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This paper describes a study comparing paper-based marking (PBM) and onscreen marking (OSM) in Hong Kong utilising English language essay scripts drawn from the live 2007 Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) Year 11 English Language Writing Paper. In the study, 30 raters from the 2007 HKCEE Writing Paper marked on paper 100 scripts that they had marked on screen 9 months previously. Subsequent to the rating, they completed a questionnaire, from which it was concluded that, technologically, raters had no problems with OSM. Statistical results indicated no bias favouring either form of rating. Attitudinal differences surfaced, however, between new raters who had solely rated on screen as against veteran raters, whose previous rating experiences had only been with paper-based rating. The paper concludes with the prediction that as OSM becomes more prevalent, it will be accepted as the norm, with prejudice about fairness or convenience gradually fading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the February 2000 white paper by the People's Republic of China about the relations of Mainland China and Taiwan. China's basis and prerequisite for achieving peaceful reunification; Questions involving the One China Principle in cross-strait relations; Adherence to the One China principle in the international community. INSET: PRC White Paper....

The article reports on the lack of clarity in the secrecy laws of People's Republic of China (PRC) as of April 2015. It mentions court rulings in the U.S. and Hong Kong that found violation of U.S. and Hong Kong securities laws for withholding information of their audited PRC companies. It also mentions the Supreme People's Court's Interpretations of certain issues related to the specific application of the law.

The article discusses Australia's approach towards world as revealed in Defence White Paper (DWP) 2013, released by Australia's former Prime Minister Julia Gillard on May 3, 2013. DWP mentions that Australia has approved several proposals for defence procurement including the unveiling of new aircrafts and has also signed strategic partnership agreement with China in an effort to strengthen its military system. Also discussed are Australia's good relationship with India and the U.S.

Economic globalization and green development have become the consensus of all countries in the world. The importance of FDI, carbon emissions and green total factor productivity is self-evident. This study analyses the impact of FDI inflows on green TFP and the role of carbon emissions in FDI inflows and green TFP. The empirical analysis employed kernel density estimation, OLS, mediation effect model, and panel quantile regression methods using China's provincial panel data spanning over 2001–2019. The facts show that China's carbon emissions have been reduced because of environmental regulations and green TFP is still rising in fluctuation. The results from OLS and mediation effect model indicate that the impact of FDI inflows on green TFP present an asymmetric inverted U-shape and FDI influences green TFP by changing carbon emissions. The panel quantile regression results also show that FDI has a stronger impact on green TFP in less developed regions. This paper believes that the introduction of FDI should be appropriate and should be accompanied by corresponding environmental regulations, in order to promote green TFP in countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature has problematized the limits of deeply held assumptions about linear, unidirectional upgrading trajectories in global value chains (GVCs). As firm and chain trajectories and sources of upgrading have changed in recent years, GVC analysis has adjusted to focus on new emerging actors and new distributions of power within value chains. After a discussion of some limits to the treatment of upgrading in the GVC literature, the paper develops a simple extension of the classical model of upgrading in ways that do not presuppose particular valuations of functional, product, and processes upgrading, and that do not fetishize upgrading as such. The paper works with case studies of four Chinese firms located in Ningbo, China. Each 'wears multiple hats' and together they provide illustrative examples of the limits of linear, unidirectional approaches of upgrading. This simple model has the singular advantage of ensuring that trajectories of business upgrading and downgrading in GVCs can be understood as always open, often operating in diverse and contradictory ways. In this sense, the confusion of upgrading with firm strategy with their regional impacts can be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past decade, there has been a surge in auditing research that exploits Chinese data, much of which is published in top tier journals. China has been an attractive setting for auditing research due to the highly granular nature of the available data on public audits and the unique features of Chinese institutions. These advantages have allowed researchers to use Chinese data to study important auditing questions that US data is unable to address. But the popularity of Chinese data among researchers means that most of the obvious questions that lend themselves to the use of Chinese data are likely to be exhausted. In addition, newly mandated disclosures in the US and Europe are quickly making Chinese data much less unique than it used to be. Now that the "low hanging fruit" is gone, researchers who plan to use Chinese data will have to be more creative. This paper suggests some strategies, going forward, that are designed to further exploit the richness of Chinese data to address important questions in the auditing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology has a significant impact on most industries in the 21st century. The publishing industry is also facing digital transformation, and the traditional paper business is considered polluted and wasteful as it generates carbon emissions. To compare the influence of digital paperless business with the traditional one on environmental performance in publishing, this paper adopts a refined weak disposability model initially introduced by Kuosmanen (2005). The main novelty of the paper is to include two types of desirable outputs in production technology: one is linked to generating undesirable outputs while another is not. Two