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This paper explores the impact of the political hierarchies of cities in China from different perspectives. First, we examine the economic disparities between prefectural cities and municipalities. Furthermore, this paper draws upon a quasi‐ experiment to analyze the impact of upgrading Chongqing to a municipality in 1997 using the synthetic control method. The city‐upgrading policy significantly increased Chongqing's gross domestic product (GDP) in the following 4 years. Finally, we find that the policy increased GDP in treated cities within 1200 km of Chongqing by about 10%–13% relative to the control cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China holds the distinction of being the foremost global consumer of water resources and contends with a significant level of water scarcity. In light of this quandary, China has been assiduously endeavoring to foster water conservation practices with the ultimate objective of reaching a peak point in water use. In this paper, we construct a framework for forecasting China's total water use (TWU) peak path. In this framework, we select influencing factors in terms of both economy and technology to forecast the peak path of China's TWU under six different scenarios, and analyze the economic and technological circumstances at the peak. Our findings indicate that China's TWU will persist in its upward trend based on both the high growth and business as usual scenarios. The projected peak period is estimated to transpire in 2037, 2032, 2030, and 2028, respectively, with the corresponding peak levels amounting to 644.03, 633.93, 625.79, and 620.92 billion m3. However, in the low growth scenarios, China's TWU reached its peak in 2013. The extent of economic development plays a pivotal role in determining the timing and manner of water usage peaking. Early peaking of water usage could potentially result in a loss of gross domestic product (GDP). Furthermore, technological advancements hold the potential to facilitate a reduction in water use without requiring a significant trade‐off between resource conservation and economic development. The results of sensitivity analysis show that the average acreage of water used for irrigation on cropland, GDP, water use efficiency, and population contribute the most to TWU, while the increase in the proportion of industrial, service, and water‐saving irrigation area can reduce water use. Our analytical framework provides a commonly applicable solution for the water use forecast in areas seeking to reach the water use peak or to achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the prospects and promises of continent‐wide infrastructure projects under China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and its implications for intra‐regional trade and economic development in Africa. Building on the supply side theory of trade and economic development, and taking cognizance of the impacts of asymmetric market sizes on trade integration, this paper argues that continent‐wide infrastructure projects are perhaps not the biggest constraints to intra‐Africa trade. Consequently, the paper recommends caution in pursuing regional infrastructure projects under the BRI. Given that the economies of most African countries depend largely on natural resources, the BRI could be adopted strategically to establish and manage infrastructure projects that would relax the binding constraints to structural transformation and allow for the development of manufacturing and/or service capabilities in the respective countries, especially in niche areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mega‐city regions (MCRs) have emerged as the main spatial form of China's new urbanization strategy and become the basic spatial units participating in global and regional competition. However, MCRs are not equally capable of boosting regional economic development due to their different levels of development. Therefore, this paper adopts the concept of competitiveness as both a theoretical framework and an empirical model to evaluate the development status of China's MCRs. Based on a review of the existing literature, this paper proposes a multi‐tier evaluation system to calculate the competitiveness of 13 MCRs. The chosen indicators come from the six perspectives of economic development, human resources, infrastructural accessibility, integration into the global economy, capacity for scientific and technological innovation, and sustainable development. The results show that there are great disparities and regional inequalities in competitiveness across different MCRs. The Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Beijing–Tianjin–Tangshan MCRs are the first‐tier MCRs with the highest levels of development and have significant global influence as well. Chengdu–Chongqing, Shandong Peninsula, South‐central Liaoning, and Wuhan belong to the second‐tier of MCRs that show partial advantages and have significant regional influence. The remaining regions belong to the third‐ or fourth‐tier of MCRs that have relatively weak competitiveness. The competitiveness of MCRs largely depends on the concentration of core elements in core cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional inequality in the process of economic growth has recently been a popular topic. This paper creatively proposes contribution decomposition methods to divide various regions' contributions into economic contribution and population contribution. The methods consider not only economic growth but also population change, which may be more effective than the traditional method that uses the per capita GDP (gross domestic product) as its single measurement indicator. Moreover, the objective is to take a step forward and reveal the spatio‐temporal evolution characteristics of regional disparities by integrating barycentre model and economic development equilibrium model. Lastly, the applicability of the research method proposed in this paper is verified by a case study of Jiangsu province, China; the results show a new regional economic pattern in Jiangsu province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is mounting theoretical and empirical research that explains the reasons for the rapid expansion of China's export trade, but they mostly ignore the effects of cultural differences. To fill this gap, this paper provides an empirical investigation of how cultural diversity affects the sustainable development of trade, which is defined as the goal of maintaining certain volume of trade and making trade growth sustainable. The findings are as follows. (1) Cultural diversity can significantly promote the sustainable development of trade. (2) Entrepreneurship is the possible channel wherein cultural diversity affects the sustainable development of trade, including innovation entrepreneurship and business entrepreneurship. (3) Further studies demonstrate that economic openness has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between cultural diversity and the sustainable development of trade. That is, the higher the level of openness of a city, the stronger the promotion of cultural diversity to the sustainable development of trade. This study not only deepens understanding on the relationship between culture and trade but also provides important policy implications for many countries that have high migration rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The slow growth of the permanently settled migrants in host cities poses new challenges for the sustainability of China's future urbanization. Given the growing importance of homeownership, this paper clarifies migrants' settlement intentions into three mutually exclusive patterns, including de facto permanent settlement intention through homeownership, long‐term temporary settlement intention and short‐term temporary settlement intention. Based on matched micro‐ and macro‐level data, this paper examines the influence of city economic development and housing prices on these three patterns. The results suggest that economic development exhibits an attractive effect on migrants' settlement intentions for both earning money and for making a life while housing price weakens rural migrants' de facto permanent settlement intention. We also highlight the effect of the Housing Provident Fund (HPF), the most important housing financial policy in China, on settlement intention, and the results suggest that the HPF serves as an option to help migrants achieve permanent settlement through housing availability. The findings can explain the mixed results of previous research and provide policy references for sustainable urbanization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through panel data for every province in China from 2006 to 2016, this paper studies the impact of the efficiency of science and technological services and the level of economic development on environmental governance, with the efficiency of science and technological services as the threshold variables. The results of the research indicate that the efficiency of science and technological services in China's provinces is low, while the regional gap is expanding. When the efficiency of science and technological services is the threshold variable, single threshold results are significant. When the efficiency of science and technological services is the threshold variable and when the efficiency of science and technological services is lower than the threshold value, there is a significant impact on environmental governance. If the efficiency of science and technological services crosses the threshold value, the impact of science and technological service efficiency on environmental governance becomes insignificant. For the level of economic development, it is a core explanatory variable and has a significant impact on environmental governance only when the efficiency of science and technological services is below the threshold value. According to the empirical results, this paper proposes corresponding countermeasures and suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the causal relationship between financial development and the urban–rural income gap in China. Using a bootstrap Granger panel causality analysis, the result indicates that financial development influences urban–rural income gap mainly in Eastern China. The high level of financial development in this region enables rural areas to increase its income. Our results also confirm the existence of the financial Kuznets curve in Eastern China where urban–rural income gap would be first increased and afterwards decreased by financial development. The financial development itself is not dependent on urban–rural income gap as it largely depends on government policies and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, the contradiction between rapid economic development and water shortage has attracted much attention. This paper explores the problems of water consumption and environmental pollution in provinces with different economic development levels in China. Sewage discharge is put into the undesirable meta frontier dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model as an undesirable output variable. The water use efficiency under different income levels from 2013 to 2017 is compared at the provincial level from the perspective of domestic water use efficiency, ecological water use efficiency, industrial water use efficiency and agricultural water use efficiency, and the dynamic evolution is further revealed by using kernel density estimation. The results show that water resource utilisation efficiency is positively correlated with regional income level and economic development level. The internal differences in high‐income areas are narrowing, while the internal differences in middle‐income areas are significantly expanding; agricultural water use efficiency is the most prominent problem. In view of these situations, the total amount and intensity of water consumption should be controlled in high‐income areas. For middle‐income provinces with abundant water resources but low efficiency, local governments can strengthen legislation and supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the rapid urbanization and economic development, the Yangtze River Middle‐Reach urban agglomeration (YRMR) has suffered from increasingly serious environmental problems. Characterizing the long‐term dynamics of aerosol optical depth (AOD) in YRMR is of important significance for scientific control of aerosol pollutants over this region. Previously, numerous researches have analysed the temporal and spatial characteristics of AOD in different regions through statistical values of AOD time series or using trend analysis methods based on linear regression models. It is challenging to approximate nonlinear trends and identify change points of AOD time series. This paper proposed a new methodology for investigating the dynamics of AOD over the YRMR region on a monthly basis by using the Terra MODIS Collection 6.1 Level 2 aerosol products (MOD04_L2) during 2001–2017. A three‐dimensional spatio‐temporal interpolation method was used to generate gap‐filled monthly AOD maps, and then a generic Bayesian time series decomposition algorithm was applied to analyse the trends and change points of monthly AOD time series. The results showed that the areas with high AOD values were mainly located in the core cities and the connecting belts. Strong positive AOD anomalies had been observed during 2006–2011, whereas the positive anomalies were typically intermingled with negative anomalies and it indicated that the evolution patterns of AOD for different regions were different and influenced by fluctuations. Trend analysis of the monthly mean AOD values indicated that AOD in YRMR increased first, then fluctuated, and finally decreased. Although it was difficult to separate the increasing and fluctuating periods from each other due to the fluctuation, the decreasing trend after 2011 was significant, and a significant drop of AOD had been observed since 2014. Long‐term AOD variations were closely related to national policies, and the results could provide useful references for regional environmental assessment and decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional technology characters (TCs) are studied in this paper to find whether innovation in Chinese cities leads to technology converging, or technology divergence, in both the intra‐city and inter‐city scales, with which regional economic development strength may be better explained. Based on a literature review on the subject, a two‐dimensional research framework and relevant technical lens are designed to clarify TC in cities composed of parameters on Technology Strength (TS) versus Technology Angle (TA). By applying Principle Component Analysis, a technical lens is made possible based on extracted parameters on three integrated technology dimensions for measuring TSs and TAs over 117 Chinese sample cities with invention patent data covering 21 technology field between 2005/2006 and 2015/2016. Technology convergence versus divergence are examined for 28/24 sample cities beyond average score, and the research findings indicate that technology divergence in Chinese cities can be confirmed at the inter‐city level, even partially at the intra‐city level. This finding holds for most sample cities with fairly large and modest TSs, while intra‐city technology converging is significant, especially for larger sized TS samples, however they also differ on different dimensions. This may imply that urban economic development in China is technical based and differentiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses China's provincial border counties as samples to explore the role played by administrative boundaries in uneven regional economic development. The results indicate that the gap between provincial border counties and other regions is increasing and that economic diffusion to provincial border counties from developed regions is extremely weak. Moreover, provincial border counties have become economically backward. A regression analysis model that includes certain novel factors that are likely to influence economic growth confirms the significant effects of government intervention and administrative boundaries on economic growth in provincial border counties. This paper concludes that administrative boundaries' effects should be nullified by limiting preferential development policies and implementing policies that instead help provincial border counties engage in sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid sociopolitical and economic progress taking place over the past decade in the remote multi‐ethnic and multilingual Derung community in Dulongjiang Township, in the northwest of Yunnan Province, China, the local Derung people, one of the less populous ethnic groups in China, have been experiencing noticeable changes to their language ecology. This paper sets out to explore in particular the status and functions of English in its interaction with other languages in the Derung's language ecology, through investigating the local linguistic landscape and carrying out a survey of language instruction in the local elementary and secondary schools. The study reveals that English has become the second most frequent language after Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) and further explores the reasons leading to this rise in the status and the functions of English as part of the changing language ecology in the Dulong River valley. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of economic and development zones (EDZs) on the productivity of incumbent firms in China. To deal with the selection issue, I first take into account potentially different selection mechanisms across two popular types of EDZs—economic and technological development zones (ETDZs) and high‐tech development zones (HTDZs)—by relying on multiple treatment propensity scores matching techniques. Next, I apply the difference‐in‐differences estimator to the matched sample and conduct an event study analysis. The results show that the respective effects of ETDZs and HTDZs on firm productivity are positive, but subject to a nonlinear trend over time. The size of the productivity gains depends critically on the type of EDZ, however. A new HTDZ (ETDZ) leads to an average productivity gain of up to 30.2% (18.4%) for incumbent firms in the 5 years after the zone was created. These findings suggest that the size of productivity spillovers for spatially targeted firms differ quite significantly depending on the strategic development and policy goals of the EDZ: HTDZs that focus on promoting indigenous‐based factors of learning lead to higher productivity spillovers compared with ETDZs that focus on promoting extra‐local linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although existing studies questioned the simple positive correlation between the technology transfer speed and the benefits, they have been widely condemned for lacking empirical evidence. Using the patent transfer data at the city scale in China, and distinguishing fast from slow by dividing technology transfer speed into four levels, this paper attempts to answer the question in terms of city economic growth, which is whether the faster is the better. Panel regression results show that for economic growth of city, the speed of technology transfer does not mean that faster is better. In other words, technology transfer maintaining a relatively rapid speed (more than 1 year and less than 2 years) can promote city economic growth, although the evidence is weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of disasters on the macroeconomy has moved to the centre of sustainable development in a country and regions, as disasters can affect all sectors of society. It is of great practical value for comprehensive disaster reduction and sustainable development to better determine these impacts, analyse different types of disasters and different impact types, and clarify both positive and negative implications for the macroeconomy from the short term to longer term. Disasters have played an especially important role on China's economic development with implications examined in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past several years, the creative reuse of brownfields has played a major role in Chinese cities to give their urban landscape a so-called second development. This paper analyses the governance of the brownfield restructuring in Guangzhou (Canton). The research is based on a study of the T.I.T Creative Industry Zone, a highly successful creative space currently in danger of demolition. This paper follows DiGaetano and Strom's () analytical governance framework. This approach allows for deciphering the complexities of decision-making through a well-structured set of interdependent categories. In Guangzhou, new policies and institutions have been promoting the restructuring and have contributed to the formalisation of public-private interactions. In general, this indicates a shift towards a more corporatist governance. However, the study of T.I.T reveals a rather intricate picture: the policymaking remains influenced by a top-down authoritative style - sometimes in an arbitrary manner - and to some extent also by particularistic exchanges. This indicates a complex mode of urban governance consisting of increasingly corporatist elements but still with managerial, and to a lesser extent, clientelistic elements. Finally, the coexistence of different governance modes seems to be a typical outcome of China's transition while still remaining more adaptive, experimental and flexible in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the transition of rural industry in China, particularly changes in the recent decade following the privatization of collective enterprises. Based on fieldwork in a Jiangsu county and drawing on national data, the author shows that rapid urbanization has fundamentally altered the nature of rural industry, with previous village-based rural enterprises replaced by large industrial corporations