has been focused on supplying a huge domestic market. As the market has become increasingly saturated, and potential foreign competition looms, the company has turned to expansion abroad. This paper examines the ambitions and prospects of the CNTC to ‘go global’. Using Chinese and English language sources, this paper describes the globalisation ambitions of the CNTC, and its global business strategy focused on internal restructuring, brand development and expansion of overseas operations in selected markets. The paper concludes that the company has undergone substantial change over the past two decades and is consequently poised to become a new global player in the tobacco industry. This article is part of the special issue ‘The Emergence of Asian Tobacco Companies: Implications for Global Health Governance’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the inter-group difference in social leverage ties between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Ürümchi, China. Social leverage ties refer to high-status ties such as professionals and managers who can provide egos with information or access to education, training, employment, etc. Existing studies have suggested three hypotheses (i.e. retention of culture, homophily and neighbourhood poverty) for the mechanisms of ethnic differences in network composition. Based on the survey data the author collected in 2005, this paper suggests another main mechanism – state policies – in explaining the ethnic variations. State policies have led to in-group association and ethnic inequalities, which have limited Uyghur access to high-status individuals. Data analysis shows the Uyghur–Han difference in social leverage ties controlling for key background characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper revisits China's recent experiences of hosting three international mega-events: the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. While maintaining a critical political economic perspective, this paper builds upon the literature of viewing mega-events as societal spectacles and puts forward the proposition that these mega-events in China are promoted to facilitate capital accumulation and ensure socio-political stability for the nation's further accumulation. The rhetoric of a ‘Harmonious Society’ as well as patriotic slogans are used as key languages of spectacles in order to create a sense of unity through the consumption of spectacles, and pacify social and political discontents rising out of economic inequalities, religious and ethnic tensions, and urban–rural divide. The experiences of hosting mega-events, however, have shown that the creation of a ‘unified’, ‘harmonious’ society of spectacle is built on displacing problems rather than solving them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an analysis of the relative significance of various methods of acquiring tacit knowledge within the Chinese optical fibre and cable industry. The paper contributes to the definition, understanding and investigation of tacit knowledge using firm-level data in a developing country context, helping to complete a gap in the existing broader literature on technological learning. The research suggests that in industries where tacit knowledge is a more important component of technological learning than codified knowledge, internal R&D activities and domestic peers are important knowledge sources. Additionally, universities are shown to be an important asset in creating learning organisations and provide effective knowledge sources of both tacit and codified knowledge. However, imports of equipment and licensing are a less effective learning channel in the acquisition of tacit foreign technology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the news aggregator Google News is used to assess the impact of worldwide news on the volatility of the Chinese stock market. Although we find a strong link between the global stock market volatility and the amount of stock market-related news available worldwide, the link between the Chinese stock market and the same set of worldwide news is found to be much weaker. Diverging patterns for (domestic) A shares and (international) B shares lead us to conclude that the direction of causality most likely is from news volumes to volatility and not vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on men and women engaged in China's sexual economy, which is dominated by the exchange between wealthy and politically influential men and unmarried young women who trade their femininity and sexuality for material wealth and financial security from these men. Drawing on analyses of the popular 2009 television serial,Woju(Dwelling Narrowness), coupled with recent ethnographic studies, the paper shows how this sexual economy thrives in the increasingly competitive and commercial urban landscape of present-day China. The study then examines the impact of commodification and materialism on men and women. The paper places these gender dynamics within the context of socioeconomic changes during the last thirty years and investigates how gender inequality became assimilated into both official and popular discourses of Chinese life, thereby facilitating the ascendancy and power of the sexual economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's recent economic growth and global expansion have been analysed and discussed from many different perspectives over the last decade. However, the positive aspects of its growth have concealed several crucial demographic and labour market characteristics which threaten to derail its future prosperity. Thus, whilst economic growth has stimulated labour demand, the future supply of skilled labour is seriously threatened by the confluence of four key factors - namely, a rapidly ageing workforce, declining fertility levels, the adverse impacts of the one-child policy, and a flawed education system. Consequently, this paper illustrates the implications of these challenges, analyses their antecedents and consequences, and provides a series of remedial recommendations for government, industry and future researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

