An authority on Asia and globalization identifies the
challenges China's growing power poses and how it must be
confronted When China joined the World Trade Organization
in 2001, most experts ...expected the WTO rules and procedures would
liberalize China and make it "a responsible stakeholder in the
liberal world order." But the experts made the wrong bet. China
today is liberalizing neither economically nor politically but, if
anything, becoming more authoritarian and mercantilist. In this
book, notably free of partisan posturing and inflammatory rhetoric,
renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes
the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and
the Free World must adopt to meet them. He argues that these must
be more sophisticated and more comprehensive than a narrowly
targeted trade war. Rather, he urges strategies that the U.S. and
its allies can use unilaterally without contravening international
or domestic law.
The outbreak of organised, violent peasant protests across the Chinese countryside from the late 1990s to early 2000s has attracted much scholarly interest. In this study, An Chen endeavours to ...understand from these protests the question of the Chinese government's control in the countryside and the impact of this violent resistance on China's rural governance in the context of market liberalisation. Utilising extensive field research and data collected from surveys across rural China, the book provides an in-depth exploration of how rural governance in China has been transformed following two major tax reforms: the tax-for-fee reform of 2002–4, and the abolition of agricultural taxes (AAT) in 2005–6. In a multidimensional analysis which combines approaches from political science, economics, finance and sociology, Chen argues that private economic power has merged with political power in a way that has reshaped village governance in China, threatening to fundamentally change its political structure.
Tuberculosis (TB) remains a significant challenge for public health and is closely associated with malnutrition; however, few studies have attempted to screen malnutrition among TB patients. The ...study aimed to evaluate the nutrition status and build a new nutritional screening model for active TB.
A retrospective, multicenter, large cross-sectional study was conducted in China from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2021. All included patients diagnosed with active pulmonary TB (PTB) were evaluated both by Nutrition Risk Screening 2002 (NRS 2002) and Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to screen the risk factors associated with malnutrition, and a new screening risk model, mainly for TB patients, was constructed.
A total of 14,941 cases meeting the inclusion criteria were entered into the final analysis. The malnutrition risk rate among PTB patients in China was 55.86% and 42.70%, according to the NRS 2002 and GLIM, respectively. The inconsistency rate between the two methods was 24.77%. A total of 11 clinical factors, including elderly, low body mass index (BMI), decreased lymphocyte cells, taking immunosuppressive agents, co-pleural TB, diabetes mellitus (DM), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), severe pneumonia, decreased food intake within a week, weight loss and dialysis were identified as independent risk factors of malnutrition based on multivariate analyses. A new nutritional risk screening model was constructed for TB patients with a diagnostic sensitivity of 97.6% and specificity of 93.1%.
Active TB patients have severe malnutrition status according to screening by the NRS 2002 and GLIM criteria. The new screening model is recommended for PTB patients as it is more closely tailored to the characteristics of TB.
In Innovate to
Dominate , Tai Ming Cheung offers insight
into why, how, and whether China will overtake the United States to
become the world's preeminent technological and security
power . This ...examination of the means and ends of China's
quest for techno-security supremacy is required reading for anyone
looking for clues as to the long-term direction of the global
order. The techno-security domain, Cheung argues, is where national
security, innovation, and economic development converge, and it has
become the center of power and prosperity in the twenty-first
century. China's paramount leader Xi Jinping recognizes that
effectively harnessing the complex interactions among security,
innovation, and development is essential in enabling China to
compete for global dominance. Cheung offers a richly detailed
account of how China is building a potent techno-security state. In
Innovate to Dominate he takes readers from the strategic
vision guiding this transformation to the nuts-and-bolts of policy
implementation. The state-led top-down mobilizational model that
China is pursuing has been a winning formula so far, but the
sternest test is ahead as China begins to compete head-to-head with
the United States and aims to surpass its archrival by mid-century
if not sooner. Innovate to Dominate is a timely and
analytically rigorous examination of the key strategies guiding
China's transformation of its capabilities in the national,
technological, military, and security spheres and how this is
taking place. Cheung authoritatively addresses the burning
questions being asked in capitals around the world: Can China
become the dominant global techno-security power? And if so,
when?
Here we present the results of visible range light curve observations of ten Centaurs using the Kepler Space Telescope in the framework of the K2 mission. Well defined periodic light curves are ...obtained in six cases allowing us to derive rotational periods, a notable increase in the number of Centaurs with known rotational properties.
The low amplitude light curves of (471931) 2013 PH44 and (250112) 2002 KY14 can be explained either by albedo variegations, binarity or elongated shape. (353222) 2009 YD7 and (514312) 2016 AE193 could be rotating elongated objects, while 2017 CX33 and 2012 VU85 are the most promising binary candidates due to their slow rotations and higher light curve amplitudes. (463368) 2012 VU85 has the longest rotation period, P = 56.2 h observed among Centaurs. The P > 20 h rotation periods obtained for the two potential binaries underlines the importance of long, uninterrupted time series photometry of solar system targets that can suitably be performed only from spacecraft, like the Kepler in the K2 mission, and the currently running TESS mission.