and urban real estate. While urbanization seems to many an inevitable outcome of economic development, this paper argues and shows that the current form of urbanization in China has been driven by an unsustainable accumulation regime that prioritizes the needs of local revenue, real estate development and large capital at the expense of the previous broad-based rural industry. This is thrown into sharp relief by comparing with the accumulation regime based on local state corporatism during the early reform period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The service industry in China has been undergoing rapid growth, especially since the early 1990s. However, little research has been conducted regarding its characteristics, spatial patterns and dynamics. Based on the theories of economic growth, economic transition and urban hierarchy, this paper develops an analytical framework for elucidating the growth of the service industry in China. We find that cities with a high increment in the service industry tend to be located in coastal areas, and mainly constitute megacities and large, highly developed cities. Cities with higher administrative rank, such as centrally administrated municipalities, cities designated in the State Plan and provincial capitals, maintain relatively high growth in the service industry. It is concluded that China's economic transition and urban hierarchy play significant roles in the growth of the service industry, suggesting that service industry growth in China does not strictly adhere to growth patterns observed in Western countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Maritime industrial development areas (MIDAs) are spatial tools designed to accelerate economic growth in backwards coastal areas and thus alleviate regional disparities, and they have widely expanded in both developed and developing countries over the past sixty years. This paper reviews the global development of MIDAs in different historical periods and compares them with cases on China's Liaoning coast in terms of their structure, location, administration, national political‐economic climate and theoretical justification. The results indicate that although those countries have different institutional environments they seemingly once took the same path in their specific stages of development. However, the experiences of developed countries and other developing ones and the current dilemma of MIDAs in coastal Liaoning together demonstrate that MIDAs cannot achieve the policy targets anticipated by decision makers, especially during the economic transitions of China. This finding cautions backwards countries and their lagging areas, such as northeastern China, that the traditional pattern tried by the first developed countries may not be appropriate when the development tool (e.g., MIDAs) is examined in both the framework of international comparison and the socioeconomic setting of a specific country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the rapid development within China, the inequality of available water resources has been increasingly of interest. Current methods for assessing water stress are inadequate for province-scale rapid monitoring. A more responsive indicator at a finer scale is needed to understand the distribution of water stress in China. This paper selected Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Line-scan System night-time stable lights as a proxy for water stress at the province level in China from 2004 to 2012, as night-time lights are closely linked with population density, electricity consumption and other social, economic and environmental indicators associated with water stress. The linear regression results showed the intensity of night-time lights can serve as a predictive tool to assess water stress across provinces with an R2 from 0.797 to 0.854. The model worked especially well in some regions, such as East China, North China and South West China. Nonetheless, confounding factors interfered with the predictive relationship, including population density, level of economic development, natural resource endowment and industrial structures, etc. The model was not greatly improved by building a multi-variable linear regression including agricultural and industrial indicators. A straightforward predictor of water stress using remotely sensed data was developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses multidimensional inequalities in health care distribution for Henan Province in central China. The paper has two objectives: (1) examining the multi-scale health care inequality in Henan from two dimensions, urban-rural and core-periphery and (2) revealing the spatial effects of China's multiple transitions, provincial development strategies, and local economic development on health care distribution. The authors used geographic information systems-based spatial statistical methods to detect the spatial-temporal variation of health care distribution, and applied geographically weighted regression to reveal the effects of multiple transitions on the health care sector. The results illustrate that urban-rural and core-periphery gaps in Henan are still significant even though health care reforms and recent provincial policies have improved the access of rural and peripheral areas to health care. Health care inequality is sensitive to geographical scale and clustering, and spatial patterns of health care are shaped by the interwoven forces at national, provincial, and local scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's total floating population exceeded 245 million at the end of 2013 and is the largest mobile population in the world. This paper explores the spatial distribution pattern and change characteristics of the net floating population at county scale from 2000 to 2010 using census data. The results show the following: (1) the net floating population increased by 120 million over 10 years, and the mobility of the population had enhanced in this period; (2) the floating population migrated to the three economic zones and provincial capital cities, while the traditional agricultural regions with dense populations experienced continuous outflow of population (which altered spatial agglomeration patterns); (3) eastern China has a high level of natural environment suitability and was a major destination area, but more pressures were placed on the carrying capacity of big cities; and (4) western China, with a relatively weak carrying capacity for resources and environment, was a net outflow region in 2010 - although five provinces had small-scale net inflow because of western-style development strategies. This study is offered as a contribution to understanding the features of China's floating population and will be useful for those shaping policies that guide population migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many questions regarding local economic phenomena involve issues of spatial and temporal dependence and heterogeneity. One of the main ideas of the socialist market economic system which was set up in 1978 in China is 'those becoming rich earlier bring along other people, all achieving the common richer eventually'. However, after several decades, having performed a series of balanced development strategies and policies, is this purpose true or not? How about the outcome of regional level of planning strategies