“Moral Conviction” plus “Joint Sanctions”: The Judgment-defaulter Blacklist System in China

Although there has been literature generally discussing China’s social credit system, little research carefully examines the nature and logic of the judgment-defaulter blacklist system, from which the broader blacklist system under the social credit system originated. This article reveals that China’s judgment-defaulter blacklist system pragmatically utilizes a strategic combination of “moral conviction” and “joint sanctions” to remedy the failure of the judiciary to perform its duty of judgment enforcement and the ineffectiveness of the legal approaches to enhancing judgment enforcement. The judgment-defaulter blacklist system runs parallel to the existing legal system and will likely impose double punishment on discredited judgment defaulters. Moreover, the joint sanction mechanism, by applying ancient China’s Legalism theory of “A chaotic society calls for heavy penalties,” has violated a number of fundamental legal principles that contemporary Chinese law embraces, thus casting doubt on the legality, reasonableness and due process of the joint sanctions imposed on discredited judgment defaulters. The broader blacklist system under the social credit system is subject to the same criticisms. Given the increasing application of the blacklist system, the role of the Chinese legal system might be diluted significantly. Since the Chinese national legislature is deliberating the draft of the Civil Compulsory Enforcement Law, this article argues that the joint sanction mechanism against discredited judgment defaulters should be abolished, and all credit-related restrictions and sanctions on them and a broader range of discredited parties must be imposed in compliance with the rule of law

How Much Do Expert Opinions Matter? An Empirical Investigation of Selection Bias, Adversarial Bias, and Judicial Deference in Chinese Medical

This article investigates the nature of the operation and the role of expert opinions in Chinese medical negligence litigation, drawing on content analysis of 3,619 medical negligence cases and an in-depth survey of judges with experience of adjudicating medical negligence cases. It offers three major findings: first, that both parties to medical negligence disputes show significant selection bias of medical opinions, as do courts when selecting court-appointed experts; second, expert opinions in medical negligence litigation demonstrate substantial adversarial bias; third, courts display very strong judicial deference to expert opinions in determining medical negligence liability. This article fills the methodological gap left by the existing literature because there has been no empirical discussion on expert opinions in Chinese civil litigation. Moreover, it has important implications for the ongoing reform of the medical negligence authentication mechanism proposed by the Chinese government. The article also sheds insights on the social, legal and institutional factors that contribute to selection bias, adversarial bias and judicial deference to expert opinions in the Chinese medical negligence litigation setting

A Paper Tiger? Prosecutorial Regulators in China’s Civil Environmental Public Interest Litigations

In July 2015, China’s national legislature brought in prosecutor-led civil environmental public interest litigation (“EPIL”) for thirteen selected provincial areas of the country. After a two-year legal experiment, this prosecutor-led civil EPIL system was then established nationwide in July 2017. Yet, can it be said that prosecutorial regulators in China are in fact a paper tiger? Drawing upon content analysis of the 655 prosecutor-led civil EPILs and in-depth interviews with twelve frontline prosecutors and judges, this article examines the dynamics of regulatory practice and the motivation of the Chinese prosecutorial organs to engage in environmental regulation through litigation. Based upon the above two legislative landmarks in the law reform of this area, the regulatory practice of prosecutorial organs can be viewed as having occurred in three stages, with each stage featuring a distinct regulatory model: ad hoc regulation through local innovation before July 2015, forced regulation during the legal experiment from July 2015 to July 2017, and perfunctory regulation after the nationwide establishment of the prosecutor-led civil EPIL system in July 2017. The data shows that the Chinese prosecutorial organs have engaged in a larger number of such lawsuits since the second stage, but they have shown a strong preference for cases with less complicated facts, weak and small defendants, and minor environmental violations. Three factors that influence regulatory motivation are employed to analyse the change in regulatory models: the ambiguity of the law, the top-down political pressure for regulation, and the cost of regulation. This study highlights the very limited effectiveness of vertical political pressure in boosting prosecutorial regulation and the strong impacts of the cost of regulation and the ambiguity of the law. In particular, the high cost of regulation that takes weak regulatory capacity, lack of regulatory autonomy, and the winning rate-oriented performance appraisal system into account have significantly weakened the motivation of prosecutorial organs to pursue civil EPIL. The findings of this study echo the conditions present in the successful prosecutorial regulations in Brazil and contribute to the scholarship about prosecutorial regulations in the field of environmental protection in the Global South

