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\nPlain Language SummaryThe Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has evolved from its ambitious beginning into a framework focused on high-quality development (HQD), emphasizing environmental sustainability and people-centered development. This study examines to what extent these new directives are implemented in the context of China’s overseas economic zones (OEZs), employing a multi-actor-influence model to analyze the complex interactions and challenges inherent in these projects. Focusing on the Vientiane Saysettha Development Zone (VSDZ) in Laos, our analysis identifies three primary institutional challenges: fragmentation between the central and local governments in China, structural constraints imposed on Chinese businesses, and inadequate cooperation between Chinese and host country actors. These challenges underscore the complexities of translating Beijing’s top-down policy into effective action on the ground. The paper concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of these findings for the BRI’s future development.This study examines Beijing’s recent strategic shift in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) towards high-quality development (HQD), focusing on sustainable environmental practices and enhancing local livelihoods. Our policy analysis confirms Beijing’s commitment to these goals. However, challenges arise due to the BRI’s decentralized implementation and the varied influences of multiple actors from both China and the host countries. We explore these challenges through a detailed case study of the Vientiane Saysettha Development Zone (VSDZ) in Laos, identifying three key issues: fragmentation between Chinese central and local governments, constraints on Chinese businesses, and inadequate cooperation between Chinese and host country actors.Our study contributes in three significant ways. First, it adds to the discussion of Beijing’s transition towards HQD and the BRI’s global influence through a review of Chinese policies and an analytical model elucidating the realities of BRI implementation. Second, it theorizes that outcomes of BRI projects are shaped more by local circumstances and stakeholder actions than by policies alone. Finally, it suggests potential measures to help realize HQD within the BRI framework in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom holds that the high competitiveness of the newspapers in Beijing and Shanghai is due to fast economic development in these cities. This research, however, finds that the degrees of newspaper competitiveness in Beijing and Shanghai do not relate positively to their GDP growth rates. While Shanghai's GDP outranks Beijing, the newspaper business in Beijing outgrows Shanghai. This paper argues that under the current Chinese management system, economic impact upon newspapers' development is limited. Only after the government management over media is reformed, can economic factors become a decisive force behind newspapers' innovation and advertising competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores why Zhejiangcun's Wenzhou migrants and Wangjing's Chaoxianzu migrants were able to maintain and actively restructure their settlements in Beijing while Beijing's other migrant settlements either disappeared or were forced out from their original locations. Highlighting the role of the Wenzhou model in Zhejiangcun and that of the transnational ethnic ties in Wangjing, this research illustrates how certain rural migrants emerged as a new social group by utilizing their cultural capital based on native-place and ethnic ties and newly found economic power. The present study examines the urban space of Zhejiangcun and Wangjing where alternative sources of economic power and social networks were created and utilized and therefore offers a unique perspective by locating a specifically-founded ethnographic analysis within the general debate on the restructuring of post-reform urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to look into the transformation of local innovation systems in the high-tech parks of Shanghai and Beijing and their technological learning and upgrading. The areas that we have chosen to investigate are Beijing's Zhongguancun and Shanghai's Yangpu District. The main reason that we selected these two areas for study is because they are home to most of the top universities and R&D institutes in these two cities. Our main focus will be on how institutions—the local state, inter-firm relations and the relationship between R&D institutions and firms—are co-evolving to shape and constrain a local system of innovation. Our research finds that the capacities and autonomy of the Zhongguancun of Beijing's Haidian District and Yangpu District of Shanghai differ in various aspects, but both regions are struggling to upgrade innovation and enhance economic development. The ‘high-tech cluster’ provides a useful instrument or label to achieve goals other than innovation and R&D. Elite universities are regarded as engines for network formation, but visible and invisible walls of Chinese universities discount efforts to foster a university-centered innovation hub which especially shows in the Yangpu case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In March 2008, Tibet erupted in the biggest challenge to Chinese rule since 1959. While Beijing and Dharamsala engaged in their familiar battle of representations, pundits speculated on the causes of the uprising, ranging from conspiracy theories to informed policy analysis. Applying the framework of the insecurity dilemma, this article argues that Tibetan identity insecurity on account of the post-1989 hard-line Chinese policies was the chief cause of the uprising. Largely peaceful protests and occasionally violent riots in Tibet have been integral to Tibetan efforts to mitigate their societal insecurities provoked by Chinese migration, 'assimilationist' policies and 'cultural imperialism'. However, Tibetan protests and riots heighten Chinese insecurities and harden Beijing's policies both inside Tibet and towards the Dalai Lama. This paper reveals the dynamic cycle of hard-line Chinese policies provoking Tibetan uprisings; the resulting hardening in Chinese policies feeds back into Tibetan insecurities and protests. The 2008 uprising was the most recent cycle in the long-running saga of the Sino-Tibetan insecurity dilemma. The article warns that unless the Tibetans and the Chinese find a way to break out of the insecurity dilemma, Tibet could explode into another frenzy of violence and counter-violence in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 1 July 2003, over half a million Hong Kong people staged a mass protest against the poor governance of the post-handover Hong Kong government. The grievances of the marchers quickly snowballed into a widely backed movement for democracy. The subsequent record-breaking support for pro-democratic candidates during the local elections held on 23 November 2003 unnerved Beijing over its possible loss of control over Hong Kong. Beijing swiftly shifted to a hard-line approach, attempting to dampen the local democracy movement. This paper will expound the five fundamental causes of Hong Kong's broad-based demand for full democracy, analyse its type of democratic transition to illuminate its political dynamics, and highlight the parameters impacting its democratic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How people perceive, and behave in response to, environmental problems is important in understanding responses from the individual, group, and societal levels. This paper discusses the findings of a survey that elicited university student perceptions of