The effects of China’s growth slowdown on its provinces: Disentangling the sources

Since 2007, China's growth has fallen from around 10% to about 6%–7% per annum. This paper investigates the experience of this slowdown at the provincial level. We use a vector‐autoregressive modelling approach and annual data from 1978 to decompose each province's growth into various factors. We find that (a) all provinces experienced the slowdown; (b) there is considerable variation in this experience across provinces; (c) national factors dominate the provincial slowdown while province‐specific factors explain most of the interprovincial variation; (d) when the national factor is separated into supply and demand components, the supply component dominates.     

中国农业土地利用的生态智慧及启示

为展示悠久的中国农业生态智慧,推动生态智慧—生态实践—生态文明的融合共生,通过对历史典籍资料和传统农业实践的文献分析和归纳演绎,总结了中国农业土地利用的生态智慧及其规划思维.研究表明:因天时、就地利、重人和体现了中国农业土地利用的生态智慧.整体生态观念、时间循环思维和要素统筹思想是中国农业土地利用的规划思维外在表现...     

Negotiating ‘home’ and ‘national identity’: Chinese‐Malaysian transmigrants in Singapore

Abstract: Part of the globalisation phenomenon involves an increasing number of elite transmigrants traversing national boundaries in response to the global demand for skilled labour while maintaining multifaceted social ties astride political, geographic and cultural borders, linking home and host countries together. As transmigrants ‘live’ in several communities simultaneously, their identities, behaviour and values are often not limited by location. Thus, notions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ are also being reviewed given the discrepancies between these concepts and locality. In this context, this paper explores questions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ among skilled Chinese‐Malaysians working and residing in Singapore, portraying them as active participants of two (or more) countries. It focuses on their strategies and struggles in negotiating ideologies of ‘home’ and ‘national identities’ across borders in a setting of two neighbouring countries umbilically linked in a volatile political relationship. It further examines their degree of concern in the political affairs of both countries. Between ‘home’ and ‘host’, Chinese‐Malaysians redefine their practices of home(‐making) in relation to their national identity, drawing on the resources and resilience of familial ties, nostalgic memories and other practical lifecourse needs.     

More than a ‘blip’: The changed character of South‐East Asia’s engagement with the global economy in the post‐1997 period

Abstract: Through reviewing South‐East Asia’s recent economic engagement with the global economy, this paper points to profound recent transformations in the scope and character of the region’s development. Foreign direct investment was the key driver of regional growth in the pre‐1997 period, yet currently, the region faces a more difficult and multifaceted economic arena from which to attract such funds. Foreign direct investment is more selective, both geographically and by sector, than was the case in that earlier period. This paper explains the confluence of economics, business practices and politics that are giving rise to these outcomes, and concludes from this that development trajectories in South‐East Asia will become more diverse between the countries of the region, with implications for how we understand regional economic performance.     

Geographical ‘handicaps’ and small states: Some implications for the Pacific from a global perspective

Abstract: Research on the economic performance of small states has concentrated on the implications of small size and thin local markets. An interesting feature of many of the world's smallest states, of which the Pacific region has many, is that they face additional challenges than just small size. Many are remote from global markets for their products. In addition, a large number are also islands, many of which are also mountainous. Many of the smaller states are not just islands, but are also archipelagos. Hence in addition to small size, many of the world's small states also exhibit four other characteristics that may affect their economic performance: insularity, remoteness, being archipelagos and being highly mountainous entities. This paper examines the nature of the challenges posed by these four characteristics and seeks to produce empirical evidence of how difficult it has been to overcome these challenges. The paper draws on empirical evidence for 126 very small global states, dependent territories and highly autonomous regions. The paper then turns to the position of the Pacific small states and dependent territories.     

Refocusing on China: The Case of Hong Kong’s Hutchison Whampoa

We know little about the location decisions of large Chinese conglomerates and how this relates to their restructuring in a dynamic Asia­Pacific environment. This case study of one of Hong Kong’s latest conglomerates, Hutchison Whampoa, begins with the company’s decision to remain in Hong Kong after 1997. Restructuring has been carried out primarily by acquiring new enterprises in its existing specialised areas of retail, manufacturing, telecommunications, media and services and reducing interests in property, energy, finance and investment. This has been accompanied by its expansion into southern China where it has focused on infrastructure development, steps which have built on its Chinese credentials — clan origins and personal connections.     

‘Outside man’ revisited: Harold Brookfield's contributions to population studies in the Pacific in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract: Harold Brookfield's contribution to population studies has not been given much prominence in the literature. In this paper, I revisit a number of his major papers written in the 1960s and 1970s in two contexts: first, with reference to his response to the intellectual debates that were transforming the discipline of geography at this time, and second, with reference to my experiences as a postgraduate student at the Australian National University, in the ‘Brookfield school’ and, later, as a research colleague in Brookfield's interdisciplinary island ecosystems project in Fiji. Although Brookfield increasingly saw himself as an ‘outsider’ in the changing mainstream of human geography, he remained an extremely influential writer for successive generations of geographers who chose to work on population issues in the western Pacific. His research contribution was immense, and remains relevant, which is more than can be said for much that was written by those ‘inside’ the discipline in the heady years of intellectual foment that characterised the social sciences, including geography, in last quarter of the twentieth century.     

Time Pioneers and Travel Behavior: An Investigation into the Viability of ‘Slow Motion’

This paper positions time in the center of spatial economic analysis, with a particular view on travel speed in transport behavior. The issue of ‘slow motion’ is at present very timely and has led to a new concept in transport analysis, viz. ‘time pioneer’. Such a person is prepared to give up part of his scarce time for other, as yet unknown purposes. This attitude might generate ‘slow motion’ behavior. The paper aims to critically review the concept of a time pioneer from a broad perspective on the socio-economic meaning of time in our globalizing society. The viability of time pioneering behavior is next empirically tested by means of an extensive survey among travelers in the Netherlands. A new modeling experiment, viz. rough set analysis, is carried out in order to deal with empirical survey data in a smallsample context. On the basis of the empirical results, it is concluded that, while ‘slow motion’ is seemingly an appealing socio-psychological travel mode, the share of time pioneers among actual travelers is rather low.