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Copyright of Restaurator is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Focuses on seven kinds of traditional Chinese paper. Effect of jiaofanshui, animal glue with alum as an acidic sizing agent; Properties of xuan paper and daqian writing paper; Uses of various traditional Chinese papers.

This study investigates an environment-centered, state-driven corrosion prognosis framework to predict the long-term atmospheric corrosion loss of metal materials, and this paper takes carbon steel as an example to show the establishment process of the framework. Unlike traditional power-linear prediction models that seldomly consider environmental impacts, the proposed model quantitatively establishes the correlations between corrosion loss and dynamic atmospheric environmental factors. A comprehensive power-linear function model integrating multiple atmospheric environmental factors is constructed, following the corrosion kinetics robustness. Under the proposed framework, the steady-state start time is evaluated, followed by the long-term corrosion loss prediction under different corrosivity categories and test sites. The applicability is justified via a case study of long-term field exposure tests of metal materials in China, as well as the experimental results of the ISO CORRAG program. By comparing with the traditional power model and ISO model, the experimental results demonstrate the capability and effectiveness of the proposed prognosis methodology in acquiring accurate corrosion state information and corrosion loss prediction results with less input corrosion information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital service trade has emerged as a pivotal engine for global economic transformation and development. However, the implementation of differentiated regulatory measures for trade in digital services among economies has led to increasingly frequent trade disputes. This paper constructs a regulatory homogeneity network for digital service trade in 60 major economies, and systematically evaluates the structural characteristics of the network and the regulatory homogeneity among economies from 2014 to 2021. Furthermore, this paper empirically examines the impact of the partnership characteristics of regulatory homogenization in the network of major economies on their exports. The analysis of the network structure shows that major economies are more inclined to optimize and simplify existing trade partnerships, and are moving towards more diversified restrictive measures in the regulatory model of digital services trade, which has led to the rise of trade protectionism. The empirical text results show that expanding and deepening the regulatory homogeneous partnership of trade in digital services promotes the export of digital services in major economies. This promotion effect is mainly achieved by reducing the cost of digital service trade and enhancing business trust. In addition, the export promotion effect of developing regulatory homogenization partnerships is better than that of increasing the openness of digital service trade, and the homogenization of policies between openness and protection is more important. This paper provides important implications for coordinating the openness and security of digital services trade: China should actively cooperate with multilateral and bilateral digital service trade partners to jointly build a homogeneous environment for regulatory regulations. In particular, it is necessary to deepen the regulatory homogeneity partnership with Asian and developing economies to expand the influence of the "China model" in the global regulation of digital services trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article selects 634 papers authored by Chinese scholars on international publishing from CNKI, China's foremost dataset for Chinese academic papers, in the past three decades. Employing the thematic analysis, the article explores the trends, developments and issues deliberated by Chinese scholars in the realm of international publishing. The article first scrutinizes the major themes discussed by Chinese scholars, revealing an evolution in their perceptions on international publishing. This evolution progresses from initial awareness in the first stage to adeptly handling challenges and enhancing the quality of international publishing in the second and third stages. In the fourth stage, scholars in China emphasize distinctive Chinese characteristics. The second part of the article outlines six issues deliberated by Chinese scholars in the field of international publishing, including international influence, contextual debates, English language, academic motivations, evaluation systems and publication charges. These six issues underscore the resilience and proactive efforts exhibited by Chinese scholars as they endeavor to adapt to and integrate into the international academic arena. In conclusion, the article summarizes the features of Chinese scholarship on international publishing and advocates that Chinese scholarship continues its engagement in global collaboration to make a more substantial contribution to global knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An in-depth investigation into the effect of embedment in global value chain (GVC) on energy conservation and emissions reduction is of great significance for scientifically assessing the environmental impact of GVC participation, and promoting high-quality development in China. This paper incorporates GVC embedment, energy consumption and carbon emissions into the same analysis framework for the first time. Based on the WIOD database, this paper theoretically and empirically examines the impact and mechanism of global value chain embeddedness on carbon emission reduction from two dimensions: energy consumption intensity and energy consumption structure. The study found that GVC embedment significantly reduced the industry's carbon emission intensity; developing economies' embedment in GVC helped reduce their carbon emission intensity, while the effect was not obvious in developed economies. GVC embedment had a significant inhibitory effect on the carbon emissions in both upstream and downstream industries, but not conducive to carbon reduction of low-tech manufacturing. The mechanism test shows that the GVC embedment not only exhibits the dual effects of energy conservation and emissions reduction, but also has a significant impact on carbon emissions by reducing the energy consumption intensity and improving the energy consumption structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of energy price fluctuation on the macro economy is a hot issue that is continuously concerned by the academic community, but few literature have paid attention to the impact of energy price fluctuation on housing price and the financial risks that may arise. Based on the data of cities at and above the prefecture level in China, this paper empirically examines the impact of energy price fluctuation on the price fluctuation of the domestic real estate, and analyzes its influencing mechanism and transmission pathways. The results show that changes of energy price will significantly affect the fluctuation of domestic real estate price, and it is more obvious in large cities and megacities. Energy price affect the demand for housing through changes of interest rate levels on the one hand, and the supply of the real estate market through the cost of housing construction on the other hand, which leads to housing price fluctuation. After a series of robustness tests, the results are still valid. At the same time, the effect is asymmetric, that is, higher energy price increases the fluctuation of house price, but the impact of falling energy price is not significant. Therefore, when preventing real estate market risks, energy price should be considered as a forward-looking indicator to focus on, and the regulation and control policies of the real estate market should be scientifically formulated. This paper not only provides a new perspective on the mechanism of housing price formation, but also enriches the research on the interconnection between energy and financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is a production factor that supports industrial development and also an important resource for increasing local government revenue. The scientific allocation of land has a positive effect on applying a new development philosophy. Based on the data of China's micro land transaction, this paper constructs the industrial dispersion indicator of land transfer to discuss about how short-term fiscal pressure affects allocation of land resources among industries and then analyzes its impacts on agglomeration effects. The results show that the greater the short-term fiscal pressure, the higher the dispersion of land transfer among industries, which holds true after going through a series of robustness tests. Further analyses show that the dispersion of land transfer among industries deteriorates the policy orientation of giving priority to key industries. Finally, the practice of dispersion of land transfer among industries weakens agglomeration economies. The research results of this paper show that local governments' strategy of land transfer among induestries for coping with short-term fiscal pressure has the characteristics of "increasing fiscal revenues and weakening the role of industrial guidance." This means that in the new stage of development, local governments urgently need to enhance their understanding of the multiple functions of land and avoid impairing industrial development for addressing the short-term fiscal pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital trade rules and higher positions of enterprises in the global value chain (GVC) are both important topics in the context of high-quality economic development. This paper refers to the data of RTA digital trade rules concluded by China in the TAPED database in 2000–2014 and the matched data in the WIOD database, the China Customs Import and Export Database and the China Industrial Enterprise Database to investigate the effects of digital trade rules on Chinese enterprises as to their ascending GVC positions. It finds that signing the RTA digital trade rules can steadily and significantly promote the position ascendance; compared with the digitalization rules on trading objects, signing the digitalization rules on trade modes produces greater effects of driving up the positions, which are realized mainly via the three channels of advancing cross-border flow of R&D factors, promoting corporate digital transformation, and improving professional management. Digital trade rules that are horizontally broader and vertically deeper are in greater favor of Chinese enterprises for ascending in the global value chain, which is especially evident among those in digital industry and processing trade. During the negotiations of digital trade rules, it's imperative to pay close attention to the rules on e-commerce cooperation, awareness of e-commerce importance, intellectual property protection, attempts in big data-related trade in goods, and cross-border data flow, so as to secure the core interests of Chinese enterprises in gaining higher positions. This paper offers great policy implications as to how to sign digital trade rules by China in the future and how to select partners in greater support for Chinese enterprises to ascend to the middle and high end of the global value chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When writing a paper on multimodality, I came across the term "fragmentation" and found that in China it had always been used in its negative sense. Later, however, I noticed that fragmentation can also be understood positively in many papers both at home and abroad (Hu, 2018). Seeing that multimodality is a realization of various categories of signs, I attempted to make a further study of fragmentation from the semiotic perspective and also to make some suggestions to push forward its further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, digital transformation is included in the heterogeneity model of firms. Based on a general equilibrium analysis, we find that under the effect of diminishing marginal productivity, digital transformation does not always have a positive impact on firms' markups, but has an "inverted U-shaped" nonlinear influence, which first promotes and then inhibits markups. Firm innovation and firm productivity are the key micro-mechanisms for the above effects to play a role. Based on the analysis of typical facts and empirical data of listed companies, the measurement test yields the following results. First, digital transformation can significantly improve firms' markups when it is below a specific threshold value, but it will have a negative impact when it exceeds this value. That is, there is an "inverted U-shaped" nonlinear relationship between digital transformation and firms' markups. Second, the heterogeneity analysis shows that digital transformation has a greater effect on the markups of state-owned firms, export firms and technology-intensive firms than on the markups of other firms. Third, digital transformation has an impact on firms' markups through two key mechanisms: firm innovation ability and production efficiency. The quantitative empirical results confirm the correctness of the theoretical expectations. Therefore, firms need to grasp the strategic opportunities brought by the progress of digital technology and accelerate the process of promoting the digital transformation. Firms should make proper choices in the selection and arrangement of key areas, as well as avoid possible problems such as "too much". In this way, we can better consolidate the micro foundation of China's high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is of great practical significance to analyze the differences of actual tax burden value-added tax (VAT) from the perspective of industrial linkage for accelerating the construction of a modern industrial system and promoting the formation of a new development pattern. This paper explains the differences and causes of the actual VAT tax burden in the manufacturing industry from the perspective of industrial linkage. According to the research results, the closer the intermediate input connection between an industry and other industries, the lower the actual VAT tax burden it bears. The characteristics of production network have a moderating effect on the relationship between the linkage of the manufacturing industries and the actual VAT tax burden. For the industries in the center of the production network, a stable backward linkage weakens the influence of industrial linkage on their actual tax burden. It is difficult for industries located in the spillover block to reduce their tax burden by adjusting the linkage of intermediate goods. In addition, highly linked manufacturing enterprises can also reduce their actual VAT tax burden by tax avoidance, tax shifting, adjusting the types of intermediate inputs and so on. Smoothing the domestic production network of the manufacturing industry and optimizing the VAT burden bearing mechanism of each manufacturing sub-industry will help promote the stable growth of the manufacturing industry and healthy development of the macro economy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data factors have become one of the five essential production factors, but their role in economic growth has always been ambiguous. Starting from AI technologies, this paper establishes an endogenous growth model of data factors affecting economic growth, constructs the generation path and value path of data factors, and estimates the value of new data factors at the provincial level in China from 1999 to 2018 accordingly. Based on theoretical analyses and empirical tests, it clarifies that data factors have a "two-dimensional driving effect" on China's economic growth, that is, data factors can drive growth both directly through its own economic growth effect and indirectly by promoting technological progress. Furthermore, this paper makes three extended discussions, aiming to make a trial study on the impacts of local government big data transaction platforms on data factors and their growth effects, discuss whether it is possible to reduce the uncertainties of local economic policy based