Search

As a traditional energy and carbon intensive sector, it becomes imperative for the global paper industry to realize green development. This paper aims to provide guidance for the green transformation of global paper industry by evaluating the global paper industry green development level in a systematic and dynamic way. This paper employs text-mining method to develop paper industry green development evaluation indicator system and adopts market-extended LCA model and entropy-TOPSIS method to calculate the paper industry green development level of 48 countries/regions. The results show that during 2000–2030 the paper industry green development level of developing countries improves faster than developed countries, where those of developing and developed countries increase from 0.3369 to 0.3938 and from 0.5120 to 0.5517 respectively and the gap between them narrows from 0.1751 to 0.1579. The comparative analysis reveals that the paper industries of developed and developing countries are in different green development stages. Developing countries, represented by China, improve greatly in economic and social dimensions, but decline seriously in ecological dimension due to enlarging resource consumption and environmental damages. On the contrary, developed countries tend to saturate in economic and social dimensions and have been improving fast in ecological dimension, gradually realizing the decoupling of industrial economic development and environmental damages. To further promote the global paper industry green development, developing countries should focus on promoting the coordinated development between economic growth and environment protection and developed countries should play a leading role in the global green transformation by promoting optimal allocation of resources and cross-regional communications of green technologies. • A paper industry green development indicator system is developed based on text mining. • A global paper industry green development model is built with market-extended LCA. • Complex interactions among the indicators are internalized in the evaluation. • A spatial-temporal analysis is performed on global paper industry green development level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a traditional energy and carbon intensive sector, it becomes imperative for the global paper industry to realize green development. This paper aims to provide guidance for the green transformation of global paper industry by evaluating the global paper industry green development level in a systematic and dynamic way. This paper employs text-mining method to develop paper industry green development evaluation indicator system and adopts market-extended LCA model and entropy-TOPSIS method to calculate the paper industry green development level of 48 countries/regions. The results show that during 2000–2030 the paper industry green development level of developing countries improves faster than developed countries, where those of developing and developed countries increase from 0.3369 to 0.3938 and from 0.5120 to 0.5517 respectively and the gap between them narrows from 0.1751 to 0.1579. The comparative analysis reveals that the paper industries of developed and developing countries are in different green development stages. Developing countries, represented by China, improve greatly in economic and social dimensions, but decline seriously in ecological dimension due to enlarging resource consumption and environmental damages. On the contrary, developed countries tend to saturate in economic and social dimensions and have been improving fast in ecological dimension, gradually realizing the decoupling of industrial economic development and environmental damages. To further promote the global paper industry green development, developing countries should focus on promoting the coordinated development between economic growth and environment protection and developed countries should play a leading role in the global green transformation by promoting optimal allocation of resources and cross-regional communications of green technologies. • A paper industry green development indicator system is developed based on text mining. • A global paper industry green development model is built with market-extended LCA. • Complex interactions among the indicators are internalized in the evaluation. • A spatial-temporal analysis is performed on global paper industry green development level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simultaneously achieving economic development and environmental protection is a shared global challenge. While the positive effect of environmental regulations on protecting the environment has been widely recognized, the attention paid to low-carbon governance and corporate green transformation remains insufficient. Based on the two-stage least square regression model (2SLS) of instrumental variables, this paper utilizes panel data from China to identify the influence mechanism of government low-carbon governance on enterprise green development. It explores the effect of low-carbon governance on enterprise green development from the perspective of fiscal decentralization. The findings show that (1) Low-carbon governance significantly promotes corporate green development, primarily through improving industrial structure and technological innovation; (2) Low-carbon governance notably promotes the green development of private enterprises but has little effect on state-owned enterprises. There are also geographical differences, and the results are better in Eastern China than in the Central and Western parts of China; (3) Fiscal decentralization at both central and local levels inhibits the effect of low-carbon governance on driving corporate green development by causing a mismatch of human resources. Therefore, to promote corporate green development, low-carbon governance must prioritize green development, actively guide industrial structural upgrading and enterprise technological innovation, implement differentiated low-carbon governance measures tailored to different ownership enterprises, and optimize the assessment indicators for fiscal decentralization. This paper helps deepen the understanding of the relationship between government low-carbon governance and enterprise green development in developing countries. It can be used as a reference for government departments to formulate relevant policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Part of UN sustainable development goal 9 is upgrading production capabilities. • Increasing economic complexity is a key driver for sustainable economic growth. • Sequential model selection used for robust generalised method of moments estimation. • Chinese FDI evidently shows a positive impact on host countries' economic complexity. • Global policy makers should deepen their relationships with the belt and road. Upgrading the production capabilities in all countries is a target of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goal 9. Increasing economic complexity, that is, a country's ability to manufacture more sophisticated products and thus moving up the value chain, is a key driver for sustainable economic growth. This paper investigates whether Chinese Belt and Road investments have impacted the economic complexity of host countries — a topic not addressed in the literature to date, using a sequential generalised method of moments model selection approach. The research focuses on the countries whose economic complexities are below that of China. Our empirical results show significant positive effects of Chinese investments on such host countries' economic complexities. The inflows of Chinese investments have thus supported the upgrading of production capabilities in these countries. This is encouraging, especially for the Global South countries, to intensify their interactions with the Belt and Road initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of influencing factors serves as the cornerstone for the research on smart community construction. Drawing upon both field research and extensive literature study, this paper explores the influencing factors of China's smart community construction and its effective paths by taking 52 national pilot zones for community governance and service innovation in China as examples. In the constructed analytical framework of influencing factors, elements such as economic development, capital investment, information infrastructure, community governance, public support system, and smart platform are included. By the use of the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method, the results of the study show that