additional economic assumptions can be imposed on environmental production technology, namely, weak disposability and null-jointness, respectively. We apply the refined model to assess the economic and environmental performance of the publishing industry in China. The paper business generates carbon emissions while the digital outputs (paperless business) may not produce pollution. The empirical results indicate that a vast potential improvement is detected for the digital outputs while limited progress is allowed for traditional outputs. Furthermore, we use the entropy method to obtain a comprehensive digital technology indicator and further explore its influence on performance in the publishing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of China's implementation of the Environmental Protection Tax Law (EPT Law) on 1 January 2018, this paper empirically investigates the influence of environmental regulations on the investment behaviour of heavily polluting firms using a difference-in-differences (DID) model. The EPT Law is found to improve the investment efficiency of heavily polluting firms by restraining overinvestment, an effect that applies mainly to private firms, particularly those with no political affiliations. This paper enriches the existing research on the economic consequences of the EPT Law by integrating environmental regulations, property rights, political affiliation and investment efficiency into a unified framework. This study's findings are instructive for understanding the economic effects of environmental regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May 2017, Denmark and China signed a film co-production agreement, marking Denmark as the first and only Nordic country to establish such a treaty with China. Taking two recent China-Denmark film co-productions as examples, Bille August's The Chinese Widow (2017) and Lin Jianjie's Brief History of a Family (2024), this paper investigates why China chose to sign a film agreement with Denmark and vice versa. It also examines the cultural and film policies that catalysed the emergence and development of this new co-production partnership. This paper aims to address two emergent trends in transnational screen studies: conceptual engagement with soft power and transnational talent development. It discusses how cinema serves as an instrument for states, institutions, and corporations to mediate diplomatic and political goals, generate soft power, and engage in nation branding. This paper argues that the transformation in geopolitical relationships between these two countries and their respective film and cultural policies over the past decade has led to this new collaborative partnership. Furthermore, it suggests that the latest European cultural policies supporting Sino-European co-production and transnational talent development have facilitated Sino-Danish film co-production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commercial bill, as a regulated commercial credit mode, offers better creditor protection, more financing channels, and stronger bargaining power in financing. This paper creatively constructs bills receivable index in the micro level of enterprises and examines the potential impact of billing of accounts receivable on the financing constraints faced by enterprises. This paper also explores the mechanism that causes the impact and check whether the establishment of the Shanghai Commercial Paper Exchange Corporation (SHCPE) has had positive effects. The results show that billing can alleviate the financing constraints of enterprises due to its benefits offered by the commercial bill. Furthermore, the establishment of the Shanghai Commercial Paper Exchange Corporation (SHCPE) can lead to the development of a standardized and transparent bill market, further alleviating the financing constraints. The study also reveals that billing of accounts receivable affects financing constraints mainly by enhancing the quality of debt-like assets and reducing information asymmetry between enterprises and the outside world. For enterprises with longer maturity structure, the effect of billing on the alleviation of financing constraints is more significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital economy is gradually emerging as a new driving force and engine for high-quality economic development. In the context of reaching carbon peak and carbon neutrality, can the digital economy empower the development of urban green technology innovation? Based on the panel data of 274 cities in China from 2011 to 2019, this paper measures the development level of digital economy at the city level and employs the two-way fixed effect model to empirically analyze the impact of digital economy on urban green technology innovation. The results indicate that: (1) Digital economy development exert a significant positive impact on urban green technology innovation. This conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. (2) Digital economy enhances urban green technology innovation by optimizing human capital structure, enhancing the level of financial and credit investment, and strengthening public environmental concern. (3) Heterogeneity analyses show that the digital economy has a greater positive effect on green technology innovation in the eastern region and non-resource cities. The higher the level of intellectual property protection and the better the development of the factor market, and the lower the intensity of environmental regulation, the greater the positive effect of the digital economy on urban green technology innovation. These findings are not only of great practical significance for accelerating the development of green technology innovation in China, but also serve as a reference for other developing countries to utilize the digital economy to empower the development of green technology innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses about various issues related to the U.S. security policy on China. This discussion shows that, from China's perspective, the key to improving the U.S.-China relations is not stressing common interests in reality, but stressing China's long-term goodwill. The most important issue in the U.S.-China security relations is Taiwan issue. When dealing with Taiwan issue, China should also take into account how to influence the U.S. concerns about gains. The U.S., therefore, might adopt a more co-operative policy on China.

