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PurposeWith the development of social productive forces and the advancement of agricultural practices since the founding of New China, the connotation of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics has undergone a process from formation to continuous expansion and deepening.Design/methodology/approachIts evolution can be roughly divided into four stages: the exploration stage, the formation stage, the establishment stage and the deepening stage. The historical evolution of the connotation of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics demonstrates four typical characteristics, namely increasingly scientific logical premise, continuously diversified orientations, increasingly improved core contents and progressively maturing strategies of development.FindingsThe achievements of agricultural modernization have laid a solid foundation for China's industrial modernization and the rapid development of the national economy. Meanwhile, the authors have identified through practical exploration a path of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics. In recent years, academic research on the connotation of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics has gradually heated up, and relevant achievements have emerged constantly.Originality/valueThe Communist Party of China (hereinafter “CPC”) has placed considerable emphasis on agricultural issues and has been committed to promoting agricultural modernization since the founding of New China. Through long-term persistence and unremitting efforts, China has made remarkable achievements in agricultural development: significantly improved agricultural production conditions and agricultural output capacity, constantly optimized agricultural structure and steadily increased the income of farmers.

BackgroundEssential medicines are the backbone of healthcare and meet the priority healthcare needs of the population. However, approximately one-third of the global population does not have access to essential medicines. Although China formulated essential medicine policies in 2009, the progress of availability of essential medicines and regional variations remains unknown. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the availability of essential medicines, their progress, and regional distribution in China in the last decade.MethodsWe searched eight databases from their inception to February 2022, relevant websites, and reference lists of included studies. Two reviewers selected studies, extracted data, and evaluated the risk of bias independently. Meta-analyses were performed to quantify the availability of essential medicines, their progress, and regional distribution.ResultsOverall 36 cross-sectional studies conducted from 2009 to 2019 were included, with regional data for 14 provinces. The availability of essential medicines in 2015–2019 [28.1%, 95% confidence interval (CI): 26.4–29.9%] was similar to that in 2009–2014 (29.4%, 95% CI: 27.5–31.3%); lower in the Western region (19.8%, 95% CI: 18.1–21.5%) than Eastern (33.8%, 95% CI: 31.6–36.1%) and Central region (34.5%, 95% CI: 30.6–38.5%); very low for 8 Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) categories (57.1%), and low for 5 categories (35.7%) among all ATC groups.ConclusionThe availability of essential medicines in China is low compared with the World Health Organization goal, has not changed much in the last decade, is unequal across regions, and lacks data for half of provinces. For policy-making, the monitoring system of the availability of essential medicines is to be strengthened to enable long-term surveillance, especially in provinces where the data has been missing. Meanwhile, Joint efforts from all stakeholders are warranted to improve the availability of essential medicines in China toward the universal health coverage target.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=315267, identifier: PROSPERO CRD42022315267.

Access to essential medicines for children is a big challenge, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries. In China, the average availability of essential medicines for children is 1.6%–46.5%. The availability of generics was generally higher than original brands in public hospitals and the prices of generics were relatively lower and more reasonable (generics: availability, 27.3%–46.5%, prices, 0.52–4.28 times the international reference prices; original brands: 1.6%–33.0%, 2.59–11.38 times the international reference prices). In terms of affordability of medicines for children, generics were more affordable than original brands and tablets/capsules were more affordable than injections. Most commonly used anti-infective medicines (such as amoxicillin capsule, azithromycin tablet, cefuroxime tablet) and antipyretics (such as ibuprofen suspension) were relatively affordable. Six commonly used medicines in paediatrics, including amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, beclomethasone, cefazolin, ceftazidime, ceftriaxone, cyclosporine were unaffordable. Since August 2011, China has successively issued several policies to ensure the accessibility of medicines for children, covering research and development, production, procurement and prices of medicines. The accessibility of medicines for children has been partially improved, but still needs continuous improvement.

This study investigates the impact of policy uncertainties on the financial markets in the Asia-Pacific region using a complex network analysis. A new daily economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index was build using Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone data. The results show that China is the Asia-Pacific EPU network's center and the US stock market is the most important intermediary in the financial network. We also construct an uncertainty spillover network by combining the EPU and financial networks. The findings reveal that the US EPU and SPX indexes are the most important sources of uncertainties in the spillover network. The network dynamics show that during the US-China trade war, the correlations between the EPU and financial networks decreased significantly, while the COVID-19 outbreak has increased the combined network's density.

The withdrawal from rural homesteads (WRH) refers to a mechanism to encourage villagers to withdraw from their vacant homesteads or give up their occupied homesteads (including the houses built on them) voluntarily and move into high-rise buildings with compensation. WRH aims to address inefficient utilization of rural land in China. However, the endowment effect, a behavioral tendency for villagers to value rural homesteads more highly when they own them relative to when they do not, may affect the process of implementing WRH policy. Based on survey data from 878 villagers in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, this paper estimates endowment effects for different types of villagers whose rights to their rural homesteads could be withdrawn. It then makes an empirical analysis on the differences and influencing factors of villagers’ endowment effects related to WRH via a binary logistic model querying emotional attachment, property right status, and substitutability of rural homesteads. The results show 70.62 % of sampled villagers exhibit an intensive endowment effect after WRH. Meanwhile, as non-agricultural economic activities increase, villagers’ endowment effects intensify. In terms of influencing factors, emotional attachment and cognition of inheritance rights strengthen the degree of pain experienced by villagers when they withdraw from their rural homesteads, thereby enhancing endowment effects. Property certificates and cognition of disposal rights negatively affect villagers’ endowment effects. From the perspective of villagers’ differentiation, cognition of mortgage rights intensifies the feelings of security within rural homesteads for full-time agricultural households, thereby intensifying endowment effects. Substitutability of villagers' livelihood positively affects endowment effects in full-time agricultural households and negatively affects endowment effects in non-agricultural households. This paper concludes by discussing the land use policy implications of these findings.

In order to solve the problem of idle rural homesteads, the Chinese government introduced a pilot policy of withdrawal from rural homesteads (WRH). Against the background of farmer differentiation and generational differences, based on field survey data from 1909 farmers in Chengdu, this study analyzed the impacts of farmer differentiation and generational differences on farmers' behaviors to withdraw from rural homesteads with the combined application of the binary probit model and the ivprobit model. The results indicated that 18.07% of farmers in the survey area had withdrawn from rural homesteads. Higher degrees of farmer differentiation inhibited farmers' behaviors to withdraw from rural homesteads. Compared with the first generation farmers, the new generation farmers were more inclined to hold onto rural homesteads, indicating that the most qualified farmers were more likely to choose not to withdraw from rural homesteads. Moreover, generational differences moderated the association between farmer differentiation and farmers' behaviors to withdraw. From a perspective of policy-making, land administrators and policy-makers should realize that farmer differentiation and generational differences are important factors affecting farmers' behaviors to withdraw, and therefore need to be fully considered in WRH policy-making. From a theoretical perspective, it was found that estimating the impacts of farmer differentiation and generational differences on farmers’ behaviors to withdraw from rural homesteads without considering measurement errors and endogenous problems would likely lead to an underestimation of the true impacts.