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This paper argues for a 'provincialised' critical geography of area studies by tracing the spatial genealogy of three waves of Chinese world regional geography and foreign area studies. The shifting terrains have been shaped strongly by the continually reconfigured power-geometries and Chinese thinking of 'the international'. The two coeval fields and knowledge production therein are situated in place-specific institutional contexts, which engender contingent disciplinary geographies and their enduring lack of dialogue. The contemporary regeneration of Chinese 'world-writing' brings its own identities and discourses, power relations and complex impacts to local-global epistemic (in)equality, which requires and rewards further critical mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the integration of the human-environment system has been an important part of Chinese human geography for over a century, constituting the distinctive academic nature of the field. Human geography has been established as an interdiscipline of natural science and social science, highlighting the combination of academic inquiry and decision application, and exploring the interaction mechanisms and sustainable development model between the human sphere and natural sphere at different spatial scales. The development of the discipline is in line with the basic concepts advocated by the global research platform "Future Earth", which has promoted the strong development of human geography in China, and has produced important societal influences. By selecting some of the most influential academic achievements, this paper briefly describes theoretical methods and social contributions to reflect the development process of human geography in the study of integrated human and environment systems in different stages in China. It also demonstrates the influence of the following elements on the adherence of Chinese human geography to the integration of human and environment systems: classical Chinese philosophical thinking on harmony between people and land, western theories of the human-environment relationship, Soviet economic geography research methods, the science of sustainability, the social demands of the construction of contemporary Chinese ecological civilization, ever-improving mathematical models and big data methods for studying enormous and complex systems, and management system reform and special scientific research system and background in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the notion of the entrepreneurial city, this paper examines recent scholarship about China's urban governance. Despite prevailing marketisation, the role of the state is visible in neighbourhood, cities and city-regions. The state necessarily deals with a fast changing society and deploys market-like instruments to achieve its development objectives. Through multi-scalar governance, the state involves social and market actors but at the same time maintains strategic intervention capacity. China's contextualised scholarship provides a more nuanced understanding beyond the entrepreneurial city thesis, which is more state-centred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dialectical relationship between 'big D' Development (broadly, the formal interventionist, international Development sector) and little 'd' development (the immanent structures and processes of capitalism) is a concept widely invoked in Geography and Development Studies. In this paper, we ask how the d/Development dialectic is evolving under current conjunctures of emergent state capitalism(s). We suggest that, going beyond 'containment', Development is ever more deeply inhabited by (capitalist) development; with implications for its palliative and restructuring roles, and for praxis, contestation and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]