This paper argues that whilst the relationship between US consumerism and China's low-wage production has underpinned China's economic growth in recent years, policy-makers are increasingly cognisant of heightened internal and external vulnerabilities, namely increased domestic social unrest and downturns in US demand. Despite calls for increased domestic consumption, opinion remains divided as to the extent to which policy-makers will make a genuine departure with China's export-orientation. This paper argues, however, that the direction of the Chinese political economy will depend much on the transformative role of workers’ struggles. Placed in a broader north-east Asian comparative perspective, we argue that China appears to be on the verge of a transition towards a limited labour supply, as evidenced in increasing labour shortages, rising wages costs and new forms of labour unrest. An in-depth case study of the strike at Nanhai Honda in 2010 suggests that China's migrant workers are beginning to develop a class consciousness and move from reactive to proactive demands. Furthermore, the response of the Chinese state and employers has shifted from one of outright repression to one of accommodation. These trends are likely to be highly significant in terms of China's uneven integration into the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent studies in evolutionary economic geography (EEG) highlight the key role of industry relatedness and cognitive proximity in boosting firm performance using data from developed countries. This paper explores the effect of industry relatedness on new firm survival in China by using a firm-level dataset for the 1999-2008 period. Based on survival models, it contributes to the ongoing debate by pointing out that new firms that are highly related to local industries have a lower failure rate, and the effect of industry relatedness is inflected by regional institutions and firm attributes. Industry relatedness occurs more effectively in the market-oriented regions but less effectively in regions with strong economic and political incentives of local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze China's strategy in relation to the euro. The first section summarizes China's active support to the single currency since its creation up to the first phase of the current Eurozone debt crisis. It shows how China has used a two-pronged approach. It has developed a public campaign in favor of the euro, especially when the market sentiment has been bearish on the single currency, and it has continued to be an active player in the European sovereign debt markets. The second part explains why China has been so supportive. Beijing wants to move away from dollar hegemony and thus it favors a tripolar monetary system based on the US dollar, the euro and the Chinese renminbi (RMB). With this aim, and despite the crisis, China has continued to diversify its foreign reserves into the euro making it by now ‘too important to fail’, not only because China holds roughly $1 trillion in euro-denominated assets, but also because for China the Eurozone is a crucial market and an important strategic counterweight to US dominance in world affairs. Finally, the third part focuses on how by the end of 2011 China switches to a more cautious approach due to the difficulty involved in rescuing the Eurozone. Domestic pressures, public outcry in Europe against being saved by China, the unwillingness of the European leaders to enter into strategic bargaining and Germany's strategy to use sovereign bond spreads as a market mechanism to create ‘more Europe’ have convinced policy-makers in Beijing to keep a lower profile while making sure the value of the euro remains stable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper revisits the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in the case of China using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedure for the period from 1952 to 2008. The results suggest that energy is one of the engines of growth in China, along with labor, capital, and international trade. In particular, a 1 percent increase in energy consumption leads to a 0.17 percent increase in gross domestic product. In addition to energy consumption, results also suggest that labor, capital, and international trade are also important factors stimulating China’s economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rise of China’s export-oriented apparel industry since the 1990s has been driven largely by global sourcing practices intent on capturing the cost advantages of a development model predicated, in part, on unskilled or semi-skilled migratory labour flows, linking western and central labour pools to coastal production sites. Until recently, the dominance of this model has fuelled growth in low-wage employment in the coastal regions and has provided few opportunities for economic and social upgrading. Since the early 2000s, coastal factories have increasingly had to confront difficulties generated by the increasing social and economic costs of this regionally concentrated low wage growth model. Specifically, this paper focuses on the role of the apparel industry in this process. It documents the major changes in organisation and geographies of economic activity in the industry, and demonstrates how the central and local state, domestic and international capital and Chinese and other Asian workers are shaping the changing organisation and geography of China’s apparel industry. The paper focuses particularly on firm strategies and state policies that have arisen in response to pressure to increase wages from workers, rising materials and energy costs and competition from other low-cost producers in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper surveys constructivist scholarship in the study of international political economy (IPE) in China. Chinese scholars in the field of IPE have until recently rarely used constructivism as an approach to study IPE for two reasons. The