The article discusses various issues related to China's evaluation of adjustment to the U.S. security policy since September 11, 2001. China is watching the U.S. change of defense doctrine, especially regarding nuclear strategy. Currently China believes that the U.S. will continue its nuclear as well as conventional forces modernization, especially with precision attack capabilities, as a part of its Revolution in Military Affairs. Certainly, China is advancing its own modernization in nuclear weapons arsenal, information warfare commanding and the capability of precise delivery of its own munitions. China is determined to avoid a major confrontation, vis-a-vis Washington, at least in the next two decades and is trying to deepen the current Three-C's relationship with the United States.

Discusses the freedom of religious belief in China. Background on the present condition of Buddhism, Taoism and other religion in China; Details on religious organizations in China; Legal protection of the freedom of religious beliefs in the country.

Investigates the factors behind the inferior position of girls in the study of arithmetic in elementary schools. Gender differences that exist in classroom interaction between teachers and boy and girl students in the course of arithmetic instruction; Analysis of pertinent topics and relevant issues; Implications on studies of Chinese education and society.

Poverty has always been a global concern that has restricted human development. The first goal (SDG 1) of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to eliminate all forms of poverty all over the world. The establishment of a scientific and effective localized SDG 1 evaluation and monitoring method is the key to achieving SDG 1. This paper proposes SDG 1 China district and county-level localization evaluation method based on multi-source remote sensing data for the United Nations Sustainable Development Framework. The temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of China's poverty areas and their SDG 1 evaluation values in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 have been analyzed. Based on the SDGs global indicator framework, this paper first constructed SDG 1 China's district and county localization indicator system and then extracted multidimensional feature factors from nighttime light images, land cover data, and digital elevation model data. Secondly, we establish SDG 1 China's localized partial least squares estimation model and SDG 1 China's localized machine learning estimation model. Finally, we analyze and verify the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of China's poverty areas and counties and their SDG 1 evaluation values. The results show that SDG 1 China's district and county localization indicator system proposed in this study and SDG 1 China's localized partial least squares estimation model can better reflect the poverty level of China's districts and counties. The estimated model R2 is 0.65, which can identify 72.77% of China's national poverty counties. From 2012 to 2018, the spatial distribution pattern of SDG evaluation values in China's districts and counties is that the SDG evaluation values gradually increase from western China to eastern China. In addition, the average SDG 1 evaluation value of China's districts and counties increased by 23% from 2012 to 2018. This paper is oriented to the United Nations SDGs framework, explores the SDG 1 localized evaluation method of China's districts and counties based on multisource remote sensing data, and provides a scientific and rapid regional poverty monitoring and evaluation program for the implementation of the 2030 agenda poverty alleviation goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the underlying meaning of Chinese political ideas as represented in the Belt and Road discourse. It aims to contribute to overcoming the bias towards democratic systems in security studies. It challenges the argument that China's peaceful words can be taken at face value and compared with the ideas of democratic regimes. It delivers insights on new perspectives in the 'political threat versus desecuritization' discussion. This paper applies a qualitative discourse analysis with primary data collection of Chinese governmental and state institutional documents, Chinese think tank papers, and joint statements of EU-Chinese governmental officials. The data was analysed with NVivo Software. The empirical analysis shows that Chinese actors have built up a threat narrative idea which is hidden behind words such as 'trust, harmony, pluralism, community of a shared destiny'. Theoretically, this paper shows that the organizing principle, to apply Buzan's words, needs to be acknowledged when interpreting the way Chinese actors frame ideas in the BRI discourse. It challenges the argument of China as a desecuritization actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 21st century has witnessed increasing fluctuations in both the real economy and financial markets around the world. How to maintain the stability of the capital market has attracted more serious attention. This paper examines the impact of executive mobility on the stock price crash risk at the company level. Based on the data of A-share listed companies during 2010–2019, our empirical results show that executive mobility can effectively reduce the stock price crash risk. Furthermore, our research confirms that employee salaries play an intermediary role in the impact of executive mobility on the stock price crash risk. This paper has important implications for companies in emerging markets to optimise the structure of their executive teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to assess the non-linearities between the ESG activities and firm performance in case of an emerging market. China is identified as a case study for the present examination. Even though this research objective has been explored by past researcher, the evidence presented in literature is not conclusive. The paper hypothesizes that such conflicting or inconclusive results can potentially be attributed to wrong modeling, datasets that include both developing and the developed markets, and the prevalent endogeneity issue in corporate governance literature. For the purpose of this paper, the author uses the dynamic panel approach of First difference and the System Generalized Method of Moments. The findings from the analysis of 232 Chinese listed firm show a positive association between ESG activities and the firm performance. However, the relationship is nonlinear. In other words, the relationship between ESG activities and the firm performance is inverted U-shaped. This indicates the relationship is positive up to a certain threshold and once the ESG activities cross that threshold it start to have negative effect. The key insight from this research is