on the nature of data factors, and make a preliminary survey of the output elasticity of data factors between 1999 and 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The promotion of fuller and higher-quality employment is a prime task for China's high-quality development. Both employment security (ES) and employment quality (EQ) need to be improved for women who, as an essential part of labor force, have long been faced with high stress and employment threshold. The role of digital transformation in promoting women's employment through reducing the cost of job information search is analyzed with the Job Search Theory in this paper. By using China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) data, this research found that digital transformation of households in China contributes to women's employment significantly, raises the number and proportion of female family members in employment, and enhances women' access to medical care insurance, endowment insurance, unemployment insurance, housing fund and overtime pay. Digital transformation can improve the information accessibility of households, and the reduction in information asymmetries benefits women's employment, as indicated by the mechanism analysis. The positive impact of digital transformation is more pronounced for households in Central China, Western China and provinces with high unemployment rates, as well as those supporting the elderly and without housing. This paper will serve as a reference to fuel high-quality employment and reduce difficulties for women in the context of digital transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competition is the catalyst of corporate innovation, which is the foundation of a country's core competitiveness. From the view of vertical industrial chain, this paper examines how downstream competition affects upstream firms' innovation output. Given innovation helps reduce the production cost of each product, increasing demand of intermediate products caused by downstream competition enhances the marginal revenue of upstream firms' innovation, thus leading to an innovation incentive effect. To identify causality, we utilize China's WTO accession, a quasi-natural experiment, to calculate downstream competition combined with import tariff reduction and input-output table, and then run a difference-in-difference regression. Using the data of Annual Survey of Industrial Firms and State Intellectual Property Office, our results find that downstream competition has a significantly positive impact on upstream firms' innovation, and this effect is more pronounced in firms with less industry competition, greater initial innovation capacity and weaker financial constraints. Moreover, the number of firms, the degree of industry competition and the scale of intermediate products in the downstream sector increase, confirming the market size channel. In sum, our findings document that downstream competition can motivate upstream firms to innovate through vertical industrial chain, providing some useful insights for China to build a fair market competition environment and promote innovation-driven growth regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constructs a dynamic model of household consumption decisions and accordingly designs empirical analyses to identify how infrastructure investment affects private consumption. The estimation results of provincial panel data reveal that infrastructure investment can not only indirectly promote household consumption through the income channel but also directly promote household consumption expansion through the expectations channel, with a significant "crowding-in" effect. However, the effect is significantly weaker in provinces with a lower housing supply elasticity, showing the "crowding-out" pattern through the wealth channel. Household survey data provide an explanation for individual heterogeneity. Infrastructure investment has a greater pushing effect on house prices in provinces with a lower housing supply elasticity. Rapid house price growth has significant "crowding-out" effects on the consumption of wealthy households. This not only significantly weakens the driving effect of infrastructure investment on aggregate household consumption, but also increases wealth inequality in the long term. This paper explains how infrastructure investment affects household consumption and the corresponding role played by house prices, providing empirical evidences for theoretical studies related to macro-regulatory policies in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To deleverage is one of the major tasks for the supply-side structural reform in China, and to steadily deleverage in order is the key to fending off and defusing financial risks. This paper uses the economic statistics of China around 2016 to depict the "expansion-contraction" fluctuations with Chinese macroeconomy during the deleveraging. In this realistic context, it constructs a financial business cycle model based on the financial accelerator theory and attempts to use default cost changes to introduce financial shocks and understand China's macroeconomic fluctuations in the deleveraging context in the perspective of unanticipated and anticipated shocks. Results of the numerical model simulation show that before and after the deleveraging, the fluctuations of credit, leverage ratio, credit spread and other major macroeconomic variables originate not only from the changes with unanticipated default cost. Anticipated changes with default cost can similarly explain the "expansion-contraction" macroeconomic fluctuations in recent years and offer a new perspective into the fluctuations during deleveraging. Accordingly, government, when practicing deleveraging policies, is advised to take into full consideration not only the actual changes with default cost, but also anticipated factors of financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributing to existing studies on global circuits of knowledge and labour, this paper presents a case study of Andy – a Chinese doctoral student in the UK – and looks at his transition from higher education to later joining the labour market after returning to China through the lens of personality traits. It draws upon literature on language socialisation and sociolinguistic studies of mobility, focusing on how social actors navigate transnational higher education and the consequences on professional development in a neoliberalising market economy. It aims to investigate how (in)appropriate personhood – as manifested in recurrent personality attributes – is enacted and negotiated in specific learning contexts in Andy's trajectory and the impact on employability, with various types of data consisting of participant observation, interviews, and relevant materials. The analysis suggests that Andy has been trained to engage communicatively with academic tasks in higher education settings. However, Andy considers himself lacking certain personality variables that could align with the criteria of a "good doctoral student" depicted by the institutions, such as being independent, motivated, and self-disciplined. Andy gradually shows disorientation in an academic career, albeit finding his inadequacy to perform the desired professional personhood in a labour market that values working experience and communication skills over education certification. This process explains why sometimes the expected communicative repertories and training acquired in higher education are not transferable into valuable resources that Andy can mobilise to become employed. This paper argues that neoliberal rationality has stratifying effects on individuals primarily due to an emphasis on self-responsibility and constant improvements. In transnational higher education, certain personality traits are considered desirable and lacking such characteristics can have side effects on mobile actors like Andy, who navigate the globalising labour market through uncertainty and precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English in Chinese higher education has shifted from being taught as a foreign language alongside other disciplinary-focussed courses to becoming an important medium of