under the socialist-market system? This paper focus on the intra provincial development, and uses per capita GDP of Guangdong, one of the most developed provinces in China to analyse the economic development of prefecture-level cities from 1978 to 2013 with a new exploratory space-time method. Three conclusions can be drawn as follows: first, the degree of regional economic development is gradually deepening along with rapid economic development in Guangdong province and the per capita GDP difference is gradually widening between the Pearl River Delta region and the non-Pearl River Delta region. The core-periphery relation is clear within the provincial level's development. Second, the trend and position of space-time paths are different across regions. Third, the space-time paths have not intersected across poor and rich regions during the last 33 years. Widening uneven development is concealed by the 'fast growth' economic phenomenon. The macro-economic environment has had some effects on different regions, with the effect on fast growing areas, such as the core region of the Pearl River Delta the most obvious. There is a lag effect on other undeveloped areas. At the same time, under the socialist market economic system, the market is the main motivation behind regional discrepancies, and some policies and strategies aimed at narrowing the gap have had limited success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, China and North Korea have been described as 'blood brothers' because of their common socialist ideological ground. Since 2000 the basis of their relationship has shifted from one-sided economic support by China into strategic and mutual cooperation. In this paper, we analyse changes in their relationship by examining two specific points: first, China's growing investment and trade in North Korea, and second, close linkages of regional development strategies between the two countries. While the prevalent discussions around North Korea and its relations with China concentrate on geopolitical issues, this research shed more light on geoeconomic engagement between China and North Korea. This paper argues that it is crucial to grasp how China and North Korea perform geoeconomic calculations toward each other and how this affects geopolitical conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Rio Declaration of 1992 called for states to integrate environmental protection in their process of development in order to achieve the ultimate goal of sustainable development (Principle 4). The paper investigates to what extent the People's Republic of China (PRC) has integrated environmental protection into her fisheries policy. The environment/development nexus is analysed in relation to the adoption and implementation of the Fisheries Law of 2000. Official documents and, more importantly, interviews conducted in several organizations at multiple levels of governance disclose a complex reality beyond the formal commitment to sustainable fisheries. Diverging interests, goals and strategies can be traced beyond formal policy documents in Beijing, Guangdong and between the Centre and the Province. Inter-organizational divergences at the central and local levels, as well as between them, hinder the pursuit of environmental protection in the development of China's fisheries sector. The paper highlights the political complexity of pursuing more responsible fisheries in the multi-actor and multi-level political-administrative system of the PRC. Here, as well as in many other developing countries, economic development constitutes the policy priority. Environmental protection often remains not only an ambitious objective but also an unperceived need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the patterns, causes, and implications of China's structural change and its contribution to China's regional growth. Among many other findings, our regression results show that conditional convergence exists across different regions in China. Regional structural change has a convergence effect and regional openness facilitates regional structural change. Structural shocks and structural transformation had the opposite effect on China's interregional convergence during the 1990s, though the combined effect of overall structural change is a convergence effect. We also find that Chinese regions rely more heavily on structural change for labor productivity growth as the economy evolves. In summary, the results of our empirical analysis support the hypothesis underlying the theoretical model of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last thirty years, remarkable achievements have been made in China's poverty reduction course. The dramatic fall in China's poor can be attributed mainly to a high rate of economic growth, government poverty reduction policies and targeted programmes and pro-poor macroeconomic and industrial policies. This paper focuses on China's poverty reduction policies and programmes and their impact on the poor regions and poor households. Lessons are drawn for poverty reduction and economic development in African countries. The paper also explores the potential for collaboration in poverty reduction between China and African countries and recommendations are made for the governments and donor agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's relationship with Africa has grown exponentially over the last decade with US$95 billion in bilateral trade in 2008 and US$5.4 billion of Chinese investment in Africa for the same year. The growth of Sino-African relations also has an impact on the role of traditional development partners in Africa in particular in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which has already led some traditional development partners to reduce their aid budgets and subsequently their Official Development Assistance (ODA) flows to Africa. The objective of this paper is to analyse different development cooperation modalities in Africa of traditional development partners and China. This requires identifying trends in aid, debt relief, general budget support, trade, preferential trade access, and investment flows of both traditional development partners and China. The paper advocates that complementarities can be built between these development modalities on a national, regional and global level. This would enhance development effectiveness, increase efficiency and create win-win situations which would be beneficial to African countries, China and traditional development partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BSTRACT Discussions on the politics of Chinese engagement with African development have been marked by increasing concern over Chinese use of aid in exchange for preferential energy deals. Normative liberal discourse criticizes the Chinese for disbursing 'rogue aid' and undermining good governance in the African continent. These criticisms not only ignore the longer-term motivations and modalities of Chinese aid and the historical diversity of Chinese relations with Africa, but also uncritically assume 'Western' aid to be morally 'superior' and 'more effective' in terms of development outcomes. This paper consists of three parts. First, it will discuss the debates surrounding Chinese engagement in Africa, especially around aid and development issues. Second, the paper maps the historical development of China-Africa engagement