first, like Western IPE, is the short history of constructivism as a theoretical perspective. The second, unlike Western IPE, stems from the long-standing dominance of Marxism, China's official state ideology, in the academic field. In China, Marxism's materialist core shapes the basic research questions of IPE. Unsurprisingly then, constructivist analysis is quite alien to the dominant intellectual discourse in China. Nonetheless, of late, more Chinese scholars have begun to apply constructivist analysis. This paper surveys these developments and is divided into three sections. The first section provides an overview of how Chinese Marxist scholars approach the major issues of IPE as they relate to China. The second section provides an overview of the work of liberal-minded Chinese scholars who work on major IPE issues, another counterpoint to the Marxist school. The third section, which is the major focus of this paper, examines how Chinese scholars have applied the constructivist concepts to study major IPE issues in the Chinese context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Huang L., Liu X. and Xu L. Regional innovation and spillover effects of foreign direct investment in China: a threshold approach, Regional Studies. Using a data set on twenty-nine Chinese provinces for the period 1985–2008, this paper establishes a threshold model to analyse the relationship between spillover effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) and regional innovation in China. There is clear evidence of double-threshold effects of regional innovation on productivity spillovers from FDI. Specifically, only when the level of regional innovation reaches the minimum innovation threshold will FDI in the region begin to produce positive productivity spillovers. Furthermore, positive productivity spillovers from FDI will be substantial only when the level of regional innovation attains a higher threshold. The double threshold divides Chinese provinces into three super-regions in terms of innovation, with most provinces positioned within the middle-level innovation super-region. Policy implications are discussed. Huang L., Liu X. et Xu L. L'innovation régionale et les retombées de l'investissement direct étranger en Chine: une façon de seuil, Regional Studies. Employant un ensemble de données pour vingt-neuf provinces en Chine sur la période de 1985 à 2008, cet article cherche à construire un modèle de seuil afin d'analyser le rapport entre les retombées de l'investissement direct étranger (IDE) et de l'innovation régionale en Chine. Tout indique que l'innovation a des effets de seuil à deux degrés sur les retombées de productivité de l'IDE. Notamment, l'IDE régional ne va produire des retombées de productivité positives qu'au moment où le niveau de l'innovation régionale atteint le seuil d'innovation minimum. En outre, les retombées de productivité positives de l'IDE ne seront importantes que si le niveau de l'innovation régionale atteint un seuil plus élevé. Quant à l'innovation, le seuil à deux degrés divise les provinces chinoises en trois grandes régions, dont la plupart sont situées au sein de la grande région de rang moyen pour l'innovation. On discute des implications pour la politique. Investissement direct étranger?Retombées de productivité?Innovation régionale?Modèle de seuil?Chine Huang L., Liu X. und Xu L. Regionale Innovation und Übertragungseffekte von ausländischen Direktinvestitionen in China: ein Schwellenansatz, Regional Studies. In diesem Beitrag entwickeln wir mit Hilfe eines Datensatzes von 29 chinesischen Provinzen für den Zeitraum von 1985 bis 2008 ein Schwellenmodell zur Analyse der Beziehungen zwischen Übertragungseffekten von ausländischen Direktinvestitionen und der regionalen Innovation in China. Es liegen klare Anzeichen für doppelte Schwelleneffekte der regionalen Innovation auf Produktivitätsübertragungen von ausländischen Direktinvestitionen vor. Insbesondere beginnen ausländische Direktinvestitionen in der Region nur dann positive Produktivitätsübertragungen zu erzeugen, wenn das Niveau der regionalen Innovation die minimale Innovationsschwelle erreicht. Darüber hinaus belaufen sich die positiven Produktivitätsübertragungen durch ausländische Direktinvestitionen nur dann auf eine erhebliche Höhe, wenn das Niveau der regionalen Innovation eine höhere Schwelle erreicht. Die doppelte Schwelle teilt die chinesischen Provinzen hinsichtlich der Innovation in drei Superregionen auf, wobei sich die meisten Provinzen in der Superregion mit Innovation auf mittlerer Ebene befinden. Wir erörtern die Auswirkungen auf die Politik. Ausländische Direktinvestitionen?Produktivitätsübertragungen?Regionale Innovation?Schwellenmodell?China Huang L., Liu X. y Xu L. Innovación regional y efectos de desbordamiento de la inversión extranjera directa en China: un enfoque de umbral, Regional Studies. Con ayuda de un grupo de datos sobre veintinueve provincias de China durante el periodo de 1985 a 2008, en este artículo establecemos un modelo umbral para analizar la relación entre los efectos de desbordamiento de la inversión extranjera directa (IED) y la innovación regional en China. Existen claras evidencias de efectos de umbral doble de la innovación regional en cuanto a los desbordamientos de productividad de la IED. En concreto, solamente cuando el nivel de la innovación regional alcanza el umbral mínimo de innovación empezará la IED en la región a producir desbordamientos positivos de productividad. Asimismo, los desbordamientos positivos de productividad de la IED serán solamente considerables cuando el nivel de la innovación regional alcance un umbral más alto. El umbral doble divide las provincias chinas en tres super regiones en términos de innovación, situando a la mayoría de provincias dentro de la super región con una innovación de nivel medio. Asimismo analizamos las repercusiones políticas. Inversión directa extranjera?Desbordamientos de productividad?Innovación regional?Modelo umbral?China [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper shows how wuwei (effortless action) and associated