that the firm has to find their threshold of ESG activities to gain maximum benefits from such activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of Internet infrastructure construction on enterprise transformation and upgrading and the underlying mechanisms using a progressive double difference model based on a quasi-natural experiment of the Chinese government's "broadband China" policy by matching A-share listed companies and city panel data from 2008–2019 in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The conclusions show that the "broadband China" policy can significantly promote the transformation and upgrading of enterprises in pilot cities. However, its effect shows a diminishing marginal contribution, and the policy is more effective for traditional manufacturing industries during the implementation period. Enhancing human capital and reducing internal transaction costs are two important channels for Internet infrastructure construction to help enterprises transform and upgrade. Combined with the life cycle theory, we find that the "broadband China" policy has the most significant impact on changing and upgrading enterprises in the growth and maturity stages, especially those in the manufacturing industry, but not those in the maturity and decline stages of the service industry. Finally, a series of robustness tests using Monte Carlo simulation, entropy balance method, and instrumental variables method, excluding other factors, show that the findings are still robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the panel data of 285 cities in China from 2000 to 2019, this paper searches the number of patent applications related to urban artificial intelligence from five dimensions: algorithm, data, computing power, application scenario and related technology. Combining the two perspectives of industrial upgrading and rationalization, we analyze the internal influence theory of the research topic from the theoretical and empirical perspectives. The results show that artificial intelligence is not only conducive to industrial upgrading, but also significantly inhibit the deviation of industrial structure from equilibrium, which is conducive to industrial rationalization. In addition, the conclusion of this paper is still valid after a series of robustness tests, such as eliminating the samples of central cities, winsorize treatment and instrumental variables method. Through the heterogeneity test, it is found that the promoting effect of artificial intelligence on industrial upgrading is more obvious in big cities and cities with high level of industrial upgrading. The internal mechanism test results show that artificial intelligence promotes industrial upgrading by promoting technological innovation. In cities with a high degree of marketization and Internet development, the role of artificial intelligence in promoting industrial upgrading can be strengthened. The research conclusions of this paper will be conducive to accelerating the development of artificial intelligence to promote industrial upgrading, and provide a useful reference for realizing high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the application of force majeure, the principle of change of circumstances, and the doctrine of frustration in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand and China. The paper will first outline the general legal test and legal consequences of the three doctrines. Secondly, the paper will discuss the legal tests and legal consequences of the three doctrines specifically in New Zealand and China and in the context of COVID-19. Thirdly, the paper will discuss the similarities and differences between the three doctrines. In the second part of this paper, the paper will discuss how the three doctrines apply to commercial lease cases in the context of COVID-19. The paper will select two commercial lease cases in New Zealand and China to analyse the robustness of all three legal doctrines in providing practical workable solutions for tenants and landlords during government-imposed lockdowns and enforced closures of leased premises. The paper illustrates how the differences in the legal tests, legal consequences and underlying rationales of the doctrines result in different outcomes of a case. The paper concludes that the doctrines each have their strengths and weaknesses and other civil and common law countries can learn from the experiences of China and New Zealand. Furthermore, the paper suggests that courts should carefully consider the relevant facts and circumstances of a case when applying legal doctrines. Moreover, courts need to strike the right balance between doing the victims of unforeseen circumstances and upholding the principle of the sanctity of contract. The analysis of the three doctrines is particularly useful in this day and age where there is a high likelihood of the occurrence of another pandemic-level event and causing unprecedented disruptions to the commercial world. Moreover, the research has provided tenants and landlords with a good starting point as to how to protect themselves in the event of an unforeseen event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbonless copy paper has been used extensively in many fields in China since 1990s. Document examiners were often requested to confirm the authenticity of questioned carbonless copy documents. Estimating the age of carbonless copy documents could be an effective method to confirm the authenticity of such documents. Estimating age is an important and difficult problem, and is also an important task that forensic document examiners should confront. In this paper, a fading rate method was successfully employed to estimate the relative age of carbonless copy documents by comparing fading rates. Using extensive tests, butanol proved to be a suitable solvent and was used to dissolve and fade the dye of carbonless copy line strokes made at different times. The relative age of the line strokes was estimated by means of changing rate of gray value. As preliminary findings of this study, curves were created to indicate the relationship between the fading rate (changing rate of gray value) of line strokes and the age of carbonless copy documents. It was also determined that the amount of solvent, brands of carbonless copy paper and thickness of carbonless copy line strokes had varying impacts on estimating the dates of carbonless copy line strokes. Experimental results showed that the fading rate method was applicable for finding the relative age of questioned carbonless copy documents in some cases where the strokes were produced on the document within 43 months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial spillover of food safety risks and the regional mobility of food enterprises make territorial governance inefficient, which calls for interregional collaboration to