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The Chinese government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic can be broken into three stages – from denial in early 2020, to relatively successful management from March 2020 to March 2022, and finally to the disastrous zero-COVID policy from March until November 2022. The article traces this to a general trend in China since the 2010s, namely the state's increasing concentration of "logistical power" (state and non-state actors' capacity to generate social dynamics based on the coordination of mobility), which led to "logistical violence" (force that destroys social dynamics based on the state's exclusive control over mobility). Informed by Hannah Arendt's thought and based on my engagement in public discussion in China during and after COVID pandemic, I propose the concepts of "logistical power" and "logistical violence" in order to facilitate public reflections – in addition to providing academic explanations – about what the pandemic may mean for China's future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the late 1990s China moved from a period of "wealth creation" that benefited the majority of the population to a period of "wealth concentration" that benefited a minority. This essay focuses on the role of international student migration from China to other countries in this process. In particular the authors delineate how different types of capital--the human, social, political and cultural (specifically foreign degrees)--transform into each other. In the process the analysis considers how the conversions among these different types of capital have intensified and have become concentrated in the top stratum of society. The essay links the international education to general patterns of social transformation currently occurring in China. Specifically the discussion brings in a transnational dimension to the examination of social stratification in contemporary China. (Contains 2 figures.)

Recently, identifying the contamination status and assessing the health risk of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in surface water and groundwater have been of great significance. Eighteen individual PFASs were analyzed in thirty-three surface/groundwater samples during one period in a fluorine chemical park (Park A) and during two periods in Park B. The mean total concentration of 18 PFASs (∑PFASs) in Park A (9104.63 ng·L−1) was significantly higher than that in the wet season (WS) (801.68 ng·L−1) or DS (714.64 ng·L−1) in Park B. The perfluorobutane sulfonate (PFBS) was the predominant substance in the two parks, and the maximum concentration in groundwater exceeded 10,000 ng·L−1. The contamination status in the wet season (WS) was higher than that in the dry season (DS) in Park B. The ∑PFASs in Park A presented an increasing tendency following the groundwater flow direction, whereas this rule was limited to all periods in Park B. Two relative source contributions (RSCs) of 20% or 100% allowed assessing the PFASs risk to different age groups, and the results revealed that some PFASs (4 ≤ C ≤ 7 or 9 ≤ C ≤ 12) were identified as having a low risk quotient (RQ), except for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and PFOA (C = 8). The RQmix value mainly relies on PFOA and PFOS, with a larger contribution rate of 80–90%. All assessed cases (case 1, case 2, case 3, and case 4) in all age groups revealed that infants were vulnerable to PFASs influence, followed by children, teenagers, and adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic urges us to rethink the analytical relations between China, Asia and other parts of the world. Many of what had appeared to be "Chinese characteristics" at the early stage of the outbreak turned out to be common phenomena worldwide. Apparently minor differences, such as the penetration rate of e-commerce, matter a great deal. This essay contributes to this intellectual remapping by proposing two arguments. First, the essay aims to explain the similar governmental reactions in China and other parts of the world—the initial reluctance followed by drastic lockdown—by pointing to the "gyroscope-economy" model that dominates many societies. The economy is structurally imbalanced and has thus become exceedingly dependent on the movements of people, goods and capital, much like a gyroscope, which cannot balance unless spun fast. Second, the essay examines several Chinese-specific characteristics of the gyroscope-like economy, namely the broad-based participation and the high growth rate coupled with low welfare provisions, competitiveness and precariousness. These features are attributable to a combination of hypermobility and authoritarianism. The pandemic may intertwine the two more deeply, in China and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s, the Chinese government replaced strict control over outmigration with measures of ‘infrastructural governance’. Instead of dictating who can and who cannot leave, the state manages migration by influencing the sociotechnical conditions of mobility, for instance by defining what responsibilities commercial intermediaries should shoulder and what training a migrant should receive before departure. This article unpacks infrastructural governance by examining the working of ‘base’, orjidiin Chinese. A base is a tight cluster of public and private institutions in a labour source place, designated by the government as an important player in the recruitment of migrant workers. The