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This paper provides a critique of the "specialty towns" program, a key constituent of China's current new-style urbanization campaign. It problematizes the contradictory accounts of the program, namely, emphasizing "place-based" strengths while simultaneously standardizing forms, functions, and goals with a strong "place-neutral" approach. We argue that three key building blocks are critical for understanding specialty towns: place dependence, embeddedness, and locational advantage. Through multiple-case studies in Zhejiang, evidence has shown that there is a mismatch between national policies and local practices in specialty town development. The latter has its own place-specific logic of development shaped by history, geography, institutions, and agency. In particular, existing small-scale growth settings (e.g., industrial parks, specialized markets) and characteristics of local agency are the main factors affecting local practices. This paper argues that without considering the specificities of places in a broader socioeconomic context, the program may fail to work as effectively as expected in its local implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a significant decision support tool, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has been legally necessitated since 2003 when the Environmental Impact Assessment Law of the P.R. China was put into effect. However, the different national development targets and the social and economic development gaps between the western region and the eastern region of China greatly influence the SEA implementation. This paper demonstrates the differences in the SEA implementation between the western region and the eastern region of China and discusses the reasons for the disparities. Reviewing government policies and conducting in-depth interviews are selected as the two main research methods. The disparities of SEA implementation existing in intervention time, alternatives, public participation, and monitoring are presented. The differences are caused by the impacts of local SEA regulations and policies, institutions and experts, public attitudes, local government attitudes, strength of Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB), funding, national government strategies, and policies and regulations of environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-Mao era, the Chinese government carried out a series of education reforms to modernise education provision. This paper explores two related aspects of these reforms through comparative case study research in three different school locations within the same region in China. The first focus is upon system reform initiated through decentralisation and financial diversification that encouraged local governments to use multiple channels to improve their education services and resource provision. The second dimension concerns the national reforms for quality improvement intended to transform the examination-oriented system into quality-oriented education. Based on the comparative data and analysis, the findings of this research suggest that improving student academic performance in the key state examinations remains the top priority for schools, local authorities, teachers, parents and students. The processes of decentralisation and the development of a competitive educational market have left schools competing for funds and for students in efforts to secure an advantageous position in the education market place. In contradiction with the national policy this has reaffirmed examination orientation within Chinese schools and, as demonstrated by the case study comparison, has resulted in an increasingly stratified education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]