and investigates the impacts of the changing modalities of Chinese aid with reference to case studies of two countries: Angola and Ghana. It then offers a comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between these two cases. The principal argument is that Chinese and Western donors employ different ideologies and practices of governance to conceal their own interests and political discourses in the African continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an analysis of the economic relationship between the two most important economies in Asia. Over the last decades, the Chinese and Japanese economies have become more economically interdependent, a development which will, in the long run, impact the countries' political relationship. The paper seeks to answer the question: How can China and Japan gain from the current economic situation, further enhance their relationship and increase their synergies for regional economic development? Data on trade and Foreign Direct Investment are used in combination with primary data from interviews with Japanese and Chinese companies on how they perceive the current business situation and future potential. The result of the data analysis shows that the countries have much to gain from their economic interdependence. The firms see great potential in their respective markets but are concerned about political turbulence. Three possible scenarios for the future economic relationship are presented, including fierce competition on all markets and a leveraging of resources for mutual development between Chinese and Japanese companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today rapidly growing economies depend more on the creation, acquisition, distribution, and use of knowledge. As such, strategies for enhancing research and innovation capabilities have come to occupy a more important position in many developing nations, including China. Already the leading production center, and often seen as China's economic locomotive, Shanghai is striving aggressively to retain its national preeminence and has launched concerted efforts to increase local innovative output. The primary purpose of this paper is to understand how state-led efforts have fared in promoting technology innovation. By situating the city in the national and global context, the paper shows that Shanghai has gained a substantial lead in developing an innovation environment with extensive global linkages and leading research institutions. Recent efforts in building up the research and innovation capacity of the enterprise sector have begun to show progress. Although firms are enthusiastic about its future as an innovation center, Shanghai continues to face challenges of inadequate protection of intellectual property, lack of venture capital investment, and the tightening supply of highly qualified knowledge workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outcomes and forms of urbanization and modernization in China following the reform and opening of the late 1970s have attracted extensive attention and competing interpretations in scholarly documentation. This paper focuses on Hainan Island, established in 1988 as the biggest special economic zone in China. Since then, considerable inflows of human as well as speculative capital have led to rapid real estate, in particular tourism-related, development. While urban expansion and improvements have been encouraged, the ongoing over-building, unregulated conversion of land use and degradation of the urban environment present serious social and economic problems. This paper summarizes the trajectory, causal factors and outcomes of this urban growth and consequent planning problems that make the island an atypical case in China’s urbanization experience. We argue that the establishment of a practical framework combining socioeconomic planning, land use planning, and the management of both, is crucial to achieve sustainable growth for this transitional economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid economic ascent of China and the increasing integration of the world economy in the past two decades have made metropolises in China such as Shanghai and Beijing emerging global cities. Foreign investment is a central force underlying the emergence and transformation of the Chinese metropolises into global cities. This is especially true in Shanghai, which has experienced massive infusion of foreign investment. Varied forms of foreign investment or development zones have been created to promote foreign investment inflows, yet remain under-studied. This paper analyzes structure, performance, and underlying factors of development zones in Shanghai, and discusses the implications for global city-formation; it unfolds the variations among development zones, and illustrates the significant role of the state and local conditions. As the literature on global cities dwells primarily on the experiences of advanced economies, this paper further contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics of emerging global cities in the developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of Chinese activities in sub-Saharan African countries with respect to the growth performance of economies in that region. Using a Solow-type growth model and panel data for the period 1991 to 2010, we find that African economies that export natural resources have benefited from positive terms-of-trade effects. In addition, there is evidence for displacement effects of African firms due to competition from China. On the other hand, Chinese foreign investment and aid in Africa does not appear to have a significant impact on African growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a political ecology framework that explores livelihood vulnerability, this paper analyzes commodification of grapes as an economic development strategy in Southwest China. Ethnographic research found that during the past decade, a majority of households within a village have converted fields to a monocrop of grapes, introduced by the government as part of a program to promote red wine from the region for tourism purposes. Villagers have been motivated to take part due to high economic returns but have found themselves living with less diversified sources of income and increasing use of agricultural chemicals. Villagers display concern for food security as they have moved away from growing subsistence crops and rely heavily on funds produced by grapes for subsistence. Questions are raised regarding long-term sustainability and the outlook of development programs targeting rural farmers as producers of high-value commodities being consumed by China’s growing middle and upper classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the roles of physical capital, human capital, and social capital in China's economic growth during the reform period 1981-2010. Empirical estimation confirms that physical capital and human capital contribute to the economic growth, probably due to the capital accumulation and the improvement of labor productivity. The impact of social capital turns from being insignificant in the 1980s and the 1990s to be positive in the 2000s, suggesting its rising importance in recent decades. A declining role of physical capital in the economic growth in China from 1990s to 2000s is also found. The findings hold for several additional robustness