enhance food safety in the context of territorial governance. However, due to the lack of a collaborative food safety governance scheme, there has been no substantial progress in interregional collaboration for food safety governance in China. Therefore, this paper refines the three key elements of collaboration from the perspective of supply chain, economy and geography and puts forward the optimal zoning scheme of interregional collaboration for food safety governance. By analysing the evolution trend of interregional collaboration, we found China has already produced the germination of interregional collaboration in terms of food safety issues, though it has been slow and volatile. To promote the process of interregional collaboration, this paper also analyses the determinants of the coordinated regulatory performance of food safety. The results show that collaborative actions within regions can facilitate coordinated regulatory practice. The interregional difference in regulatory intensity and consumption patterns hinder the interregional collaboration for food safety governance, while the interregional difference in industrial structure inversely promotes the coordinated regulatory performance. These findings lend support to effective promotion of interregional collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Paper trash from Los Angeles (LA) City Hall and two LA office buildings that may soon be on its way to China. The paper is being analyzed for its export value, and, sometime this summer, China Paper Partners of San Francisco, an affiliate of the Conservatree Paper Co., plans to begin shipping the paper trash to the People's Republic of China, where it will be sorted and recycled. Instead of going into already overburdened landfills on this side of the Pacific, as much as 1,000 tons of paper trash per day may make the voyage to China, where paper material is in great demand.

Whilst the extant literature on the publish-or-perish culture in the West is plentiful, there remains surprisingly little scholarship exploring the ways managerialist policies have become integral to local identities, work and life in Chinese universities. We address this gap by taking China's endeavour to become first in the global higher education field as an entry point and reflecting on our lived experiences as early career researchers (ECRs) in the form of a duoethnography. Our dialogues consider how, and with what effects, Chinese higher education privileges the notion of research excellence and works to construct professional identities. As grassroots ECRs epitomising a force to negotiate, challenge and resist the contemporary research order from below, we identify academic publishing as 'the best strategy' to get ahead in the academic game. Despite our compliance with the regime of new managerialism, our narratives also suggest that we are attempting to resist the drive for research productivity through envisaging a slower tempo in writing and aspiring for greater reflection. We provide readers with a range of individual- and collective-based strategies for being and progressing as grassroots ECRs, and implications for universities are also discussed at the end of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is widely recognized that a country's bureaucratic structure significantly influences economic growth, its subnational variations remain relatively unexplored. To address this gap, this paper introduces a unique model to quantify the collective career incentives of subnational leadership in China. By adopting machine-learning techniques that incorporate 250 individual features, this study derives a predicted probability of promotion as a proxy to measure an official's career prospects. The individual career prospects are subsequently transformed into collective career incentives through an inverse-U-shaped relationship between the two. The empirical findings indicate that from 1997 to 2015, Chinese provincial governments achieved higher economic growth rates when a larger proportion of officials held mid-range rankings in terms of career prospects. This study also finds that the better economic performance stemmed from the collective career incentives of provincial leadership, rather than those of the supreme leaders of the province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decades have witnessed the flourishing of consultative democracy (xieshang minzhu, a concept similar to deliberative democracy) in China, with ambitions for implementing consultative politics and governance. In the West, mainstream deliberative democracy studies largely overlook the fact that deliberation is an elusive and polysemic notion, which develops into various practices in different social and cultural contexts. Therefore, a non-Western-centred approach needs to be adopted to further investigate deliberative experimentation in rural China. Based on the four months of fieldwork conducted in several villages in rural China, this paper argues that China's rural villages have inherited a strong Confucianism-based idea of deliberation and consultation. With case studies from the sociological–political perspective, this paper also aims to shed some new light on the compatibilities between modern democratic governance approaches and the informal, hierarchical and highly moralised forms of public order in the rural Chinese acquaintance society. Incorporating these empirical observations could bridge the gap between Western and Chinese perspectives on the theory and practice of deliberative democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of countries have launched their central bank digital currencies (CBDC) in recent years, but the economic impacts of CBDC adoption are underexplored. To empirically assess how CBDC adoption influences regional economic integration, this paper investigates the Greater Bay Area, where China carried out one of its first digital renminbi pilot programs. The Greater Bay Area provides a good example because the growing acceptance of digital renminbi in the area can potentially mitigate transaction costs and risks due to the exchange rate volatility of the Chinese renminbi, Hong Kong dollar, and Macao pataca. CBDC adoption can lead to greater real and financial integrations by facilitating cross-border trade in goods and services. This paper evaluates deviations from uncovered interest rate parity, purchasing power parity, and real interest rate parity across Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao based on monthly interest rate and price data from January 2016 to December 2022. The time series have mean values near zero, which validate the parity conditions and indicate high degrees of financial, real, and economic integrations. The Markov regime-switching regression model identifies three regimes: (1) pre-Covid, (2) post-Covid, and (3) post-CBDC. The Covid-19 outbreak brought lower integration and stability, but the launch of the CBDC restored some of the pre-Covid integration and stability. Regimes 1 and 2 are persistent, and transitions from Regime 3 back to Regime 1 are probable. Hence, this study finds evidence that CBDC adoption improves regional economic integration in the short and long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines issues surrounding the national unity and territorial integrity of Taiwan. Significance of national reunification of China and Taiwan; Discussion on the civil war started by the Kuomintang; Position of the Chinese government regarding the settlement of the Taiwan question.