instruction used for learning and teaching non-language related academic subjects. While using English medium instruction (EMI) seems a natural and neutral academic exercise, the switch has muddied the water of EMI implementation and caused a number of social and academic issues for both students and lecturers. These problems include unfair promotion opportunities, unequal access to EMI classes, inadequate learning outcomes, and poor teaching quality. This special issue builds on past and current EMI work that explores issues related to EMI implementation in Chinese higher education institutions and in classrooms. Through the selection of several empirical papers, the special issue shines light on current knowledge, policies and practices of EMI in China to pave the way for research-informed recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimization and upgrading of industrial structure is the driving force to build a new development pattern and improve the quality and efficiency of economic development. China's "pressure-type" fiscal incentives (PTFIs) are an important perspective from which the law of industrial structure change can be analyzed. Based on the dynamic panel data of 285 cities in China and the behavioral characteristics of local governments, this paper explores the effects of PTFIs on industrial restructuring using the GMM estimation method. It is found that PTFIs are conducive to improving the "quantity" of industrial structure upgrading (ISU), but not conducive to improving the "quality" of ISU or the rationalization of industrial structure (RIS). Mechanism identification reveals that, with PTFIs, local governments influence industrial restructuring mainly by "expanding financial resources with land" (EFRWL) and increasing the intensity of tax collection and management (ITCM). Further discussion reveals that a higher degree of fiscal decentralization and environmental regulation can effectively alleviate the negative impact of PTFIs on industrial restructuring. Accordingly, this paper puts forward some policy recommendations to promote the balanced development of industrial structure, such as improving the institutional conditions and standardizing the behavior of local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anaerobic digestion is a prevailing technology for the treatment and utilization of municipal organic solid waste (MOSW). In this technology, the macromolecular organic matter in waste degrades into small molecular substances through the anaerobic decomposition of microorganisms, producing biogas that can provide enormous energy. This paper focuses on the research progress of anaerobic digestion of various organic wastes for biogas production. The principle and process of anaerobic digestion for biogas production are introduced, along with the key factors affecting anaerobic digestion efficiency, such as temperature, pH, and sealing conditions. At the same time, the current cycle treatment technology and comprehensive treatment system of MOSW are also summarized. Furthermore, the paper explores biogas purification technologies, including desulfurization, deoxidation, drying, and decarbonization. Finally, the state-of-the-art of the utilization of MOSW for biogas production in the world and the problems faced by the utilization of MOSW for biogas production in China are reviewed. By summarizing the anaerobic digestion technology of MOSW, this review hopes to provide some reasonable solutions for the high-value utilization of MOSW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The story continuation writing task (SCWT) is a newly emerging proficiency test of National Matriculation English Test (NMET) in three provinces in China. Nevertheless, little is known with respect to how test-takers enhance their alignment of situationmodels in SCWT. This paper reports on a case study of the development of situational alignment of one L2 (second language) learner in a senior high school in Jiangsu Province, China, drawing on qualitative data collected via individual faceto- face interviews, and supplemented by face-to-face conversations and email exchanges, over a period of one year. This study investigates how the test-taker enhances her alignment of situation models, and what factors contribute to her development of situational alignment under the framework of a new semiotic research finding, a pan-indexicalitymodel. This paper concludes that test-takers possess the capacity of developing their alignment of situation models, and that a pan-indexicality model, affording opportunities for test-takers to accurately decode themeaning of a linguistic sign at the overall sense level, plays a decisive role in identifying and integrating key dimensions of situation models and eventually enhancing test-takers’ situational alignment. This study suggests that a pan-indexicality model can be employed by test-takers to understand the meaning of a linguistic sign at the overall sense level, and test-takers’ encyclopedic knowledge, contextual information, and personal emotions regarding a linguistic sign should be highlighted in classroom instruction to help test-takers construct aligned situation models in SCWT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, China is in the period of large-scale tax and fee cuts and external pandemic shocks. Local governments' financial pressure has intensified. There is a lack of existing studies on how it will affect local carbon emissions. This paper uses the quasi-natural experiment of the 2010 educational authority reform to measure exogenous changes in financial pressure. It adopts the continuous double differential method to empirically investigate the impact of local financial pressure on carbon emissions. The results of the paper are as follows. First, the financial pressure generated by the educational authority reform has significantly increased local carbon emission intensity. This indicates that local governments will address carbon emissions in other ways when they feel financial pressure. Second, to ease financial pressure, local governments will regulate high energy-consuming enterprises and utilize their high production value and strong tax-generating ability to scale up their production capacity and obtain more tax revenues, which will lead to a large amount of carbon emissions. This study is of important reference significance for how to deal with financial pressure from now on and how to well handle the relationship between local finance and carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese national legislature has enacted a national security law (NSL) for Hong Kong. This paper applies the theory of national security constitution as developed by Professor Koh to examine the impact of the NSL upon four core constitutional principles in Hong Kong's mini-constitution which underly its national security constitution and to evaluate the nature of the impact. The paper argues that the NSL has, instead of applying and supplementing the existing underlying constitutional principles in the mini-constitution, changed them to various degrees, and the pre-NSL bifurcated national security system for Hong Kong and mainland China has been replaced by an integrated national security system under the NSL. The impact caused by the NSL is so significant as to amount to a permanent paradigm shift to a new post-NSL national security constitution. The paper also argues that the theory of national security constitution has its limitation in its application to subnational Hong Kong because its mini-constitution and the underlying principles therein can be modified by national legislation, such as the NSL, of its sovereign, China. Through a comparative study with the USA, the paper proposes that the theory of national security constitution needs to be modified by adding that different effects may occur to a sub-national national security constitution depending on the source of the framework national security legislation. Hong Kong's failure in its constitutional duty to enact national security legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law has led to the enactment of the NSL by China. Such legislation from the sovereign has changed the underlying