concepts drawn from Daoist thought are applied in analyses of the Chinese market economy and state-economy relations published in recent issues of social science and Communist Party journals in the People's Republic of China. Such use of traditional concepts partially displaces Marxist terminology from 'diagnostic economics'. In discussing the use of these concepts in 5 articles published between 2000 and 2008, the economic theory of Daodejing is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research used spatial and comparative approaches to examine China's fertility trends, their positive and negative impacts on economic growth, and possible policy remedies to effectively deal with the challenges. The data were derived from the China 2000 Population Census, China Statistical Yearbook, the United Nations Population Database and the World Population Data Sheet of the Population Reference Bureau. By comparing China with other Asian societies, this paper provides empirical and theoretical support for five points, namely, that China has had the world's largest number of people with very low fertility since at least 2000, that it is one of the fastest ageing countries in world history, that rapid ageing threatens China's economic sustainability, that the demographic dividend needs to be examined in the context of labour supply transition, and that China needs to abandon its one-child policy immediately to deal with the challenges to its economic sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reexamines the conventional wisdom that characterizes Sino-Japanese energy relations as predominantly competitive, but views Sino-Japanese environmental relations as essentially cooperative. Using sociological theories of risk, it is argued that Sino-Japanese cooperation is more likely in both the energy and environmental areas when common risks are perceived and relative gains are minimized. Despite their many conflicting strategic, political, and economic interests, as energy importers who are vulnerable to supply interruptions in the Middle East and competitors for global energy supplies, China and Japan share common risks to their energy security. Consequently, there actually may be increasing opportunities for China and Japan to address their common concerns through bilateral and multilateral cooperative practices, such as common positions on pricing or energy conservation initiatives. Although one would expect China and Japan to highlight their mutual interests in tackling environmental problems such as air pollution, in fact relative gains often impede cooperation. Japan increasingly views China as an economic competitor and is reducing environmental aid, while China continues to set a priority on economic growth, which sets limits on the use of costlier Japanese green technologies. By examining a selection of scholarly articles, reports and newspaper articles by Chinese and Japanese analysts, as well as material from interviews in Beijing and Tokyo in May-June 2007, the paper shows how environmental and energy issues in Sino-Japanese relations may be framed as threats, requiring counter-measures, or common risks, which can be addressed through cooperative practices. Lastly, the paper discusses the possibility of the development of an energy security 'risk community' as cooperative practices develop between China and Japan. Nonetheless, conflicting political interests, strategies, and self-images, accentuating relative gains, may provide obstacles to their cooperation in both energy security and environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses original research on the roles played by two sets of foreign entrants into Chinese retailing since the 1850s - the overseas Chinese entrants and western entrants - to explore the psychic distance paradox over the long run. It explains how the advantages of psychic closeness in Chinese retailing have always been important in reducing entry barriers, but that the rising costs of technology have increased the significance of firm proprietary strengths in some formats, notably supermarkets, so reducing the relative importance of psychic closeness. The paper therefore illustrates how taking the long-term perspective enables more sophisticated conclusions to emerge. A cross-sectional analysis of one sector - Chinese supermarkets - would confirm the psychic distance paradox; overseas Chinese have been unable to translate psychic closeness into superior performance. By contrast their historic performance in department stores and more recently in fashion chains has been superior to the format leaders. This long-term perspective therefore suggests that the understanding of the psychic distance paradox needs to be moderated by additional conceptualisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares three selected indicator series that address national, technology-based competitiveness. The 'traditional' Georgia Tech High Tech Indicators (HTI) have been comparing 33 nations with respect to current and future prospects at exporting high tech products since the late 1980s. Those indicators blend expert opinion with statistical time series data. Second, we introduce 'statistics only' HTI, a revised formulation that addresses knowledge-based service export capabilities as well as high tech products, biennially. Third, the World Economic Forum annually generates its Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), treating 125 countries. The traditional HTI reported China supplanting the USA as the top-ranking economy as of 2007. That has generated some controversy. In striking contrast, the 2006-2007 GCI reported China as No. 54. This paper explores the bases for these differences. To a substantial degree, they derive from whether one normalises based on a nation's size. We conclude that these indicator series provide multiple perspectives that complement each other. In the case of China, all of these indicators point to continuing dramatic increase in technology-based economic competitiveness. If not yet, then within not too many years, the USA will