Old Age Protection in the Context of Rural Development

This study examines the potential of rural communities for generating and allocating resources for rural old age support in the context of decreasing family resources and inadequate state provision. In?depth interviews with elderly people, their families, community leaders and government officials of three villages, respectively located in three provinces provide us with clear evidence on existing local institutional arrangements for rural old age support and the role of both government and community in organising such programmes. They confirm the potential of rural communities to generate and distribute resources for old age support, offering community opportunities for social inclusion through fair flows of resources to promote social harmony and stability, and accelerating economic growth. The findings of the study imply that there is a need for policymakers to link the state effort for old age protection to rural community development, and encourage grassroots efforts in old age support

Complementarity between in-house R&D and technology purchasing: evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms

In order to catch up with the current technological frontier, firms, especially in developing countries, try to acquire technological advancement through internal R&D efforts, as well as through external technology-sourcing activities. This study tests whether these two sources of technology acquisition are complements or substitutes for each other in small- and medium-sized Chinese manufacturing firms. The evidence that we present shows some signs of complementarity between the two sources of knowledge in reaching a higher unconditional intensity of product innovation for firms with 100–300 employees and, in general, a significant degree of substitutability between them in achieving higher levels of labour productivity

China, the G20 and the International Investment Regime

China has become a major home country for outward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. As a result, the country is increasingly concerned with protecting its outward FDI and facilitating the operations of its firms investing abroad and creating a strong universal international investment law and policy regime. This article reviews briefly the emergence of China as an outward investor. It continues with an analysis of some policy issues related to the rise of FDI from emerging markets. A brief discussion of issues central to the future of the international investment law and policy regime follows, before focusing on several outcomes that could be pursued under China’s G20 leadership: non-binding shared principles that could outline the architecture of a universal framework on international investment; an international support program for sustainable investment facilitation; and the creation of an additional intergovernmental platform that would allow for a continued systematic intergovernmental process to discuss the range of issues related to the governance of international investment, preferably paralleled by an informal, inclusive and result-oriented consensus-building process that takes place outside intergovernmental settings

Study on Chinese Tourism Web Sites' Distribution and Online Marketing Effects.

As a platform and carrier of tourism information, tourism websites (TWs) and online tourism marketing have deeply affected the tourism industry. The authors adopt a geographical perspective to analyze the distribution of Chinese tourism websites (CTWs), and statistical analysis with SPSS16.0 was conducted to explore the online marketing effects of CTWs, and some meaningful results has been produced: 1) The number of CTWs generally decreases from eastern China to central and western China, and are especially dominant in tourism developed provinces. 2) The number of tourists has strong statistical correlation with the number of CTWs. 3) The strongest correlation for inbound tourists is with hotel websites, and the highest correlation coefficient is 0.807 between the number of domestic tourist and resort websites. Both inbound and domestic tourists have a low correlation coefficient with travel agency websites (TA). 4) There exist some statistical models between tourist numbers and different kinds of CTWs. The results clearly unveil the marketing effects and correlation of CTWs and is helpful for further online marketing strategies

Burden-shifting of water quantity and quality stress from mega-city Shanghai

Much attention has been paid to burden-shifting of CO2 emissions from developed regions to developing regions through trade. However, less discussed is that trade also acts as a mechanism enabling wealthy consumers to shift water quantity and quality stress to their trading partners. In this study we investigate how Shanghai, the largest mega-city in China, draws water resources from all over China and outsources its pollution through virtual quantity and quality water flows associated with trade. The results show that Shanghai’s consumption of goods and services in 2007 led to 11.6 billion m3 of freshwater consumption, 796 thousand tons of COD, and 16.2 thousand tons of NH3-N in discharged wastewater. Of this, 79% of freshwater consumption, 82.9% of COD and 82.5% of NH3-N occurred in other Chinese Provinces which provide goods and services to Shanghai. Thirteen Provinces with severe and extreme water quantity stress accounted for 60% of net virtual water import to Shanghai, while 19 Provinces experiencing water quality stress endured 79% of net COD outsourcing and 75.5% of net NH3-N outsourcing from Shanghai. In accordance with the three ‘redlines’ recently put forward by the Chinese central government to control water pollution and cap total water use in all provinces, we suggest that Shanghai should share its responsibility for reducing water quantity and quality stress in its trading partners through taking measures at provincial, industrial and consumer levels. In the meantime, Shanghai needs to enhance demand side management by promoting low water intensity consumption