constitutional principles and is fundamentally different from sub-national framework legislation that only implements and supplements those principles. However, a comparative study with Macau indicates that the theory of national security constitution is still applicable to a sub-national entity such as Macau so long as China as sovereign exercises self-restraint and any framework national security legislation is enacted at the sub-national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insurance companies have always been at the forefront of developments in the processing of large volumes of data. This paper investigates in a comparative perspective the implications of the increasing reliance by insurers on automated quantification, examining developments of insurance law and technology in continental Europe, the common law (particularly the United States), and mainland China. The paper sheds light on the challenges brought by automated quantification in digital insurance, reviews the regulatory options that may address such challenges and inquires into the regulatory approaches pursued in different regions of the world. The comparative analysis of the strategies pursued will show that, when thinking about regulatory options for digital insurance, it is important to keep in mind that the shift to automated quantification, although global, raises different risks and opportunities depending on the contexts and the legal frameworks in which it takes place. The variance of contexts and legal frameworks explains why the impact of automated quantification in insurance is for the time being strong in the common law world, present but less intrusive in China, and proceeding at an even slower pace in continental Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerating the building of a new development pattern with domestic market as the mainstay and domestic and international markets reinforcing each other is a major decision made by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core in light of changes in the development stage, environment and conditions in China. Trade gains are an important indicator of the development trend of domestic and international circulations for a country. With the quantitative model of trade gains containing the multi-sectoral input-output relations, this paper estimates the trade gains from the economic dual circulation in China between 1987 and 2017, based on the kernel density estimation and Markov chain, and the main findings are as follows. (1) The trade gains from the domestic circulation in China showed a downward trend, while the trade gains from the international circulation presented a trend of first rising and then declining. But the former still outweighed the latter. (2) Compared with the international circulation, the continuity, spatial correlation effect and rising potential of the trade gains from China's domestic circulation were greater. (3) There was no positive spatial correlation effect between the trade gains from the domestic and those from the international circulation. China should make overall plans for opening up both externally and internally, and unblock sticking points between the two circulations, so as to realize the positive interaction of the trade gains from the dual circulation, and accelerate the formation of a new development pattern with domestic market as the mainstay and domestic and international markets reinforcing each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This mixed-methods study explored the development of morphological awareness in learning Chinese as a third language, focusing on how the activation of a learner's multilingual repertoire can influence morphological awareness. The study was conducted for a period of eight weeks with 62 Japanese students in a Chinese learning program at a university in China. The students are native Japanese speakers with English and Chinese as their second and third languages. The students were allocated into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group received translanguaging instruction, while the control group completed learning through the monolingual approach for which the language of instruction was Chinese. The main aim of the translanguaging intervention was to help students utilize their multilinguistic repertoire across languages for their morphology learning. The results revealed that morphology learning scores were higher for the participants in the experimental group than the control group. The focus group interviews revealed that the students in the experimental group favorably perceived the use of translanguaging strategies for morphology learning. Moreover, the students in the experimental group reported cognitive, interactive, and affective benefits from translanguaging pedagogy. Finally, this paper presents relevant implications for the use of translanguaging pedagogy for teaching morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative startups can bring many benefits to society. Drawing on the social network theory (SNT) and resource-based view (RBV), with mix methods approach, this paper argues that as the primary path for startups acquiring external resources, social networks are beneficial to improving innovative startups' innovation performance. Using a large amount of data from GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor), this paper first runs correlation analysis and regression analysis to empirically analyze entrepreneurs' social networks' impact on China's innovative startups' innovation performance. The results show that both formal and informal social networks are positively correlated with innovative startups' innovation performance. Then we consider the moderating effect of entrepreneurial competence and motivation. And the results show both entrepreneurial competence and motivation positively moderate the correlation above. Second, to explore the above correlation's internal mechanism, we conduct semi-structured interviews with 14 entrepreneurs. Drawing on the resource management theory (RMT) and the process of cross-border knowledge search and assimilation, the mechanism model of entrepreneurs' social networks on startups' innovation performance is proposed through content analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pollution has become an unavoidable concern as China's high-quality development is underway. How to reduce pollution is an imperative issue for China to address. Pollution emissions are closely related to factor inputs, production processes and pollution control measures. Are there other forces to cut emissions besides regulatory control? Taking sulfur dioxide as an example, this paper probes into the potential mechanism through which technical efficiency drives pollution reduction in the context of opening to foreign investment. The results reveal that the openness to foreign investment remarkably lowers pollution emissions of firms, with SOEs, large firms and exporters seeing more pronounced pollution reduction effect after opening to foreign investment, while firms in pollution-intensive industries and less regulated areas are weaker in pollution reduction. A look into firm behavior suggests that the openness to foreign investment reduces pollutant emissions by improving technical efficiency rather than by raising investment in pollution control. The pollution reduction effect resulting from the openness is reflected in the improvement of intra-firm emission reduction capacity instead of inter-firm resource reallocation effect, according to an analysis at the aggregate level. This paper concludes that technical efficiency gains are an important tool to advance pollution reduction, and that China must be more flexible in leveraging the pollution reduction effect of other policies regarding technical efficiency to drive its high-quality development that is green. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the rapid development of fintech has brought far-reaching changes to the financial sector. At the same time, fintech may cause potential systemic risk in the financial sector, which has aroused special concerns from financial regulatory authorities. Based on the micro data of China's listed banks from 2013 to 2020, this paper analyzes the impact of fintech development on systemic risk in China's banking industry and its mechanism. It reveals that for a micro bank, fintech progress increases its risk-taking and enhances inter-bank linkages, which results in significantly amplified systemic risk, and the impact is time-lagged and persistent. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis shows that the impacts of fintech on state-owned banks and other banks are heterogeneous and the margining risk of state-owned banks is lower when the fintech improves. It is also found that enhancing macroprudential supervision can reduce the systemic risk spillover of fintech. Robustness analyses including GMM regression and the method of instrumental variables prove that the conclusion is robust. This paper is of theoretical and policy significance for the prevention of systemic risk in the banking industry as China develops fintech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, there have been exponential increases in Chinese loans and grants, particularly flowing to the Global South. The subsequent growth effects in the South have led to speculation about China's development models that govern its official finance and the overall macroeconomic effects. Consequently, a considerable body of research has investigated how different Chinese development policies affect the allocation patterns and outcomes in the Global South. This paper critically reviews related scholarly works, emphasising empirical literature. It identifies that the One China Policy is unanimously the most important strategy in explaining Chinese funding, although this policy tool may not be linked to trade with China and its humanitarian assistance. Chinese finance undermines efforts to promote good governance and contributes to political extortion and environmental degradation in recipient countries by not imposing governance reform conditionality on official financing. However, this argument must be carefully weighed against the positive impact of Chinese finance on health and economic growth, among other benefits. Despite intense research efforts, further research is still needed to understand vulnerabilities associated with China's development models. The information conveyed by the review will be of interest to foreign aid spectators seeking to learn from China's experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the increasingly volatile global political order, national economic structures and international relations, integrated as they are, are showing concerning signs of strain. Taiwan, whose world-leading semiconductor industry is indispensable in Global Supply Chains and whose economic prosperity and security are critical to a stable global economic system, has received much research interest since the late 1980s. Against the background of a slowing Taiwanese economy, starting in the 2000s, this paper seeks to investigate the causes of Taiwan's challenges and the linkages to the global economy vis-à-vis China. Based on previous research from different social science disciplines, this paper shows that Taiwan's economic performance has been undermined by the declining effectiveness of its industrial policy and the general state intervention in the country, which is in turn caused by deep socio-political divisions on issues of national identity and Taiwan-China relations. The paper reveals the dilemma, which results from this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the signifying mechanism of gift-giving in ancient China from the perspective of semiotic rhetoric, aiming to answer the question of what can be regarded as li (roughly meaning ceremony, rite, courtesy, or gift) or, in other words, how the social meaning of gifts is constructed in giving semiosis. It describes four dominant rhetorical devices that existed in ritual and non-ritual gift exchanges in ancient China. The ritual gift tended to adopt simile and conceit as its meaning-construction device, becoming a symbolic good beyond 'thingness' and thus fulfilling the sociocultural function of ritual. Non-ritual giving activity made use of semiotic metonymy and synecdoche as a strategy of 'indirectness' to maintain the relationship between the giver and receiver in daily communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a survey of migrants in 12 cities across four major urbanizing areas in China, this paper empirically studies the impact of the size of individual social networks on the migrants' wages. After controlling for potential endogeneity using an instrumental variable approach, our empirical results from 2SLS estimation provides no evidence for significant average causal effect of network size on wage. A further exploration of quantile regression analysis with endogeneity issue managed by using the control function approach shows that a significant positive network size effect can only be found in the low-income end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To settle the theoretical and practical disputes over monetary policy cross-cycle adjustment, this paper explores the possible effects of China's monetary policy cross-cycle adjustment based on empirical data. By using China's macroeconomic data between the first quarter of 2000 and the fourth quarter of 2021, we use the HP filtering method to measure the trend of economic cyclical volatility, the three-stage SETAR model and the trend mutation point identification method to identify two types of cycles, respectively, and the FAVAR model to make empirical judgments on the effectiveness of monetary policy cross-cycle adjustment. We have the following research findings. First, monetary policy has certain cross-cycle adjustment effects on aggregate output, but has quite strong state dependence. Second, monetary policy has no cross-cycle adjustment effects on industrial output. Third, the higher the economic uncertainties, the worse the monetary policy cross-cycle adjustment effects, which, however, can be increased by intensifying monetary policy regulation. Fourth, in the economic recession stage, quantity-based monetary policy has advantage over price-based monetary policy in cross-cycle adjustments, while both of the above policies have no cross-cycle adjustment in the economic growth stage. Fifth, policy expectation plays an important role in cross-cycle adjustment, and reinforcing expectations is the key to realizing cross-cycle adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points out as the only social science that is axiomatic, economics has the power of predicting beyond interpreting. It then explains that in hypothesis testing, the law of demand is the only indispensable axiom in economics, and that quantity demanded is the only non-observable variable that must be retained. After reviewing his disagreements with his peers and colleagues, and his success in predicting the transformation of China, the author argues that the profession has gone astray with the surge in the use of non-observables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vision and aesthetics are inseparable dimensions of national image building. Based on 106,562 China-related images from Twitter (renamed as X), this paper introduced a computational aesthetic approach to investigate the visual communication activities of social bots on Twitter and compared the similarities and differences between human and bot accounts' posted images so as to explore the influence of social bots' aesthetic strategies. The results show that social bots have displayed different aesthetic strategies in the construction of the China-related visual frame, and formed obvious stylistic differences with humans in brightness, saturation, color, etc. Negative binomial regression indicates that the aesthetic strategies of social bots contribute to more likes and shares. The automation of visual communication and aesthetic construction not only makes the global building and communication of national image face new situations and challenges, but also pushes the whole human visual aesthetic, creation, and communication activities under the potential subjectivity crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately determining