checks, including focusing on longer term determinants of the economic growth, subregional analysis, and endogeneity. Furthermore, the foreign direct investment inflows and adjustment of economic ownership structure are also important for economic growth in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's spectacular economic growth has been spatially uneven, with much development occurring in eastern coastal areas. In particular, three metropolitan 'super-regions' have become China's most competitive knowledge-based economies, consisting of the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Bohai Gulf Region. This paper benchmarks the competitiveness of these regions, with a view to exploring which region is best positioned to become the most dominant knowledge-based economy over time. Through the theoretical lens of dynamic comparative advantage, it is shown that each region has hugely increased its competitiveness through improvements in the capacity to absorb and diffuse knowledge. It is further shown that due to multi-dimensional advantages the Yangtze River Delta, incorporating the Shanghai metropolis, is best positioned to become the dominant hub of China's future knowledge economy. It is concluded that China's leading regions will require further economic policy adjustments in order to secure their future competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing hunger and malnutrition and improving food security have come to the forefront of global political agenda. In the wake of recent spells of food price hike, national and supranational development organizations and governments have begun to express serious concerns about the world's capacity to feed its burgeoning population. In response to the target of increasing food production by 70% in 2050, many countries are formulating their agricultural policies to promote domestic food self-sufficiency and many are building international networks for outsourcing food supply beyond national borders. In the face of massive demand for food for its growing population, China is both strengthening its food self-sufficiency strategies and relying on large-scale imports from international market which has been a major driver of food price inflation in recent years. In China, increase in income and socioeconomic status on one hand have dramatically improved dietary intake and overall nutritional status of the population, and are creating an enormous pressure on land and water resources and natural environments on the other. Maintaining food and water security and for its huge population with its limited resources while at the same time sustaining the economic growth momentum are offering significant challenges to China's macroeconomic prospects. China's domestic food production and self-sufficiency status have certain repercussions on the volatility of global agri-food market and food security in food-import and food-aid-dependent countries. The objectives of this study is to provide an in-depth overview of China's food production and demand scenario with a particular focus on its challenging perspectives toward food secure 2050. The first half of the paper is designed to show recent trends in food production and consumption and the impacts on global food market. The second half describes the major challenges with a brief discussion on policy implication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial models of port system evolution often depict linearly the emergence of hierarchy through successive concentration phases of originally scattered ports. The Chinese case provides a fertile ground for complementing existing works by a long-term perspective, given the early importance of river ports and seaports and the development irregularities caused by periods of closure and openness over time and across such a large land mass. In both qualitative and quantitative ways, this paper describes and analyses the changing spatial pattern of China's port system since the first unified empire (221 bc). Main results underline a certain stability of the port system with regard to the location of main sea-river gateways, notwithstanding important regional shifts from one period to the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of China has altered the context of the international humanitarian community of donors and aid agencies. China is becoming one of the key actors in this grouping, undertaking infrastructure projects in areas in which paramount humanitarian challenges exist. The literature discusses how the Chinese approach differs from that of Western donors, but it does not pay much attention to why China concentrates on its state-centric and infrastructure-based approach. This paper seeks to shed some light on this subject by examining the historical evolution of the concept of humanitarianism in China. This evolution has produced three legacies: (i) the ideal of a well-ordered state; (ii) anti-Western sentiment; and (iii) the notion of comprehensive development based on a human-oriented approach. China's policies and discourses on assistance in humanitarian crises today rest on these three legacies. Traditional donors would be well advised to consider carefully the implications of the Chinese understanding of humanitarianism when engaging with the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, rapid economic growth and increasing social problems constitute two basic characteristics of contemporary social change. During the process of dramatic social change, an emerging question is how adolescents’ mental health has changed across birth cohorts. The present paper reviews four studies of crosstemporal meta-analysis conducted by us. By meta-analysis of previous literature, we examined changes in mean scores on mental health measures over time (from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s). It was found that since the early 1990s, Chinese adolescents’ mental health deteriorated across birth cohorts, shown in increased scores on the negative indicators of mental health (e.g. mental problems, anxiety, and depression), whereas self-esteem as a positive trait decreased. The dropping trend in Chinese adolescents’ mental health could be attributed to social change, especially increasing social problems. Therefore, adequate attention must be paid to potential influences of social change on individuals’ psychological development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Africa's foremost 'emerging market' Angola is receiving increasing recognition for its oil wealth, leading to attempts to engage it as a strategic partner, especially amongst the 'rising powers'. In particular, there has been considerable escalation in development cooperation between Angola and China recently, though relatively little is known about the precise terms of this 'partnership' despite China's key role in Angola's post-conflict reconstruction. The growing importance of Chinese credit lines and increasing presence of Chinese corporate agencies across Angolan territory raise important questions about development, poverty reduction and inequality; governance and labour relations; and Angola's institutional capacity and the social structure of its cities. This paper critically examines the specific outcomes of Angola's 'partnership' with China along with the hybrid conceptions and tangled geographies of 'development' produced as a result. In particular, it