base manages migration by conditioning the activities that lead to migration, such as how people choose destinations, make payments, and deal with uncertainties in preparing for migration. The base also works on migrants’ relations with family members, village cadres and fellow migrants in order to shape their mobilities. The ethnographic research on the base shows that, infrastructural governance regulates migration effectively, but makes migration more complicated and more costly for the migrants. Infrastructural governance empowers commercial intermediaries and local government, and as such affects broader social relations in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Methodological nationalism takes the nation-state as a pre-given container of social life, and thereby treats internal and international migrations as separate matters. Epistemological behaviouralism redresses this by removing the conceptual divide between internal and international but is problematic in regarding migration as a human behaviour distinct in itself. In explaining why and how these two pitfalls need to be addressed in tandem, I first trace how these contrasting viewpoints are historically deeply intertwined. I then draw on examples from China to demonstrate that migrations should be understood as composites of actions carried out by multiple actors and institutions, which in their turn lead to and become part of other social processes. Internal and international migrations are interlinked as constituted and constitutive assemblages. In the case of China, the nation-state is a central link between the two, and is at the same time itself reconfigured by mobilities. Instead of promoting migration as a subject matter in its own right and migration studies as a distinct field, this article seeks to turn migration into an analytical perspective to examine broad social changes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorization is indispensable for making academic research relevant to social struggles, but not all types of theorization are equally useful. We need theory as vision. Conceived consciously from a particular vantage point and with a purpose, theory as vision reveals hidden connections among different aspects of life and enables alternative imaginations about the future. Theory as vision must explain why things are as they are and at the same time show how things could be different. Key to this is a type of imaginative ethnographic accuracy that captures not only existing reality but also potentials for change. This article illustrates this by revisiting historical debates on theorizing the Chinese peasantry between Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming, a philosopher and social reformer, in the 1930s and then the 1950s. The article in the end proposes articulation of connections across scales as a mode of anthropological theorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the authors' long-term field research on low-skilled labor migration from China and Indonesia, this article establishes that more than ever labor migration is intensively mediated. Migration infrastructure - the systematically interlinked technologies, institutions, and actors that facilitate and condition mobility - serves as a concept to unpack the process of mediation. Migration can be more clearly conceptualized through a focus on infrastructure rather than on state policies, the labor market, or migrant social networks alone. The article also points to a trend of 'infrastructural involution,' in which the interplay between different dimensions of migration infrastructure make it self-perpetuating and self-serving, and impedes rather than enhances people's migratory capability. This explains why labor migration has become both more accessible and more cumbersome in many parts of Asia since the late 1990s. The notion of migration infrastructure calls for research that is less fixated on migration as behavior or migrants as the primary subject, and more concerned with broader societal transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Multi-sited ethnography’ is now a common method for anthropological studies on migration. But how multi-sited is multi-sited enough? Don’t we have to stand somewhere in order to confront problems and engage with changes? Based on my research experiences on migration in and from China since the early 1990s, this article explores ‘multi-scalar ethnography’ as a method of fieldwork, analysis, and writing. Multi-scalar ethnography delineates how movements are constituted at different scales (smooth flows at one level can be disruptions or encapsulations at another), how migrants’ scale-making projects intersect with states’ scale management, and how we can locate multiple sites analytically. In doing so, multi-scalar ethnography enables an explanation of why some mobility is more consequential than others, and identifies strategic sites where critical engagement can be grounded. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: During the late 1990s China moved from a period of “wealth creation” that benefited the majority of the population to a period of “wealth concentration” that benefited a minority. This essay focuses on the role of international student migration from China to other countries in this process. In particular the authors delineate how different types of capital – the human, social, political and cultural (specifically foreign degrees) – transform into each other. In the process the analysis considers how the conversions among these different types of capital have intensified and have become concentrated in the top stratum of society. The essay links the international education to general patterns of social transformation currently occurring in China. Specifically the discussion brings in a transnational dimension to the examination of social stratification in contemporary China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this article we present ethnographic evidence from China and the UK to show that the state's migration discourse is not simply a dominant force imposed externally by the state on migrants, but is itself shaped by migrant strategies. These strategies lead to migratory, employment and survival practices that in turn produce the social phenomena (bogus asylum seeking, an informal labour market, illegal border crossing) that originally informed and justified the discourse itself. Furthermore, and as a final irony, some of the very discursive categories themselves are not simply externally imposed on migrants. In this article we will show how for instance 'legality', 'skills', or 'qualifications' are not intrinsic qualities that migrants do or do not possess, but bureaucratic statuses manufactured and commercially supplied in the process of migration. We conclude that the state started with a carefully crafted discourse on 'good' and 'bad' migration, but ended up with a migratory reality that produces these categories on demand. What results is a regulatory arms race between migrants and state agents that may restrict the total number of migrants that are let in, but on the basis of criteria that have been firmly appropriated by migrants themselves and that have often very little to do with the original intentions of policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xiang Biao examines the increase in outmigration as a result of the emergence of new 'mobile subjects'. He identifies how institutional reform turned individuals into mobile subjects. He looks at how individuals in northeast China became 'free labour', that is, labour disembedded from previous tight encapsulation of work units. The emergence of mobile subjects, however, does not imply a total withdrawal of the state from the social life. Mobile subjects instead result from carefully designed and implemented policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the linkage between migration and development has attracted much academic and policy attention, a key aspect of the linkage, namely those left behind in the community of origin, remains under-researched. As one of the first academic attempts to provide a systematic overview of this group in China, this paper describes the basic problems faced by it, discusses the institutional causes of the problems, and explores long-term and short-term solutions. The paper first establishes the fact that, while it seems that individuals decide who migrates and who stays back, there are fundamental institutional constraints on such decisions. The paper then shows that the three main left-behind groups, namely wives, the elderly and children, encounter various problems, but in general their situation is not much worse than that of those living with all family members. Their problems cannot just be attributed to being left-behind individuals; instead, the fundamental cause is that many rural communities as a whole have been left behind economically and socially. Although migration exacerbates the hardship, preventing migration is certainly not a solution. The paper instead calls for measures to redress the urban-rural divide and to improve the provision of public goods in rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government and the public considered rural-urban migrant workers as the most problematic group during the SARS outbreak in China in early 2003. They feared that migrant workers were susceptible to the disease, tended to flee major cities where the early outbreaks occurred, and then spread the virus to the countryside where containing the disease would be difficult. This paper suggests that the links between the SARS outbreak and the migrants are far more complex and they must be understood in an institutional context. First, the paper argues that the migrants pose special challenges to the government in managing the outbreak not only because of their mobility, their low incomes or lack of health awareness, but also because they are outside the state's control and support system. Second, this paper suggests that the migrants fled the SARS-hit cities due to what I hypothesize as "chain reaction." The migrants' institutionally marginalized position rendered them vulnerable to the social and economic disruptions resulting from mass mobilization, which may have more social implications than their susceptibility to the virus. These two arguments reveal the problems stemming from the absence of appropriate institutional mechanisms, such as a universal medical care system, with respect to migrants. In view of increasing uncertainties in present times, it is imperative for the government to provide basic social security to migrant workers and to maintain economic stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports that due to reduced migration control in Beijing, China, significant changes have been seen in social, spatial and economic landscapes. Reason peasants have migrated to the city; Discussion on rural-urban migration in China; Comments on the economic status of China.