community governance, public support system, and smart platform are necessary conditions for smart community construction, while economic development, capital investment and information infrastructure play a leading role in the four combined paths. Finally, this study provides a new perspective for theoretical research, a reference forgovernmental departments to make decisions, and experience for the construction of smart communities in other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the rapid development of the digital economy, it's an important topic how to play the role of digital technology in improving innovation efficiency. Employing the spatial econometric model with province-level panel data during 2006–2018, the article explores the impact of the development of the digital economy on innovation efficiency in China. The analysis unveils three major findings. First, the innovation efficiency has significant positive spatial externalities and the digital economy has significantly positive direct effects and spatial spillover effects on innovation efficiency, but the above effects are heterogeneous for different regions and innovation subjects. Second, the impact of digital economy development on innovation efficiency has characteristics of a certain degree of lag effect and continuity. Third, the threshold effect analysis reveals the non-linear characteristic of the increasing marginal effect of the digital economy on innovation efficiency. Altogether, the development of the digital economy has become an important driving force for promoting China's innovation efficiency. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence for understanding the relationship between the digital economy development and innovation efficiency, giving significant implications for the innovative development of developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to study the dynamics and influencing factors of China-Argentina cooperation in the multilateral framework from a multidimensional theoretical perspective, in order to reveal the external thrust and internal logic of the development of Sino-Argentine relations. The four theories discussed in the paper are not opposed but complementary to each other. Together, they explain the factors that drive and hinder Sino-Argentine cooperation at the multilateral level. This article also presents a study of Sino-Argentine cooperation practices at three different levels of multilateral platforms, namely the UN General Assembly and Security Council, the G20 and the China-CELAC Forum. Cooperation between China and Argentina in multilateral mechanisms not only helps communication, understanding and coordination of positions between China and Argentina on major international issues, but also contributes to jointly enhancing the voice and influence of developing countries in international affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has evolved into an important provider of resources for developing countries, encompassing capital, know-how and expertise. China has also actively worked to strengthen diplomatic ties with developing regions since the early 2000s. Against this backdrop, the governments in many developing countries have moved to incorporate China as a significant factor in their geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations. Under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), Turkey has also sought to foster relations with China, particularly since the early 2010s. This pursuit has been further triggered by Ankara's strained relations with the United States and the European Union. Turkish political leadership envisions China as a potentially crucial partner that could enhance the country's autonomy in relation to the West. While this expectation has not entirely materialized so far, there is an ongoing debate regarding the extent to which China can potentially be a transformative actor in Turkey's position within the international order. This paper contributes to this debate by locating Turkey-China engagement within a broader context of China's power and influence in the developing world. The paper suggests that the potential for Turkey's cooperation with China is likely to remain relatively limited for the foreseeable future. This is not only due to Turkey's deeply rooted ties with the West, but also because of the nature of China's global power, which is more partial and not as deep as commonly assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contributes to the growing debate about how China drives change in institutions and norms of global governance. It analyses the case study of China's approach to transnational voluntary sustainability standards as concrete tools of Western-sponsored green value chain initiatives, between integration and contestation. Engaging international political economy scholarship, the paper shows that China participates in such initiatives by reshaping their focus away from contested market-based approaches to more internationally consensual state-led ones. This stance indicates that China's reshaping of international norms and institutions conveys claims made by Global South alliances. These alliances are increasingly important for China, not only politically and militarily but also economically and for the success of key initiatives, like the Belt and Road Initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the serial mergers and acquisitions(M&A) data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019, this paper discusses whether there are geographical peer effects in serial M&A, and tests its mechanism and influence path. The empirical study shows that geographical peer decision-making has geographical peer effects in the decision-making of serial M&A, and the average number of serial M&A of geographical peers has a significant positive impact on the serial M&A decision-making of focal firms. Social learning and director networks are essential to produce geographical peer effects in serial M&A. The external learning mechanism shows that the geographical peer effect of serial M&A decision-making is partly caused by backward firms' social learning to the leading peer firms' decision-making, but vice versa. The director network relationship of focal firms can positively moderate the relationship between the geographical peer firms' average serial M&A decision-making and the focal firm's serial M&A decision-making. This paper reveals the mechanism of geographical peer effect in serial M&A decision-making and provides a new perspective to understand the motivation of serial M&A decision-making. These empirical findings not only provide important empirical evidence on serial M&A from developing countries such as China, but also provide a valuable reference for decision-makers and researchers of serial M&A in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editors of EPA: Economy and Space have announced the winners of the Ashby prizes for the most innovative papers published in the journal in 2022. Kun Wang, Junxi Qian, and Shenjing He were awarded for their paper on global destruction networks and hybrid e-waste economies in Guiyu, China. Andrea Ricci was awarded for his paper on global locational inequality. The papers have been made free to access for one year. The authors express their gratitude for the recognition and discuss the importance of their research in addressing cultural and economic issues in the Global South. [Extracted from the article]