China's environment and development issues. The findings reveal that university students in Beijing are not single-minded about the pro-growth beliefs and values that are deeply embedded in society. On the whole, students were conscious about the seriousness of environmental problems, both in China and throughout the world. However, they were pessimistic about future environmental conditions. Many students anticipated a decline in environmental quality over the next five years, both in China and the world. The students were also ambivalent about dividing priorities between economic growth and environmental protection. Yet they supported the establishment of more environmental NGOs to exert pressure on the government to protect the environment. Overall, a rising environmental awareness among these young intellectuals would ultimately spark environmental activism in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the evolving process of China's information management at sub-national level through the prism of a crisis event. Specifically, it investigates the response of officials and the media to Beijing's fatal floods of 2012--the heaviest and the deadliest floods the Chinese capital has seen in 60 years. The article draws on ethnographic observations, the analysis of interviews with Chinese media professionals, officials and media scholars, as well as the coverage of the storm by two prominent, but distinct Beijing news outlets: an official daily, Beijing Ribao and a commercial daily, Jinghua Shibao. The analysis reveals various strategies deployed by Beijing authorities to positively shape public opinion, and the media's creative implementation of official directives. Namely, the two newspapers fused regular news coverage with different styles of positive framing. This process of mutual and diverse adaption highlights the increasingly dynamic nature of China's crisis communication and public opinion management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, policymakers, observers and scholars are calling for including China in nuclear arms-control efforts. Missing from debates, however, is a thorough analysis of Chinese perspectives. Drawing extensively on Chinese-language sources, this article traces the evolution of arms-control views among Chinese strategists and experts during the last decade. Updating earlier scholarship, we find that most Chinese strategists tend to view arms-control efforts through a strongly realpolitik prism. Many lament US domination of the arms-control agenda and believe US initiatives are intended to undermine Chinese nuclear deterrence. In recent years, these views have hardened. Chinese strategists increasingly see arms control as an arena for zero-sum military and political struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beijing has long sought to shape global narratives about China. The Xi Jinping administration not only continued that effort but also added an entirely new dimension: it now seeks to use discourse power, particularly through formulating and promoting strategic narratives, to reshape the international system itself. Drawing upon social identity theory (SIT) and strategic narratives framework, this study shows that Beijing employs a multifaceted narrative strategy to redefine existing norms or create new ones in varied global governance domains. A theoretical framework is presented to explain the strategy and subsequently applied to illustrate China's strategic narratives at the international system level and in three global governance areas, i.e., climate change, human rights, and Internet governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much has been written about US–China strategic rivalry, no study to the authors' knowledge has conducted an empirical analysis of this rivalry. This article fills this gap by investigating whether and how this rivalry affects a country's response to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The findings of this article indicate that certain aspects of bilateral strategic ties indeed have strong effects on a country's reaction to the Chinese bank. More specifically, shorter distance to higher a level of partnership with, and more arms purchase from Beijing lead to faster accession to the AIIB, while the shorter distance to Washington results in slower accession, controlling for other factors. In addition, economically developed countries appear to be consistently more eager to join the Beijing-led bank than economically underdeveloped countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past several years, China has consistently maintained economic growth and at the same time emerged as a new global giant in the international arena, despite the distractions caused by the global financial crisis, which was triggered by the US Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis of 2007 and the recent bond crisis that emerged in the European Union in 2011. Concurrent with China's growing interaction with the global economy and robust growth of its domestic economy, competition for the status of national and even international financial centers in the region has become fierce. This study focuses on a ‘local’ examination of internal conditions for the emergence and growth of Chinese financial centers over the next 10–20 years. Cities contending for the top slot in the roster of Chinese cities, like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, are striving to become international financial centers and are trying to compete with Hong Kong. This study investigates the development potentials, future prospects and division of functions between different financial centers within China regarding Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, with special reference to the role of information and locations of MNCs' regional headquarters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article describes the motives behind the making of the current status-quo and risk-averse Chinese foreign policy. It identifies a three-P incentive structure that is based on the political preservation of the CCP regime, China's economic prosperity, and Beijing's pursuit of power and prestige. These three motives are stable and overlapping, featuring Taiwan and the relationship with the United States as the key issues. Beijing is expected to be motivated by these peculiar motives over the next two decades; but new internal and external developments may greatly change these motives and generate new impetus for China's foreign policy. Although the official line in Beijing is still the mild ‘peaceful development’, after a fling with the more majestic idea of ‘peaceful rise’, the rise of nationalist emotions and demands in the PRC continues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A careful and observant traveller to Xinjiang may sense tense ethnic relations in the region. This article is primarily based on a survey and fieldwork conducted in August 2000 in Urumqi. Our findings indicate that (1) there is a low degree of integration between the two ethnic groups; (2) the Uygurs have a very strong ethnic identity; (3) members of both Han and Uygur ethnic groups including local cadres have prejudices against the opposite group; and (4) Uygurs are critical of government policies toward the national minorities including policy toward the national separatists. The Chinese government has adopted a policy of ethnic segregation and used repressive campaigns against the separatists. However, it appears that Beijing does not really have the ethnic conflicts in the region under control. Ethnic unrest in Xinjiang remains a thorn in China's political stability and national security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]