seeks to interrogate the visions of Angola's future articulated by the Angolan state and the reference points and 'models' of development that they draw upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between economic growth and industrial pollution emissions in China using data for 112 major cities between 2001 and 2004. Using disaggregated data, we separate foreign direct investment inflows from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan from those of other foreign economies. We examine two industrial water pollution indicators (wastewater and petroleum-like matter) and four industrial air pollution indicators (waste gas, sulfur dioxide, soot, and dust). Our results suggest that most air and water emissions rise with increases in economic growth at current income levels. The share of output of domestic- and foreign-owned firms increases several pollutants in a statistically significant manner while output of firms from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan either reduces pollution or is statistically insignificant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the global financial and economic crisis, China has continued to experience strong export-driven growth and, indeed, became the world's largest exporting country in 2009. This rise of China in international markets presents African countries with growing competition in their home and export markets, but also with new opportunities. This paper focuses on the impacts of these developments on countries in North Africa, which are directly affected by the prominence of Chinese manufacturing. In particular, the analysis addresses two policy questions: First, is competition from China leading to substantial displacement of resources that incur significant adjustment costs while moving to new activities, or are there opportunities to exploit finer patterns of specialization that entail less disruption? And second, will policies that mitigate the impact of competition from China limit the longer-term capacity to exploit new opportunities in the global market? The findings from the empirical analysis suggest that policy makers can support North African producers in the increasingly fierce competition with China by reviewing the regulatory and incentives environment, reducing trade logistics costs, and broadening trade promotion efforts to non-traditional markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers whether trade between China and sub-Saharan Africa results in productivity-enhancing technology transfers to sub-Saharan African manufacturing firms. As trade flows between countries potentially results in interactions that lead to technological improvements in the production of goods and services, we parameterize the level of total factor productivity for African manufacturing firms as a function of foreign direct investment flow, and for the country in which it operates, trade openness with China, and its interaction with foreign direct investment. With micro-level data on manufacturing firms in five sub-Saharan African countries, we estimate the parameters of firm-level production functions between 1992 and 2004. Our parameter estimates reveal that across the firms and countries in our sample, there is no relationship between productivity-enhancing foreign direct investment and trade with China. In addition, increasing trade openness with China has no effect on the growth rate of total factor productivity. To the extent that total factor productivity and its growth is a crucial determinant of economic growth and living standards in the long run, our results suggest that increasing trade openness with China is not a long-run source of higher living standards for sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restructuring of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is a central aspect of their reform in transitional China. This study traces the processes by which large industrial SOEs in Lanzhou are reorganised externally and expanded internally, and analyses their effects on regional industrial development. The study is qualitative, based on enterprise surveys and their historical documents. The paper demonstrates that the reorganisation process was government-pushed, and that the government also played some role in the diversification and performance of large SOEs. In addition, the diversification of large SOEs in Lanzhou was subject to market conditions and SOE-specific factors, and the influence of the national reorganisation policy on industrial development in Lanzhou was linked to the product and scale structure of local enterprises. As such, the study calls for a context approach that analyses the reorganisation and diversification of large enterprises in transitional China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns over the effects of globalisation and liberalisation have intensified the debates over the trajectories and underlying sources of regional inequality. This paper attempts to link macro studies of regional inequality to micro studies of local development and to expand the research on intraprovincial inequality in China to Guangdong Province. First, substantial evidence has been provided to illustrate the extent of polarisation between the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and the periphery, especially since the early 1990s. Second, it has been found that new economic spaces centred on exoproduction centres, high-tech zones, university clusters, and entrepreneurial spaces driven by the domestication of globalisation and the growth of the knowledge economy have emerged as new engines of regional growth. The orthodox notion of the PRD development as externally driven has become obsolete, and a new conceptualisation centred on the knowledge economy and integrated development better explains regional development and polarisation in Guangdong. Finally, the theoretical and policy implications of the research are discussed. The emerging form of regional development in the PRD represents an effort to make the knowledge economy the new engine of regional development and indicates that developing countries such as China are attempting to move beyond being a manufacturing assembler. The emergence of the knowledge economy in the PRD also has important implications for the recent efforts to develop the Greater Pearl River Delta, which needs to pay more attention to global networks for innovation and creativity. Moreover, the emergence of the knowledge economy makes the development of the periphery even more challenging due to the effects of self-reinforcing agglomeration and the constraints of geographical barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different comparative advantages may affect the pattern of regional specialization in many ways. In this paper, by employing panel data covering 20 main industrial sectors in 29 Chinese provinces over the period of 1988–2001, and applying the generalized method of moment techniques, the determinants of regional specialization in China are investigated, paying particular attention to the role of dynamic comparative advantages. It is found that changing comparative advantages arising from technical efficiency improvement, scale economies enhancement, and growing economic openness contribute positively and significantly to China's regional specialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]