As land is one of the most important production factors in rural areas, it is becoming an important challenge for rural revitalization strategy to realize land value and promote the socioeconomic development of villages through the collective action of self‐organized collective land use. Various studies have discussed the relationships among land governance, rural revitalization and self‐organization, but few studies have focused on village cadres' roles and village rules. This paper aims to establish an analytical framework to explore these two operating mechanisms of self‐organization in collective land use. Two villages in eastern China and one village in western China are selected as typical cases to demonstrate how collective land use is self‐organized by village cadres' roles and village rules. The results indicate that village cadres play roles in the entrepreneurial spirit and resource access capacity to promote village economic and social development. In the utilization of collective land for farmers to live in peace and work happily, the configuration of rules at the village level to regulate the behaviour of villagers is a qualification on demand and "see who can take part", cost sharing and benefit sharing, graduated sanction and supervision. The analysis in this article may provide an understanding of the mechanism driving the promotion and improvement of land self‐organization, which has important policy implications for China and other developing countries adopting this mode to promote regional economic development in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of English as a lingua franca on FDI by using the bilateral FDI data between China and 36 OECD countries. We find that English as a lingua franca significantly promotes FDI between China and OECD countries; the impact of English proficiency on outward FDI is greater than that on inward FDI in China; the improvement of English proficiency is more conducive to promoting China's FDI with non-English-speaking countries than with English-speaking countries. Our findings suggest that English can be an effective lingua franca to remove language barriers in FDI for developing countries, especially when the investing partners are high-income and non-English-speaking countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sedentary bias that characterizes discourses on migrations from and within the Global South has failed to inform a consistent exploration of international migration from and among global southern countries as normal, desirable and impactful to migrants and their social networks at different spatial levels. Migration‐development nexus analyses are predominantly framed around Global South‐Global North migration episodes whereby cash and social remittances from the North to the South are expected to trigger development in poorer global southern origin countries. This approach neglects the possibility of similar outcomes accruing from south‐south migrations. Drawing on qualitative research methods among Ghanaian migrants to China, our paper addresses the question how does south‐south migration affect livelihoods and wealth inequality? We argue that blunt global categorizations such as "Global South" and "Global North" only serve to obfuscate what is a rather heterogenous bunch of countries, with divergent opportunities for migrants. We recommend that greater focus should be on the contextual factors at the origin and destination, the quality of return preparedness and the human capital of the migrants rather than an arbitrary clustering around a binary Global South‐Global North trajectory as though they are internally homogenous. We conclude that there is heterogeneity in the effects of south‐south migration on household livelihoods and wealth inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital misallocation is a main obstacle to China's economic development. This paper deploys a quasi-natural experiment formed by the 'Revitalization Plan for Ten Industries' (RPTI) and examines the impacts that selective industrial policies have on capital misallocation. It is found that the RPTI significantly exacerbates capital misallocation and that the effect does not disappear when the RPTI ends. Mechanism analysis indicates that the RPTI significantly increases the capital productivity of firm groups with high capital productivity but significantly reduces the capital productivity of firm groups with low capital productivity. This can be further interpreted by a decrease or an increase of inefficient investment and financial constraints faced by the corresponding firm groups. The documented relationship is stronger in state-owned enterprises and in firms located in areas of high marketization. Our findings advance the understanding of governmental policy intervention in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of green finance and the promotion of green transformation and upgrading of high energy-consuming enterprises are of great significance for China to achieve the "double carbon" goal. This paper employs a dual fixed-effects model to examine the profound ramifications and intrinsic mechanisms of green finance development on the transformative innovation of high-energy-consumption enterprises, using a sample of 462 publicly traded high-energy-consuming corporations from the period spanning 2016 to 2020. The results show that the development of green finance promotes the transformation and innovation of energy-intensive enterprises and that market-incentivized environmental regulation plays a partially mediating role; the results of heterogeneity analysis show that green finance promotes the transformation and innovation of high energy-consuming enterprises with significant differences in different low-carbon pilot regions, company ownership, and enterprise size; the mechanism analysis shows that the development of green finance can increase government subsidies and alleviate financing constraints to promote the transformation and innovation of high energy-consuming enterprises; it is also found that the development of green finance can significantly improve the financial performance of enterprises. The research findings of this paper hold significant implications for promoting the sustainable development of green finance and high-energy consumption enterprises in China. They provide valuable insights and references for facilitating the green transformation and innovation of high-energy-consuming enterprises in China as well as other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the human development indices of 31 inland provinces (municipalities) in China in a continuous time series during 2000–2017 according to the 2010 HDI compilation method. It uses a geographically and temporally weighted regression model for conducting an empirical study on the effects of R&D investment and network penetration on human development in each province (municipality) of China. There is significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the impact of R&D investment and network penetration on human development across provinces (municipalities) in China due to differences in resource endowments and economic and social development. For R&D investment, eastern provinces (municipalities) have mostly positive effects on human development, and central regions have mostly weak positive or negative effects. In contrast, western provinces (municipalities) show different development paths, with weak positive effects in the early stage and significant positive effects after 2010. Most provinces (municipalities) show a continuous and increasing positive effect for network penetration. The marginal contributions of this paper are mainly in improving the shortcomings in research perspectives, empirical methods, and research data in the study of human development influencing factors in China relative to the study of HDI itself in terms of measurement or application dimensions. This paper constructs a human development index for China, analyzes its spatial and temporal distribution, and explores the impact of R&D investment and network penetration on human development in China, with the hope of providing lessons for China and developing countries to promote the level of human development and cope with the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The People's Republic of China's (PRC) policy toward the Korean Peninsula can be largely characterized as the maintenance of a "stable status quo." This has been a constant feature since the founding of the PRC in 1949. Even when China was extremely radicalized and encouraged revolutions in the Third World in the 1960s, it prevented North Korea from attacking South Korea. However, the reasons behind China's policy choices have varied over time. This paper attempts to highlight the different reasons that led the PRC to maintain the same policy toward the Korean Peninsula during the Cold War. This article takes a historiographical perspective, juxtaposing the Sino-North Korean, Sino-Soviet, and Sino-US relationships, to reveal useful clues for understanding China's policy toward the Korean Peninsula and to elucidate the international political context China's policy exists within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is highly development-oriented and appeals to developing countries whose wish is to catch up with developed economies. China has called for co-construction of the BRI with all and sundry, particularly with African countries, which it has considered important and strategic in actualizing the BRI project. The call for co-construction echoes well with the African partners, who are keen on leveraging the BRI for their own development. Tied to China's status as a rising economic power, both partners have agreed to align the BRI with the African Union's