the timing and mechanism of metallogenesis of ore deposits is essential for developing a robust genetic model for their exploration. In this paper, we analyze the formation conditions of cassiterite in five major deposits of southern Hunan Province, one of the most important tungsten-tin (W-Sn) provinces in South China, using a combination of cathodoluminescence imaging, in situ U-Pb geochronology, and trace-element concentration data. In situ cassiterite U-Pb geochronology constrains the main period of Sn mineralization to between 155.4 and 142.0 Ma, demonstrating a temporal and genetic relationship to silicic intrusive magmatism in the same area. Three stages of magmatic activity and metallogenic evolution are recognized: (1) Early Paleozoic and Triassic: the initial enrichment stage of tungsten and tin; (2) Jurassic: the metasomatic mineralization stage; and (3) Cretaceous: the magmatic-hydrothermal superposition stage. The cassiterite in these deposits takes four forms, i.e., quartz vein-type, greisen-skarn-type, greisen-type, and granite-type, representing a progression characterized by the increasing content and decreasing range of variation of high field strength elements (HFSEs), and reflecting a general increase in the degree of evolution of the associated granites. Rare earth element (REE) concentrations suggest that precipitation of cassiterite was insensitive to the redox state of the fluid and that precipitation of cassiterite in the southern Hunan Sn deposits did not require a high-fO2 environment. These findings provide new insights into tin mineralization processes and exploration strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of whole-rock compositions to trace magma evolution or crystal-melt equilibrium may be called into question when foreign crystals are incorporated into host magmas. To address this challenge, establishing the origins (orthocrysts, antecrysts, xenocrysts, etc.) of minerals with variable textures in magmatic plumbing systems is necessary. In this paper, we describe complex oscillatory zoning patterns of clinopyroxenes (Cpx) from the Miocene Majuangou (MJG) alkali basalts from West Qinling, China. Our detailed petrographic, mineralogical, and geochemical analyses unravel the origins of various Cpx crystals with distinct textural patterns, thereby providing information about magma storage, recharging and/or mixing, and transportation, as well as the reactions between crystals and melts/fluids. Based on textural patterns, Cpx may be divided into four types: normal (Type-1 Cpx), simple oscillatory (Type-2 Cpx), complex oscillatory (Type-3 Cpx), and grains that lack zoning (Type-4 Cpx, suggested to be orthocrysts). Through the textural characterization of Cpx, the comparison between different types of Cpx, and the relationships between Cpx major compositions from different lithologies, we concluded that Type-1–3 Cpx cores are antecrysts or xenocrysts with diverse origins: primitive magma (Type-1 Cpx cores), magma mush (Type-2 Cpx cores), and crustal granulite (Type-3 Cpx cores). The zoning patterns and the compositions of these Cpx crystals indicate at least three batches of magmatic activity, i.e., the Batch-1 low-Mg# magma (Mg#: 47.4–53.3), the Batch-2 primitive magma (Mg#: 57.2–64.5), and the Batch-3 low-Mg# host alkali magma (Mg#: 47.2–54.6). Cpx-melt thermobarometry demonstrates that at least two crustal magma reservoirs existed in the magma plumbing system at depths of 30.1 and 40.9 km. The antecrystic/xenocrystic Cpx cores were captured by, continued to grow in, and subsequently reacted with ascending K-rich melt/fluid. The spongy textures in Cpx cores/mantles are attributed to this reaction, which may be expressed as: Melt 1 (primitive or evolved) + K-rich melts/fluids + Cpx (CaMgSi2O6) = K-feldspar (KAlSi3O8) + ilmenite (FeTiO3) + Melt 2 (derivative). The products of this reaction (K-feldspar and ilmenite) filled the sieves in the spongy zones of Type-1–3 Cpx. This detailed investigation of compositional and textural features of Cpx antecrysts/xenocrysts suggests that the interactions between various interconnected magma reservoirs are widespread beneath the magmatic plumbing system. Our study emphasizes the importance of the incorporation of foreign crystals and the Cpx-melt/fluid reaction in magmatic plumbing system, which can significantly modify the whole-rock compositions and lead to the formation of spongy textures without the need for fractures and cracks in minerals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Albinism is a kind of anomalous hypopigmentation with a complete white pelage, and it is completely devoid of melanin in the skin, hair follicles and eyes. The present paper firstly reports two cases of adult mole shrews (Anourosorex squamipes) with albinism, which were found in Sichuan province of southwestern China. The two female mole shrews show a complete white pelage. Stained by the soil, the albinistic mole shrews show a yellowish white color. Besides the same morphological characteristics, all the body parameters of the two albinistic mole shrews are within the parameter range of the six normal mole shrews captured at the same site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article 18, paragraph 1, of Law of the People's Republic of China on Enterprise Bankruptcy gives the bankruptcy trustee the right to rescind the performance of executory contract. It also stipulates the time limit and legal effect, but it does not further set standards and restrict the rescission of specific contracts. The purpose of This Paper is to explore and establish norms for the exercise of bankruptcy trustee's rescission rights under different situations to meet the practical needs. Based on the research results of domestic and foreign scholars, this paper puts forward the standard of "Special Interest Protection for Specific Creditors" to balance the interest conflicts between individual creditors, debtors and other creditors. Finally, this paper argues that it is necessary to set certain standards and make appropriate restrictions on the exercise of the bankruptcy trustee's right to rescission the contract and improve the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With improvement of China's economic development and integration into the globalization, the increasing international influence of China's consumer market, and progressing consumption upgrading, the internationalization of the subject, object and carrier of China's consumer market is becoming more and more obvious. Based on a theoretical review of consumption internationalization, this paper defines the connotation of consumption internationalization, and summarizes the characteristics and the problems of China's current consumption internationalization. A series of policy suggestions are provided, including a more abundant supply of medium and high-end commodities, a better consumption environment for imported goods, a sound tax exemption and refund service system, an expanded inbound tourism and so on. This paper believes that the degree of integration of various elements such as the subject, object, and carrier between domestic and foreign market still needs to be improved in China. We should follow the trend of consumption internationalization and promote the upgrading of China's consumption to a higher level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human societies use a variety of semiotic modes for meaning construction. The ubiquity of images in today's world, alone or in combination with other modes, makes competence with images or visual literacy a prerequisite of competence in life. Now identified as an essential literacy skill for 21st century learners in the digital age, visual literacy has been introduced into contemporary English curricula in a number of countries around the world. In China, the skill of viewing is added as one important component of language competence in National English Curriculum Standards for High School issued in 2017, thereby making the cultivation of visual literacy vital to secondary EFL education. This paper aims to present and discuss the current situation of visual literacy in secondary EFL education in China. It first provides an analysis