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Under the influence of international trade, labor flow not only exists in the waves of international labor migration but is also embodied in international products and services. This paper focused on members of the China–Africa Cooperation Forum (FOCAC). We computed and analyzed the sectoral embodied labor transfer between China and Africa from 2000 to 2015 based on the Multiregional Input-Output Method. Our results are as follows: (1) Both China and Africa play roles as labor suppliers in the global supply chain. By ameliorating the trade structure, both China and Africa can better utilize their labor surplus. (2) China and Africa share complementarity in sectoral labor allocation. In short, the embodied labor transfer via international trade between China and Africa has, to some extent, relieved the labor shortage on both sides. (3) Africa has transformed into a net exporter of industrial labor since 2011. By analyzing the embodied labor flow from the global perspective, this paper beats a new path in depicting the effect of international trade on labor allocation, enriches the evaluation of embodied labor transfer between China and Africa, and also provides a beneficial supplement to Multiregional Input-Output analysis in the field of factor flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines housework reallocation during China's stringent pandemic lockdowns in 2020, where individuals were homebound and job-free while employment status remained unchanged. Utilizing a mixed-method approach, it analyzes 1669 surveys and 100 interviews to understand changes in domestic labor patterns and the underlying reasons. The findings indicate that men increased their participation in grocery shopping but decreased in cooking, cleaning, and laundry during the lockdown. This gender-task pattern was mirrored in multi-generational households, where younger family members often took on these tasks. The reasons articulated for these shifts predominantly converged around the 'doing gender' theory. Women, particularly those working full-time, had more time to engage in household chores. Men, while also having more available time, predominantly focused on grocery shopping, a task that gained masculine connotations during the lockdown. Factors such as perceived differences in household labor quality, difficulty delegating housework, and reduced workload led to women's increased involvement and specialization in domestic tasks. The study challenges the notion that economic factors are the primary drivers of gender-based division of housework. Instead, it suggests that ingrained gender norms continue to dictate domestic roles, as evidenced during the lockdown period devoid of usual economic and time pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper investigates the evolving defense cooperation between India and Japan in the context of the strategic landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly considering China's rise. The existing literature recognizes China's increasing influence as a significant factor in India-Japanese security cooperation, but tends to overlook the dynamics behind India's shifting stance. The study reveals that India initially hesitated to actively engage in anti-China security cooperation with Japan until the mid-2010s, but later adopted a more proactive partnership. An analysis of policy documents, political speeches, and government records attributes India's initial reluctance to its commitment to non-alignment and strategic autonomy, its desire to balance relations with both China and Japan, and its domestic political priorities favoring economic development over military expansion or strategic alliances. However, growing concerns over China's assertiveness, military modernization, a change in political leadership, and the Quad's development as a regional security platform have prompted India's attitude shift. The research's recommendations not only offer a roadmap for India, Japan, and other Indo-Pacific countries with deep economic ties to China, but also help combat China's military threats to contribute to regional stability and security, address common challenges, and foster a peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China continues to intensify its judicial reform efforts, there are multiple factors that influence the prohibition and prevention of torture in China. This issue leads to the main research question of the article: what factors influence the protection of human rights in China to achieve the prohibition and prevention of torture? This paper uses fuzzy set (fs)/qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to explore how the configurations of multiple factors influence the establishment of a strong human rights protection system, to achieve effective torture prevention and prohibition in China. This article will focus on the cases of torture that have been made public (1998–2021). When considering how to build a strong human rights protection system to achieve the prohibition and prevention of torture, it is necessary to identify the most effective combination of cooperation with international monitoring bodies, transparency, legislation and judicial practice, attention allocation on torture cases and independent monitoring bodies for torture prevention. The analysis concludes that: (1) there are three ways of configuration to establish effective torture prevention and prohibition, (2) active engagement with international monitoring bodies is key to establishing a high level of human rights protection, particularly concerning China's current mechanisms, and (3) the three types of configurations also provide solutions for future policy and decision-makers in China. This study contributes to demonstrates the benefits of fs/QCA in testing the complementarity of judicial practice and provides conceptual and empirical evidence for previously understudied factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates China's effort to create an eldercare market to shed light on how China's economic reform entailed the creation of new institutions (e.g., eldercare market including eldercare labour market) and the reconfiguration of existing institutions (e.g., governance and regulation, the family, and the community). All this was needed for the market to flourish while maintaining and strengthening the regime. An urban eldercare market, including an eldercare labour market, was created by local governments (i.e., municipalities, districts, counties, and towns) with central government policy directives, in order to address China's demographic aging and care crisis. However, once enough demand and supply were created, local governments turned to New Public Management (NPM) to operate publicly funded eldercare institutions. The paper argues that NPM has different rationalities in China than in liberal democracies; in China, they strengthen the Party and contribute to the durability of the authoritarian rule, rather than "shrink the state". However, in China as in the West, bureaucratic logic hampers the implementation of NPM and the governance of the eldercare sector. The implication of bureaucratic logic driving the regulation of the eldercare sector is that care is not at the centre of eldercare. The paper also argues that the commodification and privatization of eldercare, in line with the global trend, was a deliberate government policy aimed at creating a positive condition for the market economy to flourish, but at the expense of social reproduction/care. Unlike many Western transitions to market provision, this one entailed the decline in the extended family as the main eldercare institution of the immediate past. However, the commodification and privatization of social reproduction have been incomplete and met with resistance, prompting the state to invest more in the sector to maintain social stability. Data for this paper derive from personal interviews with key informants and eldercare workers, official document analysis, and secondary literature analysis from Chinese scholars in mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

International collaboration is one of the effective ways to enhance the impact of scientific research papers. In this research, international research collaboration papers published by world-class universities in the field of humanities and social sciences from 2015 to 2019 were selected as the research object, and the effective enhancement of the impact of international research collaboration papers was found to not be dependent on expanding the scale of international research collaboration, but rather on selecting researchers with different international backgrounds and from high-level institutions for collaboration. It was also discovered that, in the field of humanities and social sciences, despite a relatively low proportion of international research collaboration papers being led by Chinese scholars, the Chinese research is characterized by a higher impact compared with the research led by non-Chinese scholars. In light of this, a series of proactive measures should be taken by China's world-class universities, such as actively participating in and initiating international collaboration, selecting high-level research collaborators, and attracting scholars from different countries to engage in research collaboration in the field of humanities and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately assessing children's vulnerabilities and needs is important for child service delivery in social work. In China, different agencies (including international non-governmental organizations, government sectors and social organizations) utilize different tools for assessing children's needs. However, the advantages and disadvantages of these tools have been rarely discussed, leaving their quality and effectiveness unknown. As a result, it is difficult to realize the goal of improving the well-being of Chinese children. This paper contributes to existing knowledge through the use of semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders of different types of agencies, along with an in-depth exploration, analysis and comparison of their practical assessment tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use a qualitative reflexive approach to understand the dynamics of Chinese migrant perceptions of Africans upon arrival in Africa and the changes in their views upon returning to China. The research is based on in-depth, semi-structured field interviews with Chinese workers and managers in Mozambique and South Africa, as well as interviews with returning migrants to China, carried out in Beijing. Thus, we are able to gauge the learning experience that occurs and how the underlying Confucian philosophy that has been embraced by the Chinese polity manifests such changes in perception. The research suggests that there is a positive learning process which occurs through the migrants' experience and underlying racial stereotypes of Chinese regarding Africans are eroded. Confucian framing of China's role in Africa is also mitigated towards a more hybridized view of African cultures and societies that reflects to adaptive propensities of contemporary Chinese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2016, China promulgated the “Opinions of the State Council on Strengthening the Work of Rescuing Children in Difficulty”, which broadened the coverage of child welfare in China. The document clearly encourages and supports the participation of nonprofit charitable organizations in improving and complementing the public support system for children living in difficulty. This paper reports an assessment study of the relief program for children with congenital heart disease, which was launched by the Red Cross in L Province. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews with six Red Cross employees and 10 parents of stricken families, and telephone interviews with 66 recipient families, were carried out. Additionally, a review of a large number of background documents was analyzed to assess interventions by social organizations in the rescue of children in difficulty. The project was shown to reduce poverty and improve medical treatment for children with congenital heart disease. The role of nonprofit charitable organizations in relation to the child protection system can be characterized as “leak-filling”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]