development agenda for complementary and beneficial development. Our paper revealed that although the call for co-construction of the BRI is a welcomed initiative, there are potential setbacks that abound, and therefore offered strategies for responding to China's call for co-construction of the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trade-off between economic growth and environmental pollution is a significant challenge for many developing countries. The emergence of digital technology is reshaping economic development and innovation systems, making it crucial to integrate digital technology and green enterprise innovation. However, local government environmental regulations can impact sustainable green development of enterprises. This study constructs a model of a three-party evolutionary game between the government, digital consulting institutions, and enterprises to explore external incentives for promoting sustainable green development among enterprises. Findings suggest that different instruments of environmental regulation have varying effects on sustainable green development of enterprises. High-intensity command-and-control, middle-intensity market-inspired, low-intensity public participation-based, and low-intensity digital technology subsidies are the optimal combination of strategies that can drive sustainable green development among enterprises more quickly and effectively in the long term. This paper proposes an optimal strategy for sustainable green development of enterprises under the game between local governments, enterprises, and digital consulting institutions from a multi-party evolutionary game perspective, providing a reference for policy development plans and theories of sustainable development for China’s double carbon target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If gentrification is occurring globally, we must understand the uneven intervention of globalisation in the production of a (global) gentrifier class. This paper adopts a comparative perspective to investigate the 'new middle class' within China's urban context. Through the critical examination of subtle retailing changes, it discusses how recent place-making strategies have fabricated the aura of 'authenticity' built upon the history of traditional residential neighbourhoods, attracting gentrifiers, whose consumption practices have transformed the retail space of a gentrified historic neighbourhood. Using Nanjing as a case study by employing qualitative research methods, this study shows that the Chinese new middle classes have yearned for modern and elitist lifestyles, with a preference for consuming Western-style goods to manifest their distinctive tastes and social status. This paper's research findings propose the concept of Xiaozi consumption, a specific term that challenges Western-developed concepts of 'consuming authenticity' by highlighting the planetary indigeneity of gentrification in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 5–10 years, a growing number of Chinese scholars and policy experts have sought to theorise the 'development' of other peoples and places in the Global South. These intellectual efforts include building temporal frameworks for describing development processes, and often, an implicit set of directives for effecting positive change. Drawing on eight months' fieldwork in Beijing, this paper examines the representational practices of depicting development and its temporal dimension that have been mobilised in the ongoing production of Chinese international development thinking. In particular, it is concerned with the ways in which temporal distance and proximity have been constructed to provide a theoretical and moral justification for China's intensifying geopolitical and economic preoccupations. We argue that more than a system of explanations, current Chinese thinking contains and expresses a recalibrated will to geopolitical power, which has had a conditioning effect on the enframing of the meanings and relations of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has become a critical issue for ensuring the sustainable development of human society. In the future, countries with greater potential for carbon reduction and advanced carbon technologies will enjoy a more favorable position in global development. The struggle for leadership and influence in the global climate change arena will intensify between developed countries such as the United States and those in Europe, the main promoter of climate change policies, and developing countries such as China. The Chinese government' s climate strategies, including goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality, are currently focused on finding ways to break the impasse in this climate game between major powers. Carbon tariff policies promoted by Europe and the United States have emerged as a powerful tool in this game. This paper employs a global multi-regional computable general equilibrium model to assess the economic and ecological impacts of the post-carbon tariff era on China. We consider eight possible scenarios based on the assumption that the European Union and the United States will impose carbon tariffs on imported products to meet global carbon reduction targets. The study finds that: ① The carbon tariff policies implemented by the United States and Europe have significant adverse effects on China' s GDP and welfare. Furthermore, these policies have a considerable detrimental impact on exports that are highly carbon-intensive, while their overall effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions remains limited. ② The carbon border tax policy, as applied by developed economies such as the United States and the European Union, does not have a clear effect on reducing carbon emissions and is a typical example of a 'harmful to others, unhelpful to oneself' behavior. ③ The Export Tax Rebate policy of China can to some extent alleviate the adverse impacts of the European and the United States Carbon Border Tax policies on the Chinese economy, while also potentially reducing China' s carbon emissions. ④ The Chinese government needs to be cautious in responding to the retaliatory measures of imposing carbon border taxes on Chinese imports, as they could cause more severe economic losses to China. The article proposes that China should take proactive measures to mitigate the negative impacts of carbon tariffs by implementing an export tax rebate policy. It also suggests guiding carbon-intensive export-oriented enterprises to proactively develop emission reduction plans and carbon footprint inventories, as well as enhancing clean energy technologies. In addition, China should actively achieve its 'dual carbon' goals, thereby avoiding economic suppression by developed economies such as Europe and the United States, who may use carbon tariffs as an excuse. The country should increase its R&D investment to improve its green image, while strengthening international cooperation on climate change governance and seeking a fair and just path towards reducing emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to position socialist China in the mobility of global socialism in the context of Cold‐War politics. It examines how the techno‐politics of China and the Soviet‐bloc's socialist tropical architecture differently reconfigured thermal exchanges between the environment, human body and a series of other multi‐scalar things in Africa during the 1960s−1980s. Drawing on the theories of thermal material culture, techno‐politics and science and technology studies (STS), it constructs a cross‐cultural comparison between China and Soviet‐bloc, aiming to achieve a more nuanced techno‐political understanding of mid‐late twentieth century socialist architecture in the Global South. It also hopes to contribute to recent scholarship about thermal comfort and governance in the context of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The DEA model was proposed for measuring industrial parks' green development performance. • The green development efficiency of the industrial parks exhibits spatial heterogeneity. • The overall scale efficiency outperforms technical efficiency. Greening the industrial parks is one of China's attempts to explore sustainable development for the industrial sector. The efficiency of green development has come to serve as a criteria index to evaluate the performance of green development for industrial parks. In this paper, a non-desired output and non-radial DEA model was proposed for measuring industrial parks' green development performance. We use the panel data of 171 green industrial parks certified by China's