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Although studies in the field of discourse analysis have revealed the presence of animal and violent metaphors in Sino-phobic discourses about China (Carrico, 2018; Lee, 2021), there are still no systematic studies focusing on metaphor and Sinophobia. This study aims at providing a further contribution to the studies of Sino-phobic discourses by focusing specifically on animal metaphors used to frame China during the COVID-19 pandemic in two corpora of American and Australian newspapers. The analysis combines methodologies of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. First, a semantic domain analyses was carried out with WMatrix 5 (Rayson, 2008), then, metaphors in the semantic field of living creatures were identified and analysed adopting cognitive and discursive approaches. The results showed how predatory and threatening animals are often associated with Chinese institutions in the newspapers analysed and this negative metaphorical representation is juxtaposed to that of Australian institutions which are framed as harmless pets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to determine the impact of the rise of China and its increased presence in Cambodia on the local ethnic Chinese (LEC) community. The author conducted individual interviews with informants including the permanent secretary of a local Chinese association, the manager of a Chinese daily newspaper and the headmaster of a Chinese medium school to understand their views. The study found that there was little interaction between the LEC and new migrants (NMs) from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as the LEC association and Chinese school focused mainly on serving the interests of the LEC community while the NM community has grown self-sufficient with their own organizations. It also found that the increased presence of NMs and capital from the PRC in Cambodia did not cause LEC to become more China-oriented. The main recipient of the soft power diplomacy of PRC’s One Belt and One Road initiative were Khmer-speaking populace, regardless of their ethnic origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Shibantan limestone contains maximum 1237 ± 315 ppm of organic sulfur. • Iron limitation enhanced organic matter sulfurization in Shibantan limestone. • Microbial activity induced large CAS content variation in Shibantan limestone. • CAS content decreased during marine and meteoric diagenesis. • Organic sulfur content in limestone matrix decreased during marine diagenesis. The Ediacaran period was characterized by numerous events, including the emergence of large multi-cellular metazoans and surface environmental perturbations. This period was also characterized by an increase in atmospheric oxygen concentrations that was critical for the evolution of life. Oceanic sulfate concentrations varied in association with atmospheric oxygen concentrations, which have been constrained by sulfur isotopic compositions of sedimentary sulfates and pyrite, and sulfur concentrations of pyrite and carbonate associated sulfate (CAS). However, other parameters such as sedimentation rate or iron availability have a strong impact on the abundance and isotopic composition of pyrite. In addition, recent studies have demonstrated that some Phanerozoic limestones include a mix of various carbonate minerals, the compositions and diagenetic histories of which differ at the μm scale. Thus, the μm scale description of sulfur species is necessary to accurately extract information preserved in carbonate rocks. In this study, we investigated the speciation and concentrations of sulfur in the matrix of the Ediacaran Doushantuo and Dengying limestones exposed in South China using μ-X-ray fluorescence (XRF) mapping and S K-edge X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) analyses. In addition to pyrite, the XANES spectra of the Doushantuo limestone indicate that sulfur occurs as CAS, while the Dengying limestone contains CAS and abundant organic sulfur. Pyrite oxidation and re-mineralization of organic sulfur had little influence on CAS content in the samples, whereas sparitization produced decreases in CAS and organic sulfur concentrations. The CAS content of the Dengying sparite was lower than that of the Dengying micrite, indicating that the CAS content decreased even during marine diagenesis. Thus, the micrite is more appropriate for extracting paleo-oceanic information. On the other hand, variations in the CAS concentrations of the limestone matrix in the Dengying Formation were larger than those in the Doushantuo Formation, regardless of grain size. The large variations in the Dengying limestone resulted from local alkalinity fluctuations caused by temporal changes in microbial activity within microbial mats. Existence of abundant organic sulfur in the Dengying limestones has another implication to ancient sedimentary environment. The low pyrite content of the Dengying limestone is likely due to a deficient supply of reactive iron to the sediment–water interface, because the supply of organic matter was likely sufficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the aim of obtaining information to establish an import risk assessment on African swine fever (ASF) and other transboundary animal diseases (TADs) into Japan, a questionnaire survey was conducted between 1 August and 20 September 2019 on air travellers arriving into Japan from China. There were 248 responses with 2.8 % of respondents illegally importing pork products. The quantity imported per traveller varied between 250 g and 2 kg. Concerning the travellers' perception in regard to the difficulty of importing a pork product in their luggage, 32 respondents (12.9 %) considered it very easy or rather easy and 216 (87.1 %) very difficult or rather difficult. In regard to the recognition of respondents of the illegality of importing pork products into Japan, seven respondents (2.8 %) did not consider this practice to be illegal whilst 241 (97.2 %) had some idea of the illegal nature of this behaviour. The regression analysis revealed that the practice of illegal importation of pork products was significantly affected by the level of difficulty perception held by the traveller (P < 0.001) and that the difficulty perception is significantly affected by the level of recognition of illegality by the traveller (P < 0.001). The result of this study will not only provide useful data in developing a model to assess the probability of introduction of ASF and other TADs into Japan and other countries, but also in monitoring the effect of measures taken by the government to reduce the illegal importation of meat and meat products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]