Evaluates the various factors that influence the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan. Details on international factors; Factors originating in mainland China; Factors arising from developments within Taiwan.

This article introduces a special issue on technological development and policy making in China, highlighting their importance for China's economic growth. It discusses the shift in China's economy from reliance on property sector investment and low-value manufacturing to a new paradigm based on technological innovation and internal market expansion. The article emphasizes the need for adaptive policy making and financing support for science and technology development to enhance productivity growth. It also explores the Augmented National Innovation System (ANIS) in China, the growth of the semiconductor industry, and the limitations of the fiscal system. The research papers in this collection provide insights into China's economic transformation and propose reforms to support its development. [Extracted from the article]

This paper uses the data of Chinese A-share listed companies to study whether enterprise digital transformation will affect the labor income share. The research results show that enterprise digital transformation greatly increasing the labor income share, and our inferences unchanged after a wide battery of robustness tests. Further studies show that the mechanism of digital transformation to increase labor income share is to expand the scale of employment and increase the proportion of highly skilled labor in the total labor force. Subsample study shows that digital transformation only raises the labor income share of larger scale and higher competitive position enterprises. The research can provide policy references for developing digital economy and improving development quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of environmental protection tax on green technology innovation of Chinese resource-based enterprises and behavior of thirdparty environmental monitoring institutions. It uses game theory to analyze participants' strategy selections, and uses the triple difference method to empirically test the promotion effect. Our robust results find that (1) Chinese environmental tax policy effectively promotes the green innovation of resource-based enterprises and standardizes the behavior of third-party monitoring institutions; (2) local governments' actions such as increasing environmental protection tax, penalizing third-party monitoring agencies for violations, and promoting public preference for green consumption, all contribute to accelerating enterprises' green innovation; (3) the central government's increased regulation of local governments has a positive impact on enterprises and third-party monitoring institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability of groundwater is essential for agriculture, households, and industry. Concerns about its sustainability have been raised due to depletion and pollution in various parts of China. To address this, a life cycle assessment (LCA) is the most suitable approach for implementing integrated sustainability in groundwater resources. This research aimed to investigate the LCA of groundwater in China by analyzing its economic, environmental, and social sustainability based on various research papers conducted between 1999 and 2022, providing insights into the current state of research and suggesting sustainable measures for safeguarding groundwater resources in specific regions and industries in China. The study indicates that specific sector-wise measures should be taken to ensure sustainable groundwater protection in China. Intercropping and drip irrigation systems can be sustainable and effective methods for protecting groundwater in the agricultural sector. New power plants should be constructed in the water-rich southern regions, and long-term water-saving measures should be implemented in China's coal mining industry. All water resources should be integrated into the regional water supply system to reduce dependence on groundwater. Furthermore, more research is needed to investigate all elements of sustainable development in provinces that consume high amounts of groundwater but have limited storage capacity. These recommendations can be helpful to policymakers in promoting the sustainable development of groundwater resources in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), this paper examines the current Chinese fiscal system and highlights its three characteristics. First, fiscal revenues are centralized at the central government while expenditures are decentralized at the local governments; second, fiscal spending focuses on public investment but is insufficient in providing social safety net and public services; and third, indirect tax accounts for a great majority of tax revenues, leading to limited progressivity of the tax system. These limitations have constrained the effectiveness of China's fiscal policies and generated many perverse impacts. With the understanding that the central government has the monetary sovereignty and does not face financing constrained and that taxes are not to raise revenues for fiscal spending but to serve other purposes, the paper calls for fiscal reforms that realign fiscal resources and spending responsibilities between the central and local governments, increase fiscal spending on social security and public services, as well as broaden personal income tax to improve the distributive effect of taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) has become increasingly popular among policymakers because of its potential to drive economic growth. In many countries, the promotion of EE has been linked with innovation policy but little research has been done to examine whether such policy can facilitate EE's development. Using the case study method to examine the growth of China's unicorns, which are productive entrepreneurial outputs of EE, this paper investigates the process of EE's emergence and development, and the role of government policies, including innovation policy, in promoting EE's growth. The paper advances three policy implications derived