central government to evaluate the green development efficiency. It shows that the green development efficiency of the industrial parks exhibits significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity. We further decompose the green development efficiency and analyze the input redundancy and output insufficiency. We also choose Suzhou and Yunnan Anning Industrial Park for case studies, in order to explore the measures which can be replicated and promoted, and contribute to the green development of industrial parks in China and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the current state of China's agricultural industry, this article proposes an integrated framework for the agricultural innovation ecosystem in developing countries. Furthermore, a dynamic simulation model is constructed to analyze the game process and factors influencing the agricultural innovation ecosystem. The results indicate that industry-university-research collaboration serves as the main source of innovation within the agricultural innovation ecosystem, playing a central role in its development. The willingness to participate, cost of participation, and establishment of default fees by governments, agro-related enterprises, universities, and research institutions have significant implications for the evolution of collaborative innovation within agricultural innovation ecosystems. In order to promote the evolution of the system, agriculture-related enterprises, universities, and research institutions should establish more effective reward and punishment mechanisms, as well as cost control mechanisms. Governments should set reasonable regulatory costs and incentive intervals to actively foster a collaborative innovation atmosphere. The innovation points of this paper are as follows: extending the theory of innovation ecosystems to agriculture, particularly in developing countries characterized by imbalanced and insufficient development. A game model is also constructed to represent the collaborative innovation evolution among government, agriculture-related enterprises, universities, and research institutions, with the government as the endogenous variable. Through numerical simulation, the dynamic evolution process of collaborative innovation within the agricultural innovation ecosystem is revealed. This research enriches and expands upon innovation ecosystem theory, providing guidance for the of innovation ecology in agriculture through mathematical models in developing countries. This, in turn, promotes the convergence of symbiotic, shared, and-creation development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is currently the biggest environmental challenge facing sustainable development in human society, and it is an inherent requirement for achieving sustainable development by actively addressing climate change. Under the increasingly strict constraints of climate governance, developed countries such as the United States, European Union countries, and Japan have responded and actively formulated low-carbon development goals and policy measures that are in line with their national conditions. These policies mainly involve various fields such as low-carbon technology, energy conservation and emission reduction, and circular development, with clear policy guidance. In this paper, the evolution of policies on marine carbon sink and carbon trading in China is summarized, providing support for better understanding the background of formulating relevant international and domestic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely agreed that recent decades have witnessed a power shift towards the emerging economies. Yet the magnitude of the power shift and its implications for the global economic order are much contested. For some, the diffusion of power has been changing the power relations between the global North and global South as well as within the global South. For others, the emerging economies do not pose a significant challenge to the global North's dominance in the global political economy as the latter continues to hold structural power advantages in technology, finance, and institutional capacity. This paper contributes to this debate by analysing the changing power relations in the field of development cooperation. As shown by recent work, Chinese development finance, combining a massive scale, global reach, and distinctive modalities, has reshaped the global landscape of development finance. This paper offers an interpretation of this transformation with a focus on power relations. It argues that Chinese development finance has not only decreased the ability of Western development finance institutions to influence policy agendas and preferences in the developing world, but also eroded the latter's power to shape the governance, norms, and modalities of development cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public capital plays a key role in national economic production in developing countries, and it has become the focus of factor reform in China. This paper aims at studying the dynamic characteristics of China's public capital and the return rate. To this end, this paper inventories the public capital stock from 1978 to 2017; constructs a two-sector model to derive the necessary condition for optimal investment related to the return rate, and empirically tests it; estimates the output shares of the two sectors and calculates the rate of return to capital; and illustrates the dynamic evolution of public capital and the return rate from the time and regional dimensions. The study shows that, first, public capital has grown significantly. The portion of public capital held in the form of state-holding is increasing year by year. However, the proportion of public capital to total capital has decreased from 81% to 35%. Second, the growth of public capital has effectively balanced the gap of capital between regions. Third, the rate of return to capital has been decreasing, with two sectors' return rates having converged in 1981 and in 2010–2013. This paper measures the stock of public capital and its return rate, which is beneficial for formulating the policy of public capital in economic production and distribution, as well as exploring the path to achieving common prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In global pattern reconstruction, ecological civilization construction and integrated urban–rural development in the new era as well as outlining a new framework for rural development and promoting efficient operation of the coordination mechanism for rural development are urgently required. This paper considers three northeastern provinces of China as an example, attempts to analyze the relationship between the subsystems of rural development, and examines the coupling coordination mechanism of population, land, and industry money in the four‐dimensional system. It explores the evolution path and defects of rural development in Northeast China under the background of transformation from a systematic perspective. We found that the coupling degree of "population‐land‐industry‐money" in rural Northeast China is high, while the coordination degree is low. The degree of spatial and temporal differentiation of the coupling coordination degree gradually increases, and the rural development of each province is highly unbalanced. The results also indicate that the main reasons for the low level of the coupling coordination degree are improved land development levels, a relative shortage of labor force, backward industrial development, and increasingly weak rural investment levels. Finally, this paper illustrates that the main solutions to rural revitalization are stimulating rural investment through policies and promoting the revival of agriculture, with financial support as the starting point, before establishing the linkage and mutual feed development of "population‐land‐industry‐money" in rural areas. The results will help countries, especially developing countries, to further consider methods toward achieving rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have applied the explanatory framework of state rescaling to interrogate China's emergent city-regional governance. Much of the extant literature has concentrated on either the centrally driven city regionalism from above or local efforts on cross-boundary cooperation from below. Rather than simply abstracting the multi-dimensional and multi-scalar dynamics in the rescaling process around one singular state project, this paper moves forward to explore the co-existence and co-functioning of variegated rescaling processes contributing to regional governance by deploying