•Light curves of ten Centaurs observed with the Kepler Space Telescope in the K2 mission are presented•Rotation periods are derived for six targets: 2002 KY14, 2009 YD7, 2013 PH44, 2012 VU85, 2016 AE193 and 2017 CX33•The rotation period of P = 56.2 h of 2012 VU85 is the longest ever observed among Centaurs•The long period (P>20h) targets are also candidate binary systems, as revealed by our analysis•The results emphasise the importance of long, uninterrupted photometry by space telescopes, like Kepler/K2 and TESS
Abstract
According to the ‘cleansing hypothesis’, recessions are periods in which productivity-enhancing reallocation intensifies, shifting resources away from less efficient to more efficient firms ...at a faster pace. Does the Great Recession of 2008–2010 fit this view? We address this question, studying the case of the French manufacturing sector. Based on a panel of firms, built by matching several data sources, we analyze the dynamics of the relation between productivity and reallocation over the period 2002–2013. Our results show that, during the Great Recession, more productive firms decreased their advantage with respect to less productive firms, in terms of both employment growth and probability to survive, in disagreement with the cleansing hypothesis. This attenuation of productivity-enhancing reallocation was significantly driven by the trade collapse and credit crunch that were associated with the crisis, while it does not emerge to depend on labor-market regulations and anti-crisis policies.
Background
The Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) has developed new criteria for diagnosing patients with malnutrition. The aims of this study were to investigate the prevalence of ...malnutrition according to the GLIM criteria, Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), and Nutrition Risk Screening 2002 (NRS‐2002) and their association with long‐term mortality in patients hospitalized for acute illnesses.
Methods
A retrospective analysis was performed in a sample of 231 patients with different comorbidities hospitalized for acute illnesses in medical or surgical wards. Nutrition status was retrospectively assessed with GLIM criteria using patients’ records at admission in addition to SGA and NRS‐2002. The agreement between the tools was calculated using κ statistics, and the association of malnutrition according to each tool and mortality were analyzed using Cox regression analysis.
Results
The mean age of the patients was 62.2 ± 18.2 years, and 56.7% were women. The prevalence of malnutrition was 35.9% with GLIM criteria, 37.2% with SGA, and 38% with NRS‐2002. The agreement between tools was good (GLIM‐SGA, κ = 0.804; GLIM–NRS‐2002, κ = 0.784). During a median follow‐up period of 63.2 months, 79 deaths occurred. The sensitivity in predicting 5‐year mortality was 59.49%, 58.23%, and 58.23%, and specificity was 76.32%, 73.68%, and 72.37% for GLIM criteria, SGA, and NRS‐2002, respectively. After adjusting for confounders, GLIM criteria best predicted 5‐year mortality (hazard ratio, 3.09; 95% CI, 1.96–4.86; P < .001).
Conclusions
Our findings support the effectiveness of GLIM in diagnosing malnutrition and predicting all‐cause mortality among patients hospitalized for acute illnesses.
Has China become just another capitalist country in a socialist cloak? Will the Chinese Communist Party's rule survive the next ten years of modernization and globalization? Frank Pieke investigates ...these conundrums in this fascinating account of how government officials are trained for placement in the Chinese Communist Party. Through in-depth interviews with staff members and aspiring trainees, he shows that while the Chinese Communist Party has undergone a radical transformation since the revolutionary years under Mao, it is still incumbent upon cadres, who are selected through a highly rigorous process, to be ideologically and politically committed to the party. It is the lessons learnt through their teachers that shape the political and economic decisions they will make in power. The book offers unique insights into the structure and the ideological culture of the Chinese government, and how it has reinvented itself over the last three decades as a neo-socialist state.
This book is the first attempt to conceptualize China's central-local relations from the behavioral perspective. Although China does not have a federalist system of government, the author believes ...that, with deepening reform and openness, China's central-local relations is increasingly functioning on federalist principles.
China Experiments Florini, Ann M; Lai, Hairong; Tan, Yeling
01/2012
eBook
All societies face a key question: how to empower governments to perform essential governmental functions while constraining the arbitrary exercise of power. This balance, always in flux, is ...particularly fluid in today's China. This insightful book examines the changing relationship between that state and its society, as demonstrated by numerous experiments in governance at subnational levels, and explores the implications for China's future political trajectory.
Ann Florini, Hairong Lai, and Yeling Tan set their analysis at the level of townships and counties, investigating the striking diversity of China's exploration into different governance tools and comparing these experiments with developments and debates elsewhere in the world. China Experiments draws on multiple cases of innovation to show how local authorities are breaking down traditional models of governance in responding to the challenges posed by the rapid transformations taking place across China's economy and society. The book thus differs from others on China that focus on dynamics taking place at the elite level in Beijing, and is unique in its broad but detailed, empirically grounded analysis.
The introduction examines China's changing governance architecture and raises key overarching questions. It addresses the motivations behind the wide variety of experiments underway by which authorities are trying to adapt local governance structures to meet new demands. Chapters 2-5 then explore each type of innovation in detail, from administrative streamlining and elections to partnerships in civil society and transparency measures. Each chapter explains the importance of the experiment in terms of implications for governance and draws upon specific case studies. The final chapter considers what these growing numbers of experiments add up to, whether China is headed towards a stronger more resilient authoritarianism or evolving towards its own version of democracy, and suggests a series of criteria by which China's political trajectory can be assessed.
Contents
1. China at a Crossroads
2. Streamlining the State
3. The Evolution of Voting Mechanisms
4. Civil Society
5. From Local Experiments to National Rules: China Lets the Sunshine In
6. Where is China Going?
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