from the case study; first, the important role of government policies in creating institutional contexts; second, developing informal institutions, and third, implementing a systemic intervention, to promote EE's emergence and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the implementation of the Environmental Protection Tax Law (the EPT Law) in China on 1 January 2018, this paper employs the difference-in-difference model (DID) to empirically investigates how the environmental regulations affects the green transformation of highly polluting firms. The results indicate that the EPT Law has significantly aided in the green transformation of highly polluting firms, with the increasing pressure of environmental legality acting as a partial mediating effect. This paper adds to the research on the economic effects of the environmental regulations and provides new evidence to support the incentive perspective on environmental regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explain the continuous growth of firm innovation of Chinese enterprises from a new perspective of cluster commercial credit. Using data from the China Industrial Enterprise Database, this paper finds that cluster commercial credit can promote firm innovation by relaxing financing constraints, and this result is very robust and does not vary with the estimated model. The mechanism is further validated by the analysis after dividing the subsample according to ownership structure. This paper shows that although the capital market is not yet developed in China, firms can use cluster commercial credit to obtain financing for innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pervasiveness of digital media has profoundly transformed how we preserve and promote intangible cultural heritage (ICH). With the growing popularity of Douyin, a video-focused social networking platform, ICH inheritors in China have begun to post videos that showcase their artisanship. On the one hand, the affordances of Douyin encourage its users to keep up with the latest trend, subjugating them to mimetic participation; on the other hand, heritage policies in China foster the top-down formation of nationalist identity. Therefore, how heritage practitioners negotiate between the top-down authority of policies and the horizontal mimesis of the platform is a matter of concern. This paper applies performance analysis to explore the Douyin videos of a Chinese craftsperson, Li Niangen, a municipal ICH inheritor whose Douyin videos are highly popular. ICH policies in China and the affordances of the platform may support the formation of distinct identities. However, by assuming multiple and even contrasting roles in his videos, Li is fully engaged in none of them. This paper proposes that the presentation of multiple roles copes with the conflicting logic in Chinese society. In addition, the misalignment of these roles may simultaneously utilise and unsettle the administrative and digital authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer attention is a significant feature in the horizontal cross-loading of EU countries when there are many uncertainties in the decision-making. Taking the case of the 28-EU countries' interactive media attention during China's second Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum in April 2019, this paper explores the two questions of who pays attention to whose action to the BRI, and what are the determinants of the peer attentions? The measurements from the network analysis identify the positions and roles of EU countries in the attention network. The gravity model further examines the determinants on different levels of peer attention flows. The findings suggest that the peer attention network the EU countries formulate is a core-periphery structure where big powers and forerunners construct the core and connect other big power and peripheral countries from the nearby to the far-reaching. Substantively, this paper contributes to the literature on the horizontal interaction of countries in response to China's engagement. Methodologically, the network analysis is an innovative method to study how a country receives the influence imposed by a single country, by a cluster of countries and the peer attention network as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of the digital transformation of agriculture and China’s ‘dual-carbon’ strategy for agriculture is new momentum for developing agriculture, reducing rural income inequality, and improving the subjective well-being of farm households. This paper uses data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2014, 2016, and 2018 to examine the impact of internet use on rural income inequality at the household level. The results show that internet use can significantly reduce rural income inequality by enhancing information availability and farm households’ nonfarm employment level. The results of a heterogeneity analysis reveal that the internet is more conducive to improving the income inequality of rural burdened families and families in Western China. Further analysis shows that improving income inequality can enhance the subjective wellbeing of farmer households. Accelerating the construction of digital villages, building internet skills cultivation systems, and focusing on the utility of internet use among vulnerable rural groups can reduce rural income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green technology innovation (GTI) is an important driver for national green development and a strong fulcrum for the clean production of companies. This paper focuses on the impact of top management team's (TMT's) inherent characteristics on GTI from the perspectives of TMT heterogeneity and text tone in management discussion and analysis (MD&A), as well as the moderating role of executive compensation incentives and financial constraints. The results reveal that: a) the TMT heterogeneity has different effects on companies' GTI; b) the tone in MD&A can significantly promote the companies' GTI; c) both executive compensation incentives and financial constraints significantly adjust the relationship between the TMT heterogeneity or the tone in MD&A on GTI but in different directions. Moreover, the basic conclusions suitable for non-state-owned companies yet differ in state-owned companies considering the property heterogeneity. Thus, this paper constructs a new integrated framework of TMT heterogeneity, tone in MD&A, executive compensation incentives and financial constraints to stimulate the enthusiasm and initiative of companies to develop GTI, which has an important practical significance on accelerating the sustainable development of green production in developing countries. Finally, this paper offers corresponding policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a series of articles on production research in China.