assemblage as a heuristic approach. This paper examines an inter-jurisdictional development zone – Beijing-Tianjin Zhongguancun Tech Town in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to provide a relational and processual understanding of scalar politics on the ground. Our analysis demonstrates how discrete and fragmented spaces and actors are assembled within a specific entity through various rescaling processes. The interplay of local, regional and national actors with different motivations gives rise to a new inter-scalar and inter-jurisdictional regulatory regime for regional industrial integration with relative coherence. This emergent governance regime is sustained and embedded in both topological and territorial political relations. This article furthers the understanding of China's city regional governance by analysing a situated assemblage. It provides an applicable perspective for investigating other trans -local projects and city regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of globalisation and state rescaling, promoting decentralisation and enhancing local governance capacity have become prioritised objectives of transnational city-to-city partnerships mainly between developed and developing countries. However, considering the critical debates on Global East's uniqueness, two questions emerge when studying the transnational partnerships of Chinese cities. (1) Are Chinese cities' partnership establishments and objectives remarkably different from the existing international body of knowledge? (2) In China, whether decentralisation and local governance are promoted by city-to-city transnational partnerships as well? To cope with the questions, this paper examines 28 Chinese world cities' partnership establishments and objectives and reaches two conclusions. (1) With the objective of economic development, Chinese cities have consistently maintained strong connections with cities in both the developed and developing countries. (2) Chinese cities' transnational partnerships do not observably promote decentralisation, and China's political decentralisation is much more unstable than its economic decentralisation. Overall, both the binary partnership establishments and the dual-track decentralisation in political and economic aspects are highly embedded in China's interstitial and transitional position as a Global East country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the research trend in relation to the NZEB buildings is explored, through the analysis of selected scientific articles published in 11 journals collected in chronological order from 2014 to 2020. The analysis is carried out on the basis and terms of annual investigative publications of the documents in relation to the NZEB, such as contributions made by countries, institutions, authors, and research topics covered. The study carried out uses a document review methodology. The analysis reveals a growing interest in energy efficiency research in recent times, implying that the importance that the construction industry attaches to NZEB in consequences of global warming and accelerating environmental problems. The findings also indicate that, during the period studied, researchers in developed economy areas such as the US and Italy contributed higher rates to promoting research on NZEB. Developing countries like China also went to great lengths to promote research. Research topics covered tend to focus on studies completed with NZEB project delivery and development, building rehabilitation, energy performance, and advanced technologies applied for energy improvement in buildings. This research provides a valuable platform for industry professionals and researchers to understand NZEB construction research trends and developments, including their applicability and their future research and contributions to the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the survival and development of traditional villages in China have been serious challenges. Rural tourism is regarded as an important way to solve rural problems, and the combination of rural culture and tourism has become a new power point for rural development. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the spatial distribution structure between traditional villages and rural tourism. In this paper, rural tourism was represented by the rural tourism characteristic village (RTCV), and Henan Province, China, was taken as a study area to analyze the distribution pattern and spatial correlation of rural tourism and traditional village (TV) and discuss the relationship between the spatial correlation and regional natural environment and socioeconomic factors. The results show that the coupling of the spatial correlation between RTCVs and TVs in Henan was clear. They could be divided into 5 regions based on geographical factors. In addition, the research summarized 4 typical spatial structures between TVs and RTCVs in Henan based on the regional symbiosis theory, and the spatial pattern formation mechanism of TVs and RTCVs was discussed based on three driving mechanisms. The spatial structure of the two can provide reference value for other developing countries and regions to achieve sustainable rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on China's Industrial Robot and Customs data from 2006 to 2019, this paper conducts an empirical investigation into the impact of industrial robot usage on export trade structures and its working mechanism with the popularization of industrial robots and the expansion of export trade in China. It finds that the use of industrial robots has significantly increased the proportion of general trade, reduced that of processing trade and promoted the transformation from processing-trade into general-trade, or the impact mechanism of industrial robots on export trade structure. After adopting such two methods as lag phase and tool variables to address potential endogenous problems, the results continue to be valid. In addition, the paper also discussed the regional heterogeneity effect of industrial robot trade transformation. Such evidence provides a new perspective for developing countries to explain the transformation of their export trade and are of high significance in optimizing the structure of trade patterns and promoting the transformation of export trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how China has established and exercised leadership by creating and operationalising the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" (CBDRs) in United Nations climate negotiations—from the embryo of this principle in the Stockholm Declaration to its operationalisation in the Paris Agreement. Building on the updated scholarship on climate leadership, this paper proposes a four criteria test to ascertain the existence of a leadership relationship. It comprises (1) a wilful leader; (2) consensual followers; (3) a commonly shared goal shaped mainly by the leader and accepted by the followers; and (4) a process of leadership-building triggered through use of any one of the following four modes of leadership: ideational, directional, instrumental, or structural. In light of the leadership criteria, this paper focuses on how China has operationalised these various leadership modes towards realising the evolving collective goals of its developing followers. In doing so, the paper provides empirical evidence of the significance of each of the four leadership modes in underpinning China's leadership in the climate regime. This paper finds that while ideational leadership was prominent in creating the CBDRs principle, instrumental leadership, with the support of occasional usages of directional and structural leadership, has also been vital to China in tackling the internal divisions of developing countries and in overcoming the limitations of such countries' normative power in the post-Kyoto era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This structured review aimed to discuss the existing literature on therapeutic hypothermia for moderate to severe neonatal encephalopathy exclusively in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).Methods: Medline, Embase, CINHAL and Cochrane Registry were searched for original papers with therapeutic hypothermia (TH) for treating neonatal encephalopathy in LMIC with no language restrictions. The search identified 1413 papers from 1990 to 31 August 2021.Results: Twenty-one original papers were included after duplicates removal and full-text screening in the final review. Fourteen randomized control studies and seven non-randomized studies were discussed with various modes of cooling (servo-controlled, phase