likely be supplanted by China as the leading technology-based economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the impact of FDI on growth using sectoral data for FDI inflows to China and Vietnam. Previous empirical studies, using either cross-country growth regressions or firm-level micro-econometric analysis, fail to reach a consensus. Our paper is the first to use sectoral FDI inflow data to evaluate the sector-specific impact of FDI on growth. Our results show that, for the two developing-transition economies we examine, FDI has a statistically-significant positive effect on economic growth operating directly and through its interaction with labor. Intriguingly, we find the effects seem to be very different across economic sectors, with most of the beneficial impact concentrated in the secondary industries. Other sectors appear to see much less growth benefit from sector-specific FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource-based theories of the firm argue that the success of one firm over another is largely due to its resource endowments. Large enterprises have long been recognised as leading sources of learning innovation and growth. This is not just restricted to large firms in developed economies, but also applies to firms in developing economies such as China, where large firms have long and complex histories in the state bureaucracy. Focusing on the case of China's petrochemical sector, this paper argues that even if a sector has a long history in central planning, the critical resources of a firm matter. It shows how existing organisational resources inherited from the pre-reform era, when provided with the correct incentive structures, can survive economic transition and be successfully applied under market conditions. In the petrochemical sector a key inducement was the commitment of the state to expose the sector to international developments where possible. The paper describes how this commitment has resulted in a mostly positive adjustment, but has also created ambiguities over how resources should be developed in future in a rapidly changing global industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

He C., Wei Y. D. and Xie X. Globalization, institutional change, and industrial location: economic transition and industrial concentration in China, Regional Studies. Marketization and globalization in China may stimulate industrial clustering, while decentralization may lead to protectionism and industrial dispersion. This paper examines industrial distribution in China during 1980-2003. While Chinese industries have been increasingly concentrated geographically, the study found significant temporal and sectoral variations in concentration. Least protected industries have become increasingly concentrated, and most globalized industries are clustered in the coastal region. The analysis indicates that globalization and internal scale economies have contributed to geographical concentration, while protectionism has hindered industrial specialization. While industries are more likely to locate based on comparative advantages, external scale economies have not fostered industrial concentration. [image omitted] He C., Wei Y. D. et Xie X. La mondialisation, la transformation institutionnelle, et la localisation industrielle:... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines US, Japanese, and European political economy approaches to China, and their effect on US-Japan and US-EU relationships. Great powers with a greater security concern in dealing with another major country care more about power while those with less of a concern are preoccupied with calculations for wealth. China's rise and its actions have posed a far greater security challenge to the United States and Japan and are driving the two countries closer together. The political economy game involving China reveals a dominant welfare motive among the advanced market economies. The ambition to transform China politically has diminished. China's integration into the global market makes a relative gains approach difficult to implement. Globalization simply limits the ability of a state to follow a politics-in-command approach in the absence of actual military conflict, which explains why the political economy approaches of the United States, Europe, and Japan are not that different in the scheme of things. China's own grand strategy to reach out to the world to outflank the US-Japan alliance has also contributed to a divergent European policy toward China although there are severe limitations to Beijing's ability to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global nature of foreign direct investment (FDI) is changing in terms of both location and sectors of activity. This paper analyses recent flows of R&D FDI across the globe. It is found that North America has been the source of one-half of all R&D FDI between 2002 and 2005. Asia Pacific, especially China and India, has been the overwhelming destination for most R&D FDI, accounting for more than one-half of all investment and almost three-quarters of the jobs created. In general, R&D FDI has not been equitably spread across nations such as India and China but concentrated in a small number of locations. R&D FDI from advanced economies is facilitating the emergence of new centres and clusters of knowledge across the globe. This global redistribution of knowledge brings challenges to policymakers in both the developed and the developing world. The challenges come in two main forms: first, cross-regional disparities in knowledge-based wealth creation within particular nations; and second, anxieties about the offshoring of knowledge-based tasks and jobs. It is argued that current patterns of global knowledge flow require policies to nurture the open regional innovation systems being established by these flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the causes and consequences of politicized economic management in the cross strait. The first half of the paper briefly reviews the cross-strait political and economic environment. The passage of the