This study examines whether and how the interaction between extreme market movements and the disposition effect can affect subsequent return spreads between stocks with large paper losses and those with large paper gains for a sustained period of time. We study all the A-shares listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Based on the prospect theory, our results show that after extreme negative market movements, the disposition effect enhances significant subsequent return spreads; however, it generates insignificant subsequent return spreads when extreme market movements are positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst the impact of the 'publish or perish' adage has received considerable attention from academics in the West, it remains under-researched in non-Western contexts, such as China. We address this gap by examining our lived experiences of navigating Chinese academia and academic publishing in the form of a duoethnographic collaborative self-study. We utilise the concept of precarious privilege in order to tease out a third space between publish or perish. Accordingly, we identity three over-arching themes related to academic publishing in China, which coalesce around the notion of academia as a 'game' with hidden rules. These themes are pursuing, playing and paying. Through our dialogues, we highlight our precarious privilege as early-career academics in China, yet also draw attention to how the logics and rules of the academic 'game' provide us with the tools we need to survive and thrive within academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the prolific film production in the nascent People's Republic of China (PRC) during the 'Seventeen Years' from 1949 to 1966, Maoist cinema received limited critical analysis. While recent scholarly attention has shifted towards examining Chinese film production and exchange within the socialist bloc, a notable gap remains in the literature concerning Sino-Arab film collaboration during this period. This paper seeks to address this gap by utilizing textual analysis and archival studies to explore the practice of Sino-Arab film weeks through the lens of cultural diplomacy. Building upon the framework of the three schools of thought on cultural diplomacy, this study posits that Sino-Arab film collaboration from the 1950s to 1960s operated within the realm of people's diplomacy. This term denotes cultural diplomacy with distinctively Chinese attributes within the Cold War context. This paper also complements the third trend that focuses on the transcendental realm of the state by exploring the little-studied interactions between film screenings and reality in Sino-Arab film weeks. Under the common goal of anti-imperialism and nation-building, people's diplomacy deviates from the conventional paradigm of bipolar rivalry and embodies the spirit of internationalist solidarity among Third World countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using empirical data from China, this study examines the impact of local internet development on non-executive employees' salaries. Research findings show that internet development can increase employees' salary and pay-performance sensitivity. This effect can be more significant in non-state-owned enterprises (Non-SOEs for short), firms faced with fierce competition, and firms paid little attention to employee protection. Mechanism analysis finds that the positive impact of internet development on increasing total factor productivity and reducing information asymmetry can partly interpret the effect. From the perspective of employees' salaries, this study sheds light on the impact of technological progress on micro-production relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2021 the Chinese Government unexpectedly released what has become known colloquially as the 'Double-Reduction' policy. The policy decreed the reduction of homework pressure on students and greater control of private tutorial companies. In this paper, we set out to understand why the Chinese central government launched the 'Double-Reduction' policy in mid−2021 by using narratives to analyse the three most circulated explanations for the policy and its timing. We use data from a range of formal and informal policy texts. The three narratives, including one policy narrative dominant in the official discourse and two alternative ones, constructed the causal stories about the policy's rationale from multiple perspectives. The combination of multiple perspectives and a narrative approach helps reveal the policy event's complexity and lays a foundation for researchers interested in tracking the development trajectory of this new policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]