of the ways of visual-verbal interplay for meaning construction in textbooks, and finds an uneven distribution of image-text relations in the current EFL textbooks, with a majority of images playing a supportive or illustrative role. Then it explicates the bi-dimensional three-level construct of visual literacy that is specified in the EFL curriculum, with which the subskills of visual literacy assessed in the latest large-scale EFL tests are compared, with a view to finding out the degree of correspondence between the subskills measured in the tests and the subskills expected in the curriculum. The result shows that only one dimension of reading visual texts is assessed, and the other dimension of writing visual texts is not evidenced. Finally suggestions are made for varied visual inputs, an expanded construct of visual literacy, and improvement of the washback effect of tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are an important class of environmental pollutants, and there is much interest in China to eliminate such pollutants. Noble metal catalysts have long been a family of catalysts with high efficiency and good low-temperature catalytic activity. As a representative of the noble metals, Pt has been widely used. This paper reviews the research trend of Pt-based catalysts for the catalytic oxidation of VOCs, and it compares several important components of Pt-based catalysts. The size of Pt particles, supported carriers, and reaction mechanism are reviewed. Toluene in VOCs is the main research subject. The activity, stability, water resistance, and selectivity of a series of Pt-based catalysts are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two sources of geopolitical tension – G7 sanctions on Russia and conflict between the United States and China – have the potential to reshape the global monetary system. This short paper argues that only the second is likely to have far-reaching, and heavily negative, consequences if allowed to develop further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a historiographic and ethnographic analysis of how reflexivity, as a communicative practice and valued personality trait, has been understood, regulated, legitimised and used to control Chinese workers from the planned-economy era to the present. Using a Shanghai-based multinational company as a case study, I document how and under what conditions English-mediated reflexivity, with its stress on self-entrepreneurship, came to replace former Mandarin-mediated reflexivity supporting a notion of collective workerhood. Special attention is paid to reflexivity's changing roles in shaping, managing and evaluating workers and facilitating understandings of labour, power and agency. The paper argues that the emerging English-dominated reflexivity represents a required linguistic shift for the creation of a new worker type in the current globalised economy as it normalises managerial technologies of discipline, stratification and exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education in China over the past two decades has been promoted via implicit and explicit policies that aim to incentivise activities associated with the creation of English-taught courses and programs. This study investigates the components of such incentivisation schemes. It also explores how incentivisation policies are being implemented by policy arbiters, EMI programme directors, and EMI teachers. Data were collected from two sources: 93 institutional policy documents on EMI provision collected from 63 Chinese universities, and 26 interviews with senior university staff at a selection of eight Chinese universities. Results revealed that incentivisation policies focused on increased workload weighting for EMI courses, greater access to career development opportunities for teachers, increased monetary rewards, and dedicated financial support for creating and delivering courses. A comparison of policy and practice revealed areas of policy misfires and misalignments. EMI teachers considered the workload incentives insufficient and were not primarily motivated by financial rewards, but rather chose to teach in English for professional, academic, and personal intrinsic rewards; many viewed EMI at the core of their teacher-researcher academic identities. The paper concludes with recommendations to better align incentivisation policies with the driving forces attached to EMI in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since their implementation in China's tertiary education system two decades ago, EMI programmes have been reported largely less successful and more problematic than envisioned. Although portrayed as killing two birds with one stone, whereby both subject content learning and English language proficiency can be achieved in the same classroom, EMI has in reality been revealed to present a series of thorny problems, from teaching quality to learning achievements, from teachers' insufficient language proficiency to students' unsatisfactory academic outcomes. This paper addresses one of the critical issues in EMI implementation: what teachers need in order to bring about successful language learning as well as adequate subject content learning. Data sources include a questionnaire collected from different disciplinary programmes across universities in China (n = 158), and interviews of nine lecturers from both key and non-key universities. The results suggest that the needs of these EMI lecturers cover a variety of areas, including institutional support as well as needs for professional and pedagogical training. Our findings indicate that there are similarities and differences in teacher needs between key and non-key universities with regard to institutional support and training programmes. The findings suggest that epistemic environments as well as goal-oriented pedagogical activities and adequate discourse strategies are necessary to enhance the learning experience of the students, facilitate the integration of content and language learning, and empower teachers and students to identify the best classroom practices. The needs analysis is instrumental for developing both in-service and pre-service training programmes for EMI implementation in higher education and crucial if the goal of 'killing of two birds with one stone' is to be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2001, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China issued guidelines to promote the quality of higher education and to advocate the expansion of the use of English (Ministry of Education (MoE). 2001. Guanyu jiaqiang gaodeng xuexiao benke jiaoxue gongzuo tigao jiaoxue zhiliang de ruogan yijian [Guidelines for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Teaching at Higher Education Institutions]. Available at: http://old.moe.gov.cn/publicfifiles/business/htmlfifiles/moe/moe%5f309/200412/4682.html). This paper reviews empirical studies in English and Chinese on EMI in Chinese higher education published from 2001 to 2019, during the last two decades since these guidelines were released. The review contributes to the field of EMI by documenting, analysing and synthesising empirical evidence and by situating EMI studies in China in the global trends of EMI research. The review aims to give an overview of studies targeted at both global and local audiences, therefore, publications in both English and Chinese were included. To select the Chinese articles the core journals indexed by CNKI were searched, and for the English articles, we used ERIC, IBSS, SCOPUS and WOS databases. After excluding theoretically oriented studies, literature reviews and commentaries, 42 articles remained. The in-depth analysis revealed that the main topics of these studies included the student perception, implementation and educational practices, and the role of language. We conclude that in general there are insufficient empirical studies, especially about EMI teachers' perspectives to inform policies and practices at the micro, meso and macro level. Based on the findings, directions for further research are identified and recommendations for methodological approaches for future studies are also made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]