anti-secession law by Mainland China in March 2005 marked a new high in the political tension in the cross strait. From the economic standpoint, cross-strait relation has registered a more positive outlook. But this is merely on the surface. As the second half of the paper shows, politicians from both sides are still exerting much influence on how firms are to conduct their business with their counterparts. Hence, economics are highly politicized. The result is destructive. Firms face a high degree of vulnerability and uncertainty in the conduct of their business because political tension makes it difficult for them to make economic decisions independent of politics. As long as political differences remain unresolved, it would not be easy for full economic integration between Taiwan and the Mainland. Military confrontations cannot be ruled out in spite of greater economic integration when future economic outlook between the two economies remains uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the effects of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) on China's human resources, its labour-market and its level of employment and unemployment, looking specifically at what was one of its economically most vulnerable points, the hotel industry. The paper hypothesizes that the greatest impact would be on human resources in the service-industries and on particular sub-sectors, such as employment in hotels, located in three main cities in the PRC, in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, catering to both overseas as well as domestic tourism. It tentatively concludes that the almost dramatic demand and supply "shocks" may have directly affected both the demand for and the supply of labour in the sub-sector, with discernible employment consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a Computable General Equilibrium model to explore the macroeconomic impact of growth in the human capital stock for a given ageing profile of the population in China, during the first half of this century. It examines whether the projected reduction in the total dependency ratio for the period 2000 to the 2030s can be exploited for energetic human capital formation. Policy simulations show that accelerating human capital formation raises both total output and per capita real income dramatically. Public expenditure on education is, therefore, welfare enhancing, mitigating the adverse effects of population ageing while laying the foundation for supporting China's rapidly increasing elderly population. The basic policy message is that China should significantly increase investment in human capital. The long implementation lags of such policies and the rapidly growing proportion of the elderly population suggest that this investment should be undertaken without delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the environments in which political science faculty most directly face issues of community, communities, and politics is when they find themselves teaching in programs abroad. The rigors of international teaching force faculty to confront issues of community identity, assumptions about political orientation, and presumptions about how communities interact that often remain unstated or unexplored at home institutions in the United States. In this paper, we will explore these matters based on our experiences teaching in the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies during the late 1990s. The Hopkins-Nanjing Center brings together Chinese and international (mainly American) graduate students in a unique living-learning environment. Chinese students take graduate-level course work in political science, American history, economics, and ESL in English from visiting American faculty members, while international students take analogous classes in Chinese from faculty at Nanjing University. Faculty and students are housed in the Center's residential wing, where Chinese and international students are paired together as roommates. We discuss the unusual pedagogy involved in teaching Chinese students in the program (who are extremely bright and motivated, but usually lack substantive and methodological backgrounds in political science); the opportunities for extracurricular education afforded by the Center's living-learning facility; and describe our experiences interacting with our Chinese faculty counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the tendency towards income convergence among China's main provinces during the two periods: the pre-reform period 1953–1977 and the reform period 1978–1997 using the framework of the Solow growth model. The panel data method accounts for not only province-specific initial technology level but also the heterogeneity of the technological progress rate between the fast-growing coastal and interior provinces. Estimation problems of weak instruments and endogeneity are addressed by the use of a system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. The main empirical finding is that there is a system-wide income divergence during the reform period because the coastal provinces do not share a common technology progress rate with the interior provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine the use of performance-based financing to scale-up HIV testing in men who have sex with men, or MSM, by global health initiatives in China. This mechanism, which ties financing directly to the achievement of targets and indicators, assures that measurable results are produced from health interventions and accounts for financial spending. On the one hand, its adoption into HIV programming in China articulates with broader shifts in global health that place currency on particular forms of evidence. At the same time, performance-based financing reshapes how HIV interventions are carried out and what counts in these programmes. The suturing of financing to outputs directs what gets counted and how, and as a consequence leads to the production of measurable results as an end in and of themselves. Based on 22 months of ethnographic research carried out in China, I explore the effects of this mechanism and, in doing so, ask what gets left out in the pursuit of evidence. In particular, I demonstrate how the demand for outputs undermines HIV prevention in MSM, thus risking the very lives these interventions are intended to save. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The year 2015 marked the 25th anniversary of the publication of Robert Wade's seminal book Governing the Market (GTM). In his book, Wade elaborates an approach stressing the role of the state in economic development. As the consequences of the Great Recession are forcing many governments and the International Financial Institutions themselves to put into question their ideological stance on unfettered free markets, the anniversary marks the occasion to review the concept of the developmental state (DS) through Wade's GTM approach and re-assess its validity in the twenty-first-century global political economy. Are policy measures historically implemented by the DS still feasible (and desirable) in a globalized era dominated by global value chains? With an eye to the peculiar Chinese experience in the past decades, the paper argues that the key principles in GTM – as properly understood – are still useful as policy prescriptions, as they show how developing countries could successfully start their economic take-off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

Gramscian globalists presume that internationalization means externalization, modernization, and Westernization, thereby enhancing the worldhegemony of Western liberal capitalism. This paper proposes instead that internationalization mutates the world-hegemony sometimes into nonWestern, non-liberal orders of regional-hegemony. As a case study, this paper focuses on China's internationalization into an Asian Corporatist regional-hegemony in the 1980s-1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper developed a Chinese model of crisis communication by using a contextual perspective capable of identifying influences at the crisis-event level (crisis type, crisis stakeholder, crisis stage, and crisis system) and the societal level (polities, economic systems, and media systems) in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. An analysis of 93 academic works published in 15 journals demonstrated the effects of economic development, politics, and the media on crisis communication practices in Chinese societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on returnees and knowledge diaspora as important sources for human resources development, identifying push and pull factors that also contribute significantly to innovation. For both China and Israel, their high-skilled diaspora are a major policy priority: each has a substantial, high-skilled diaspora and policies and programmes to promote their return and/or greater involvement. By outlining key projects and schemes in each to recruit international professionals, we argue that bringing advanced knowledge and skills gained through international education and experiences back home has long been common to both. The relative strengths and weaknesses of each system's relations with returnees and diaspora is assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the relationship between the British economist, Keynes and his influence on China. It is divided into three sections, respectively, covering the early, middle and later periods of this link. The early section deals with his initial interest in the ‘Middle Kingdom’; the next one deals with the translation of his main works and the diffusion of his ideas in Republican China and the last deals with the influence of his thinking in the People's Republic of China after 1978, up to the present time, vis a vis the notion of ‘Keynesianism with Chinese characteristics’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mobility low-carbon transition is a key issue both socially and for mobilities research. The multi-level perspective (MLP) is justifiably a leading approach in such research, with important connections to high-profile socio-technical systemic analyses within the mobilities paradigm. The paper explores the key contributions that a Foucauldian-inspired cultural political economy offers, going beyond central problems with the MLP, specifically regarding: a productive concept of power that affords analysis of the qualitatively novel and dynamic process of transition; and the incorporation of the exogenous ‘landscape’ into the analysis. This move thus resonates with growing calls for attention to power dynamics in mobilities research and a ‘structural’ turn. In making this case, we deploy the key case study of contemporary efforts towards mobility transition in China. This not only sets out more starkly the importance of MLP’s gaps but also provides an empirical case to illustrate, albeit in the form of informed speculation, possible routes to low-carbon urban mobility transitionandthe inseparability from broader qualitative power transitions at multiple scales, including the global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biochar has garnered much attention for its potential to improve farming productivity and sustainability by amending soil, enhancing crop yields, improving fertilizer use efficiency and sequestering carbon. However, few publications consider farmer perspectives on whether biochar is attractive as an agricultural input. This paper therefore investigates the micro-economics and social suitability of biochar in four contrasting Chinese agricultural systems, using linear optimization models and qualitative contextual data. Results demonstrate that commercially produced biochar is uneconomic as an independent farming input, whilst farm-produced biochar shows promise in just one of four case-study sites. This suggests that biochar research in China should shift away from on-farm production and application of pure biochar, towards combined biochar-inorganic fertilizer products. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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