Exegesis and screenplay for a film entitled: Olivia's Choice

This screenplay is a fictional story of a Chinese student’s arrival and first encounter with foreign cultures. ‘Olivia’s Choice’ is a story about a student in her early 20’s, who arrives in New Zealand determined to study and launch, what she hopes will be, a successful international career in the fashion industry. Nevertheless, despite her best laid plans, Olivia discovers that New Zealand ‘society’ is very different to what she had been led to believe or that she ever imagined it could be – especially after she meets a Māori student named Haka. Generically, ‘Olivia’s Choice’ is a contemporary social drama – one that may be read, more specifically, as an Asian student’s rite of passage - where Olivia finds herself torn between the expectations of her widowed and highly traditional father, and the various ‘Western’ temptations afforded by the distance from him. In opting to write a screenplay and explore the dreams of a typical Chinese student within the dramatic form, I felt the issues surrounding the latest migratory wave – of international students - might appeal to and engage with both, the wider, Asian and Western audiences. Thus, my purpose was evoking various insights into the dreams and vulnerabilities of the young who seek to venture far from their mother country and to immerse themselves within and adopt a foreign culture. I considered such an approach would be a more accessible and effective medium - as opposed to a more traditional thesis - with which to explore and enunciate a variety of, sensitive interpersonal and otherwise potentially ethically problematic issues . My rational has been, given a credible scenario and characters the story, at one level, might realistically and meaningfully resonate, and so affectively engage cross-cultural audiences across a wide demographic. Then, at yet other levels it may also serve to inform and perhaps even entertain while also giving many prospective students a pause for thought

The Effects of Qigong on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Qigong on type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) using the systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods. All prospective, randomized, controlled clinical trials published in English or Chinese and involving the use of Qigong by patients with DM were searched in 7 electronic databases from their respective inception to June 2016. The meta-analysis was conducted using the Revman 5.2. The quality of the included trials was assessed using the Jadad rating scale. Two researchers independently completed the inclusion, data extraction, and quality assessment. Results. Twenty-one trials with 1326 patients met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed. The meta-analysis demonstrated that, compared with no exercise, the Qigong had significant effects on fasting blood glucose (MD = −0.99, 95% CI (−1.23, 0.75), P<0.0001), HbA1c (MD = −0.84, 95% CI (−1.02, −0.65), P<0.0001), and postprandial blood glucose (MD = −1.55, 95% CI (−2.19, −0.91), P<0.00001). Conclusion. The Qigong training can improve the blood glucose status of the type 2 DM patients and has positive effects on the management of type 2 DM. However, future research with better quality still needs to be conducted to address the effects of Qigong on type 2 DM

Consensus disturbance rejection for Lipschitz nonlinear multi-agent systems with input delay: a DOBC approach

In this paper, a new predictor-based consensus disturbance rejection method is proposed for high-order multi agent systems with Lipschitz nonlinearity and input delay. First, a distributed disturbance observer for consensus control is developed for each agent to estimate the disturbance under the delay constraint. Based on the conventional predictor feedback approach, a non-ideal predictor based control scheme is constructed for each agent by utilizing the estimate of the disturbance and the prediction of the relative state information. Then, rigorous analysis is carried out to ensure that the extra terms associated with disturbances and nonlinear functions are properly considered. Sufficient conditions for the consensus of the multi-agent systems with disturbance rejection are derived based on the analysis in the framework of Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals. A simulation example is included to demonstrate the performance of the proposed control scheme. (C) 2016 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.National Natural Science Foundation of China [61673034]SCI(E)ARTICLE1,SI298-31535

Case Report: Identification of a novel PRR12 variant in a Chinese boy with developmental delay and short stature

Proline Rich 12 (PRR12) protein is primarily expressed in the brain and localized in the nucleus. The variants in the PRR12 gene were reported to be related to neuroocular syndrome. Patients with PRR12 gene presented with intellectual disability (ID), neuropsychiatric disorders, some congenital anomalies, and with or without eye abnormalities. Here, we report an 11-year-old boy with a novel PRR12 variant c.1549_1568del, p.(Pro517Alafs*35). He was the first PRR12 deficiency patient in China and presented with ID, short stature, and mild scoliosis. He could not concentrate on his studies and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGH-1) was low in our patient, which may be the cause of his short stature. Patients with neuroocular syndrome are rare, and further exploration is needed to understand the reason for neurodevelopmental abnormalities caused by PRR12 variants. Our study further expands on the PRR12 variants and presents a new case involving PPR12 variants