Background: Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is the most malignant and common form of neuroendocrine lung cancer with pure (P-SCLC) and combined subtypes (C-SCLC). However, little is known about the differences between these two groups and in this study we aimed to provide a more comprehensive insight into SCLC., Methods: Data from 580 postoperative patients with pathologically confirmed SCLC in Shanghai Chest Hospital from January 2010 to December 2020 were collected retrospectively. The clinical characteristics and prognosis were analyzed., Results: A total of 357 P-SCLC patients and 223 C-SCLC patients were included. The results indicated that P-SCLC appeared to have a higher proportion of being located in the middle lobe than C-SCLC. The incidences of P-SCLC in patients with visceral pleural invasion (VPI) and in stage II were higher than C-SCLC, while C-SCLC was more likely to be accompanied by higher incidences of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation, anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) rearrangement, and higher levels of CEA, SCCA and CYFRA21-1 than P-SCLC. The most common were SCLC combined with large cell neuroendocrine components among 223 C-SCLCs. Survival analysis confirmed a more favorable disease-free survival (DFS) (p = 0.016) and overall survival (OS) (p = 0.024) in patients with P-SCLCs compared with C-SCLCs. Histological type, tumor location, pN stage, adjuvant chemotherapy, serum NSE and CA125 levels were independent risk factors for survival rate in SCLC. In addition, adjuvant chemotherapy was beneficial in improving stage I P-SCLC and C-SCLC DFS and OS rates, and similar results were not seen in adjuvant radiation therapy., Conclusions: Patients with C-SCLC have a poorer prognosis than P-SCLC patients. We determined that large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma was the most common additional component of C-SCLC, and patients with this component appeared to have a longer DFS and OS than other combined components., (© 2022 The Authors. Thoracic Cancer published by China Lung Oncology Group and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)

Contamination and adverse effects from various pollutants often appear in abandoned industrial regions. Thus, nine groundwater samples were collected from the vicinity of the fluorochemical industry in Fuxin City, Liaoning Province, to determine concentrations of the ten heavy metals arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe) and mercury(Hg), as well as those of fluorine (F - ) and eighteen poly- and perfluorinated substances (PFASs), analyse correlation relationships, and assess the health risks for different age groups. The results showed that the levels of fluorine (F - ) (0.92-4.42 mg·L -1 ), Mn (0.0005-4.91 mg·L -1 ) and Fe (1.45-5.61 mg·L -1 ) exceeded the standard limits for drinking water. Short chain perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA) (4.14-2501.42 ng·L -1 ), perfluorobutane sulfonate (PFBS) (17.07-51,818.61 ng·L -1 ) and perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA) (0.47-936.32 ng·L -1 ) were the predominant substances from the PFASs group. No individual PFASs levels had significant relationships with F - or heavy metal contents. There was a positive relationship between short chain PFASs concentrations and water depth and a negative relationship between long chain PFASs concentration and water depth. The hazard quotient (HQ) decreased in the order F -  > heavy metals > PFASs and also decreased for older age groups. In addition, As, Fe, Mn and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) were the main sources of risk from the heavy metal and PFASs groups, respectively., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Gas hydrate model and free gas model are established, and two-phase theory (TPT) for numerical simulation of elastic wave velocity is adopted to investigate the unconsolidated deep-water sedimentary strata in Shenhu area, South China Sea. The relationships between compression wave (P wave) velocity and gas hydrate saturation, free gas saturation, and sediment porosity at site SH2 are studied, respectively, and gas hydrate saturation of research area is estimated by gas hydrate model. In depth of 50 to 245 m below seafloor (mbsf), as sediment porosity decreases, P wave velocity increases gradually; as gas hydrate saturation increases, P wave velocity increases gradually; as free gas saturation increases, P wave velocity decreases. This rule is almost consistent with the previous research result. In depth of 195 to 220 mbsf, the actual measurement of P wave velocity increases significantly relative to the P wave velocity of saturated water modeling, and this layer is determined to be rich in gas hydrate. The average value of gas hydrate saturation estimated from the TPT model is 23.2%, and the maximum saturation is 31.5%, which is basically in accordance with simplified three-phase equation (STPE), effective medium theory (EMT), resistivity log (Rt), and chloride anomaly method.