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SUMMARY This paper uses data from the Capital Area Seismograph Network in North China (NC), currently the largest regional seismograph network in China to investigate the compressional stress orientations from the polarizations of faster shear waves (PFS), a parameter of shear wave velocity anisotropy. Data are restricted to earthquakes deeper than 5 km to reduce the influence of the heterogeneous uppermost few kilometres of the crust. The results show that the regional compressional stress direction is ENE-WSW to nearly EW in NC, which agrees with seismic mechanisms and drilling and GPS data. Predominantly, PFS are also nearly EW in NC and are influenced by faults, geology and tectonics. PFS orientations at stations on seismically active faults are consistent with the strike of strike-slip faults and indicate large seismically active faults breaking, or nearly breaking, the free surface. PFS orientations are influenced by both regional compressional stress and by nearby faults. It is an effective way to study detailed spatial distribution of crustal compressional stress by shear wave anisotropy with dense seismograph network. Shear wave splitting may also be used to indicate hitherto unknown faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does localisation of procurements, sales and management contribute to the profitability of overseas affiliates? This study examines this question by analysing the performance of Japanese multinationals' manufacturing affiliates in China using an affiliate-level dataset for the period from 1989 to 2002 collected by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. We find that even though foreign multinationals often seem to enter China for the local market potential, affiliates with a higher local sales ratio tend to be less profitable - a pattern that is conspicuously different from that observed for Japanese affiliates in other regions such as the USA or the ASEAN4, where local sales orientation has a positive impact on profitability. On the other hand, we find that Japanese affiliates' profitability was positively associated with their local procurement ratio. Using the coefficients of the profit function estimated from data on all Japanese manufacturing affiliates around the world, we calculate the effect of local sales and procurements on profitability by country, controlling for the level of GDP and per capita GDP. In the case of China, the localisation effects are positive following the country's accession to the WTO, suggesting that both local procurement and sales expansion contribute to higher profitability in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Analyses of global seismic waveform data for the 2008 devastating Wenchuan Earthquake have indicated where the rupture started and how it expanded. Here we reveal that the rupture process of this earthquake was strongly controlled by structural heterogeneities of the upper crust. We made a tomographic inversion of 200,000 local travel time data, according to which the rupture was confined in a presumably brittle layer of high P- and S-wave velocity anomalies within the upper ~15 km depths. The rupture propagated northeastward through the southwest (SW) segment of the fault and then jumped to the northeast (NE) segment with little slip at the intervening, presumably ductile zone characterized by low P and S velocities with high Poisson''s ratio. The rupture initiated near the southwestern end of the SW segment within a body of high Poisson''s ratio, which extends down into the lower crust, suggesting upward migration of deep-seated aqueous fluid to trigger the earthquake by reducing the mechanical strength of the brittle layer. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Deals with the industrial and trade structure of China and Japan. Comparative advantage of China; Features of the Chinese industrial structure; Role of foreign companies in China; Expansion of the overseas production activities of Japanese companies.

Abstract: We have analyzed broadband data to identify and determine mantle discontinuities in the mantle transition zone (MTZ) beneath eastern China, where the Pacific slab is stagnant. The depths of the 410 and 660km discontinuities are generally shallower and deeper, respectively, than the global averages in and near the Pacific slab beneath eastern China. The MTZ is thicker in the slab than the global average. This observation is consistent with the thermally controlled olivine to wadsleyite transformation for the 410km discontinuity and the post-spinel transformation for the 660km discontinuity. Other discontinuities appear from 690 to 750km in the lower mantle part of the Pacific slab. Recent mineralogical experiments indicate that the most plausible interpretation of these deep discontinuities is that they represent the ilmenite to perovskite transformation in a cold environment, such as that in the Pacific slab. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The feasibility of oceanic igneous crust melting in stagnant slabs has previously been proposed from experimental petrological research. However, geochemical evidence for such melting has not yet been found from igneous rocks. We present evidence to suggest that melts from the igneous layer in the stagnant Pacific slab contributed to the source composition of basalts erupted in eastern China. Fe-rich (>13wt.%), Si-poor (<43wt.%) basalts occur only above the leading edge of the stagnant Pacific slab in eastern China, ~2000km west of the Pacific Plate trench. The source of these basalts has Nd–Hf and Sr–Nd–Pb isotopic compositions akin to those of the igneous layer in the Pacific slab, and their extremely low Rb and Pb contents suggest that their source material was modified by subduction processes. Together with forward modeling calculation on trace elements and isotope compositions, these geochemical characteristics imply that they received a contribution from fluid released from hydrated transition zone and dehydrated carbonate-bearing oceanic crust in the stagnant slab, without a long time-integrated ingrowth of Sr–Nd–Hf–Pb isotope systems, almost at the leading edge of the stagnant Pacific slab. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]