changing material, traditional methods), complications during cooling, mortality and long-term neurodevelopmental assessment. Although there is sufficient evidence in LMIC favouring cooling for the reduction in mortality and improving the neurodevelopmental outcomes, nonetheless these studies were widely heterogeneous in terms of method of cooling, tools for assessing developmental outcomes, age at assessment and variations in neuroimaging tools and reporting.Conclusion: Therapeutic hypothermia is beneficial in LMICs with low certainty of evidence in reducing mortality and improving neurodevelopmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the extent to which electricity shortage influences technical efficiency using data of 805 listed manufacturing companies in China from 2009 to 2020 collected from the CSMAR database. To achieve the objectives of this paper, first, a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) is used to estimate the technical efficiency (TE) score of manufacturing companies. Subsequently, the TE score is used to evaluate the electricity shortage index and other factors that are postulated to affect enterprise productivity. Two estimation methods have been adopted including ordinary least squares (OLS), which is less robust to endogeneity and instrumental variable (IV) estimation, which turns out to be more robust to endogeneity in the data. The empirical results show that, under OLS estimation, electricity shortage has a significantly negative impact on the technical efficiency of the listed manufacturing companies. However, when IV regression is implemented to address endogeneity issues in the data, electricity shortages tend to have a significantly positive impact on the technical efficiency, underscoring the importance of capturing endogeneity in the data. Extending the baseline results, this study also finds that, while the size of an enterprise may have no bearing, state-owned companies are more likely to be negatively affected by electricity shortages compared to privately owned companies. These results have significant implications for industrial policy design in China in particular, and developing countries in general. Most importantly, the results of this study underscore the importance of policies and measures to promote a shift in the ownership structure towards the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation is an important driving force for high-quality regional economic development. In recent years, the Chinese government has actively explored new ways to improve regional innovation level, and the construction of smart cities is regarded as an important measure to implement the innovation-driven development strategy. Based on the panel data of 287 prefecture-level cities in China from 2001 to 2019, this paper examined the impact of smart city construction on regional innovation. The research shows that: (i) The construction of smart city has significantly improved the level of regional innovation; (ii) Investment in science and technology and human capital level are important transmission paths for smart city construction to affect regional innovation; (iii) Compared with the central and western regions, the impact of smart city construction on regional innovation is more obvious in the eastern region. This study deepens the understanding of smart city construction, which has important policy significance for China to accelerate the construction of an innovative country and the healthy development of smart cities, and provides reference for other developing countries to promote smart city construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financing climate change mitigation and adaptation in Asia is critical for its population and economies but also for those of the world. This editorial provides a commentary and overview of ten articles within this special issue of Climate Policy on 'Green Finance in Asia'. Contributions are diverse in terms of focus and methods. Most of the articles focus on managing transition risk with six of the articles having an energy focus; the dominant themes are the risk of stranded coal assets in China; the role of export finance by China and Japan for fossil fuel-fired power generation assets within Asia; and investment in renewable power generation and the policies to support such investment. The remaining four articles explore various policies in specific country contexts: the effects of green bond policies in China; the greening of monetary policy in China; the governance of sustainable finance in Indonesia; and policies to support investment and finance of off-grid electricity access in Bangladesh. Most of the ten contributions come from researchers in developed countries and principally from non-Asian countries, suggesting there is a need to develop green finance research capability and capacity across Asia. Despite being withing scope of the special issue, this collection does not contain papers on physical risk or adaptation finance. We highlight these as important gaps and priorities for future research. Key policy insights This editorial provides a commentary and overview of ten articles within this special issue of Climate Policy on 'Green Finance in Asia'. Most of the ten contributions come from researchers in developed countries and principally from non-Asian countries. There is a need to develop green finance research capability and capacity across Asia. Most contributions were focussed on transition risk, with limited or no focus on physical risk and adaptation finance. This likely reflects the multiple resource and expertise challenges faced when conducting physical risks assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of urban spatial structure on urban employment growth in China by focusing on two dimensions, monocentricity, and compactness. Theoretically, the urban spatial structure affects urban employment through its effects on transportation costs, the concentration of economic activities, and urban amenities. Our empirical analysis verifies a nonlinear U‐shaped relationship between the monocentricity of a city and the growth rate of urban employment. Additionally, we find that a high level of compactness accelerates urban employment growth. Furthermore, cities that are more monocentric and more compact experienced more rapid urbanization during our sample period. We then use an instrumental variable approach to identify causal effects, and we obtain similar results. Our findings indicate that to accelerate the transfer of labor to urban sectors, governments in developing countries should pay attention to the planning of the urban spatial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory paper for the special issue on Reconstructing the International Peace Architecture (IPA) in the Asian Century outlines the background to, the objective and the scope of, and the key contributions of the special issue. A fundamental problem that each contributor has underlined is the inability of the existing IPA to effectively cope with emerging counter-peace challenges in the face of the rise of Asian powers and the global geopolitical rivalry. This special issue seeks to address the following questions: (1) how would the rise of Asian powers affect global power's framing of peace, and its international and local hybridity within the IPA; (2) how might the interests of the Global North, Emerging Powers, and the Global South be addressed simultaneously or be integrated with the IPA; and (3) how global institutions such as the United Nations might incorporate non-Western values, customs, norms and standards into their doctrines and practices of peacebuilding? This paper offers some speculations about peacebuilding, statebuilding and development assistance in the new international relations in which China plays a major role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mega-urban agglomerations in developing countries have been main parts of economic development. But at the same time, they have become the most prominent and sensitive areas of resource and environment problems. It is important to clarify the mechanism and driving factors of green growth in mega-urban agglomerations. Based on the panel data of 28 major cities in China's Pan-Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration from 2006 to 2015, this paper evaluates the level of green development of urban agglomeration by green total factor productivity index (GTFP) based on Global Malmquist DEA model, and decomposes GTFP into technological progress, pure technical efficiency change, scale efficiency change and technological scale change. On this