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Global science is set to experience different times in the 2020s. China surpasses the USA in terms of the number of scientific papers in 2020 in most scientific databases. This scenario is expected to have implications not only in East Asia but also beyond the region. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates the scientific influence of the US-China competition on six major Muslim-majority science systems. Multiple data sources are used to collect data for the bibliometric analyses, which include the trend analysis of collaboration patterns, discipline-based collaborations, authorship patterns for responsibility in collaborations, and citation premium of collaborations with the USA versus China. All the analyses consistently demonstrate that the USA is losing its scientific influence on the selected Muslim-majority science systems to China. Analysis results indicate an astonishing increase in collaborations with China-based scientists in the last decade. Half of the selected Muslim-majority science systems collaborate more with China-based scientists, whereas the other half collaborate more with the USA in 2021, indicating a fifty-fifty split. The collaborations with China-based authors garner higher citation premiums for the selected Muslim-majority science systems than the collaborations with the USA.

The terminology of "Chinese characteristics" (zhongguo tese) is ubiquitous in China's political language, but its precise definition remains elusive. This study focuses specifically on the mobilising of the idea of Chinese characteristics of China's science evaluation programme: the China Discipline Evaluation (CDE). Implemented as an instrument of the higher education reform since 1978, it still plays a vital role in China today. This paper is structured into three parts. It begins by laying out the broad landscape of the science evaluation systems across several countries including China, to distil the distinctiveness of the CDE. Then, it moves to focus on the CDE and locates it in its historical and social-political context. Finally, it investigates the origin and use of Chinese characteristics, suggesting that this terminology functions as a rhetoric modality which describes, labels, and legitimates seemingly self-contradictory phenomena exclusive to China. It also emphasises the idea of Chinese exceptionalism that is touted as irreducible to other cultural forms. Based on these considerations, it proposes three dimensions of the Chinese characteristics of the CDE: (i) the paradoxical status of the evaluation agency, (ii) the co-existence of contradictory values embedded in the objectives and criteria of the evaluation, and (iii) the promotion of the visibility of the idea of China at the international stage. Overall, it shows that while the CDE may appear to be a decentralisation instrument, it is in essence a "hegemonic project" and "hegemonic apparatus" to fulfil the party-state's ambition in securing domestic stability and pursuing international competitiveness.

Significant collaborations with research partners in China are seen in many Western countries. With increasing US-China geopolitical tensions, governments, research institutions, and individuals in established scientific systems are increasingly required to address a proliferating array of risks and challenges associated with collaboration with China. Academic researchers are only beginning to describe how countries are responding to the ongoing need for global scientific collaboration amidst intensifying geopolitical competition. Several studies have examined the securitization of scientific connections with China in the USA, while others have documented developments in nations such as Australia, the UK, and Sweden. However, there is limited comparative research on approaches to international science amid geopolitical tensions. This paper bridges the gap, illuminating the key dimensions of variation in country-level responses by comparing the cases of Sweden and Australia. The questions we ask are as follows: Who responds to the challenges? By what means? And to what ends are responses directed? Swedish government have been largely passive, but Swedish funding agencies have developed "responsible internationalisation" guidelines that aim to induce proactive reflection by institutions and individual researchers. Australia's approach, by contrast, has centred on legislation, the exercise of ministerial powers, along with sector-wide enactment of expanded due diligence protocols. The comparison highlights key differences in the actors, methods and goals of responses to the intensifying geopolitics of scientific collaboration.

This paper examines the relationship between the concepts of humility and competition in Confucianism and Daoism, and discusses their relevance to contemporary education. It argues that while both philosophical traditions value humility and caution against excessive competition, they do not outrightly reject competition; instead, they advocate for a harmonious balance between humility and competition through yielding (rang) and showing reverence (gong) or acting through non-action (wei-wu-wei) to resolve conflicts and promote healthy competition. The insights gleaned from this exploration carry significant implications for the moral development and mental well-being of students, particularly in the context of high-stakes testing cultures in China and other countries. They also offer valuable support in nurturing students' qualities such as openness to learning, humble leadership, and appreciation of diversity and multiculturalism essential for success in a diverse and interconnected world.

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This paper investigates the impact of increased competition at the product-market level on firms' strategic price decisions. We analyse this issue in a context of trade liberalization where only some firms benefit from the input tariff cuts. We focus on China which is characterized by a unique dual trade regime, where some imports of intermediate goods are subject to tariff (i.e., the ordinary status) whereas other (i.e., the processing status) have been exempted of tariffs for the last 30 years. The recent Chinese trade liberalization allowed ordinary importers to improve their competitiveness relative to processing firms. Facing stronger pressures in their export markets, processing firms must adjust their strategy. We find that ordinary firms took advantage of the Chinese' input trade liberalization to improve the quality of their exported products and processing firms respond to this quality sorting by decreasing their export prices and markups. This finding is more pronounced for lower-end product sold in in advanced economies, where the quality sorting of competitors is more relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By adapting a well‐known model in the literature, the current paper sharpens the theoretical predictions on how competition intensity and institutional ownership interact to influence corporate innovation decisions, and adopts data from Chinese listed firms to empirically test the validity of two potential mechanisms. The split‐share reform of 2004–2005, whose timing and speed were largely beyond the firms' control, is used as a quasi‐natural experiment to address the potential endogeneity of institutional share. Similar to the existing results, we find support for the career concern mechanism rather than the lazy manager mechanism. But in addition to the complementary effects between institutional share and competition intensity on corporate innovation documented in their work, our findings also imply that competition discourages innovation when the share of institutional investors is low but encourages innovation when the institutional share is high. The opposite effects of competition on innovation with or without institutional shares is accounted for by the negative correlation between competition and innovation success, which is an assumption in our theoretical model that departs from the existing literature, but fits the reality of China's economic transition. Additional evidence relating listed firms' managerial turnover to their institutional shares is also in support of the career concern mechanism. Combined with the substantial increase in innovation after the split‐share reform, these findings demonstrate the strong positive role of institutional investors in encouraging innovation, but also offer more insight into the complex process that determines corporate innovation, especially where ownership structure is still in flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As geopolitical rivalry intensifies, Western states have moved to compete with China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, the mobilisation of funds for global infrastructure remains paltry, suggesting that Western states cannot contest Chinese dominance here. Why? Through comparative political economy analysis of China and the United States, we argue that serious competition cannot be willed into being by state managers thinking geostrategically. States' strengths and weaknesses are rooted in structural political economy dynamics. Where state managers' plans jibe with, or express, the interests of powerful social forces and the capital and productive forces they command, a powerful impact results. This is true of China, whose BRI is principally a spatio-temporal fix for industrial overcapacity and over-accumulated capital. Conversely, where geopolitical ambitions are divorced from powerful groups' interests and material realities, results are lacklustre. This applies to the United States, characterised by infrastructural decay, industrial hollowing-out and a dominant financial sector largely disinterested in infrastructure. Although US state managers are turning towards increased state spending on domestic infrastructure, internationally, the West's continued neoliberal approach still relies on the already-failed approach of mobilising private capital into infrastructure investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]