basis, this paper constructs a panel econometric model to analyze the influencing factors of GTFP and its decomposition factors. The results show that GTFP of Pan-Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration is growing, and the scale effect caused by technological progress is the main driving factor. Green development in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration takes into account efficiency and regional fairness, which causes differences in GTFP growth patterns of sub-urban agglomerations within mega-urban agglomerations. The technological progress and technical efficiency improvement are becoming the main driving force of GTFP growth in relatively backward areas. Furthermore, according to the influencing factors of GTFP and its decomposition factors, mega-urban agglomeration should eliminate internal administrative barriers to build an integrated market. It should also increase the proportion of technology industries in core cities, and give full play to the role of technology spillover effect on surrounding cities. In addition, improving the efficiency of resource and energy utilization is also helpful to promote the transformation of urban agglomeration development from factor-driven to efficiency-driven and innovation-driven. Our research results have implications for the coordinated development of economy and environment in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional powers have growing concerns about China's influence in the Global South derived from its fast-growing outreach in the past two decades. However, how stakeholders in developing countries perceive China's engagement and influence remains largely unknown. Drawing upon a survey of 210 participants and 30 follow-up interviews in the Pacific region with a focus on Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga, this paper examines Pacific civil society stakeholders' perceptions about China. It suggests that these perceptions are nuanced at best and reveals concerns about the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese foreign aid and China-Pacific relations. It argues that China's influence on Pacific civil society is weak, but this may be different in the political, government and business sectors. More similar research is required to develop a comprehensive understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to assess the dynamics of the innovation divide between China and the Triad, as well as to determine the factors that influence its evolution. The Triad consists of three economies traditionally dominating the world economy: the United States, the European Union, and Japan. The methodology involves the decomposition of the innovativeness of the economy into innovation capability, innovation position, and the relationship between them, which indicates the efficiency of the innovation system. The analysis of dynamic indexes and σ-convergence in all these components confirms that the global economy has been gradually losing clear polarization into innovation leaders, found among developed countries and innovation followers, which have traditionally been associated with developing nations. In addition to demonstrating fast improvement in the Summary Innovation Index of China towards the Triad, the paper has a clear contribution by showcasing China's improvement through the decomposed factors of the innovativeness of the economy. In comparison with the Triad, China has a proportionally higher innovation position and efficiency of the innovation system and a lower level of innovation capacity. This demonstrates its dependence on external sources of innovation and international technology transfer, e.g. through foreign direct investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of knowledge innovation and technology innovation provides vitality for social science and technology innovation. China leaps into the front ranks of the world in the 2021 Global Innovation Index (GII). Therefore, this research takes China's theoretical-application innovation as the research object and empirically analyzes measure the innovation efficiency of knowledge innovation dominated by universities and technological innovation dominated by enterprises in China, as well as the gravity-center migration trajectory. The results show that the ranking of overall efficiency of theoretical innovation-application innovation is eastern region > central region > western region. Knowledge innovation presents a drag on overall efficiency, while technology innovation offers a contribution to overall efficiency. In the analysis of PIE (R&D personnel of industrial enterprises above a designated size) variables, the efficiency value is relatively low. The peak value of kernel density increases in the eastern, central and western regions, namely the concentration degree of theoretical innovation-application innovation effi- ciency in China has risen. The gravity center of each stage migrates to the eastern region, meaning the efficiency value of China's theoretical innovation and application innovation increases more significantly in the eastern region. From the perspective of knowledge innovation and technology innovation, this paper puts forward suggestions for China and provides some references for other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among primary bone cancers, osteosarcoma is the most common, peaking between the ages of a child's rapid bone growth and adolescence. The diagnosis of osteosarcoma requires observing the radiological appearance of the infected bones. A common approach is MRI, but the manual diagnosis of MRI images is prone to observer bias and inaccuracy and is rather time consuming. The MRI images of osteosarcoma contain semantic messages in several different resolutions, which are often ignored by current segmentation techniques, leading to low generalizability and accuracy. In the meantime, the boundaries between osteosarcoma and bones or other tissues are sometimes too ambiguous to separate, making it a challenging job for inexperienced doctors to draw a line between them. In this paper, we propose using a multiscale residual fusion network to handle the MRI images. We placed a novel subnetwork after the encoders to exchange information between the feature maps of different resolutions, to fuse the information they contain. The outputs are then directed to both the decoders and a shape flow block, used for improving the spatial accuracy of the segmentation map. We tested over 80,000 osteosarcoma MRI images from the PET-CT center of a well-known hospital in China. Our approach can significantly improve the effectiveness of the semantic segmentation of osteosarcoma images. Our method has higher F1, DSC, and IOU compared with other models while maintaining the number of parameters and FLOPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a knowledge gap on how ground-level particulate pollution affects labor productivity in emerging nations due to a lack of study, especially when it comes to outdoor work settings like couriers in the express delivery industry. Combining findings from two research projects, this paper examines the socioeconomic consequences of particulate matter and ground-level particulate pollution. Special panel dataset from China's express delivery companies are used, we study how particulate pollution affects courier productivity. The instrumental variable of our analysis was built by particulate pollution data from upwind towns. Moreover, a comparable rise in particulate levels during the 30 days caused a significant 23.7% decline in worker productivity. This draws attention to a neglected area of the economic effects of particulate pollution, especially in underdeveloped countries. Our results also highlight the wider health hazards connected to outdoor activities in high-pollution locations, drawing comparisons on outdoor exercisers and particulate matter concentrations. The critical need for coordinated policy attention addressing both ground-level Particulate and particle matters in developing nations is highlighted by the increased risk of lung function impairment among outdoor exercisers owing to excessive particulate matter concentrations. The interrelated risks that air pollution poses to public health and economic productivity are clarified by this Comprehensive viewpoint. • Examines the socioeconomic consequences of particulate matter and ground-level ozone pollution. • Using a special panel dataset from one of China's top express delivery companies. • Air pollution poses to public health and economic productivity are clarified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]