Chinatown 2.0: the difficult flowering of an ethnically themed shopping area

Right in Amsterdam’s picturesque Canal Zone, on and around Zeedijk, Chinese entrepreneurs have carved out a presence in what seems like the local Chinatown. The businessmen have been targeting Asian and non-Asian customers by offering products that – to an extent – can be associated with Asia, China in particular. Since the early 1990s, individual entrepreneurs and their business organisations have campaigned for official acknowledgement of Zeedijk as an ethnic-only district and for governmental support of the enhancement of Chineseness. Following Hackworth and Rekers. [(2005). “Ethnic Packaging and Gentrification. The Case of Four Neighborhoods in Toronto.” Urban Affairs Review 41 (2): 211–236], we argue that this case challenges traditional understandings of ethnic commercial landscapes. In sharp contrast to the current orthodoxy, which would conceive the proliferation of such an ‘ethnic enclave’ as part of a larger process of assimilation, we have approached Amsterdam’s Chinatown first and foremost as a themed economic space: Chinese and other entrepreneurs compete for a share of the market and in doing also for the right to claim the identity of the area. What is the historical development of the Zeedijk area, how did Chinese entrepreneurs and their associations try to boost Chinatown and negotiate public Chineseness, and how did governmental and non-governmental institutional actors respond to those attempts?     

‘In England,they don’t call you black!’ Migrating racialisations and the production of Roma difference across Europe

This article draws on long-term fieldwork among Slovak Roma migrants, identifying processes through which a haunting figure of the Roma migrant emerges across Europe, to argue for more differentiated accounts of continuing and emerging forms of racialisation. It explores how the movement of Roma (whose bodies are marked by their racialised ‘darkness’ in Slovakia) to Britain granted them a temporary escape from this modality of branding while simultaneously exposing them to different categorisations within a re-configuring classificatory matrix. The article develops the concept of ‘migrating racialisation’ in order to empirically trace how historically developed forms of racialisation in Slovakia migrate across Europe through the movement of Roma and non-Roma migrants from Eastern Europe, as well as through particular forms of knowledge circulating within transnational fields constituted not only by Roma migrants themselves but also by various institutions for ‘managing’ or ‘researching’ ‘the Roma’. This concept allows us to analyse how the recent forms of racialisation simultaneously draw on heterogenous histories and nation-state formations, social conditions and sedimented bodily dispositions, which are re-adjusted to new social conditions, discourses and emerging forms of knowledge produced about Roma migrants over the last decade in British and European contexts.     

“一带一路”背景下中国区域物流网络模型研究

选取“一带一路”重点涉及的五大区域18个地区为研究对象,利用改进引力模型测量区域物流引力大小及地区引力总量,构建区域物流网络模型。在明确现有模型的特点和“一带一路”对物流网络目标要求的基础上,考虑区域物流发展水平和区域间差异情况,给出优化方案及优化后的物流网络模型,指出中国区域物流网络存在的问题并给出合理化建议,旨为政府决策提供参考。     

Global adjustment to US disengagement from the world trading system

US trade policy in the Trump administration is protectionist, raising tariffs outside of WTO rules, threatening trade wars, withdrawing from existing trade agreements, and negotiating new bilateral trade deals rather than free trade agreements. The reaction of the rest of the world has been to support the WTO rules-based trading system and to pursue new and expanded regional trade agreements that do not include the US. The result may be US disengagement from the world trading system, with countries diverting trade around the US. We use a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to analyze changes in trade and production patterns for a variety of scenarios, including US trade wars. We find that adjustment to US disengagement is feasible—the changes in trade shares as countries divert trade are modest and achievable, with very little impact on the volume of global trade. If the US engages in trade wars with major partners, the best response for other trade partners is to sit out the trade war, accept higher US tariffs, and gain markets from global trade diversion around the US. Finally, because of indirect effects, widespread tariffs fail to benefit the protected sectors—a fallacy of composition in a protectionist trade policy.     

Institutional antecedents of subsidiary external embeddedness: Coping with regulatory competitive constraints

We investigate institutional antecedents to subsidiary external embeddedness and relate regulation constraining competition in local service sectors to subsidiary embeddedness with local partners in complementary sectors. Combining research on business networks with arguments derived from transaction cost economics, we argue that subsidiary external embeddedness depends on the extent of transaction costs originating from small numbers bargaining, which regulatory competitive constraints in local service sectors are a source of. Based on this logic, we suggest that low and high levels of regulatory competitive constraints are associated with greater subsidiary external embeddedness. We also suggest that this U-shaped relationship is more pronounced for subsidiaries that are centers of excellence within the multinational enterprise because these subsidiaries heavily depend on the local context as a source of their competitive advantage over their sister subsidiaries.     

建构区域文化认同的“影视叙事综合体”——以“京津冀协同发展”为视角

“京津冀区域协同发展”的历史机遇已然到来，而长期以来各成气象的文化形象影响了三地之间的融通和发展。打通文化根脉，营造共通的文化空间，建构区域文化认同，消解隔膜与屏障，是推动区域协同发展的当务之急。在大众传播时代，影视艺术是蕴藉文化，构建形象，传播共识的主要媒介类型。“影视叙事综合体”以影视艺术为传播载体，通过叙事行为、叙事故事、叙事话语、叙事反应等影视叙事功能建构区域文化认同的影像文化空间，提升区域文化形象，促进区域文化的融通和协同发展。     

罗兴亚问题对缅-孟关系和地区秩序的影响

罗兴亚问题是一个多世纪前英殖民者在亚洲埋下的诸多“民族问题”之一，也是孟加拉国与缅甸之间难解的“痼疾”。2017年8月以来，罗兴亚问题的再次爆发给相关国家造成巨大冲击。缅甸在打击罗兴亚暴力活动的同时，反对国际干涉，试图牢牢把握该问题解决进程中的主导权，而孟加拉国在政治、安全、经济和社会等不同层面基于自己的利益考量，寻求将罗兴亚人遣返缅甸，立场的对立使两国关系陷入僵局。而美国和印度介入罗兴亚问题则使地区秩序进一步复杂化，并在舆论和安全等领域影响中国的利益。2020年1月17日至18日，中国国家主席习近平应邀对缅甸进行国事访问，标志着中缅经济走廊从概念规划转入实质建设阶段，也给“罗兴亚问题”的解决带来新契机。     

政府向社会力量购买服务改革的制度障碍及对策

政府向社会力量购买服务不仅是推动政府职能转变的重要着力点,而且是扶持社会力量发展的重要措施。各地在推动这项改革过程中取得了很大成效,但也存在着制度设计不严密、制度衔接不顺畅等问题和障碍。将这项改革深入推进下去,需要坚持有层次地放开政府资源,加强对整个购买过程的动态管理以及建立政府购买公共服务改革同其他改革之间的联动机制等多项措施的推动。     

河北省区域经济发展差异分析及对策研究

文章从河北省区域经济发展的现状着手,选取了极差、极比、标准差、变异系数、泰尔系数和基尼系数等6个衡量经济差异的指标,分析了河北省各个设市区经济差异的变化情况,得出了河北省经济差异存在着不断扩大趋势的结论,从完善宏观调控、加强和京津合作、调整产业结构、大力引进人才等方面,给出了促进河北省区域经济协调发展的对策和建议。     

金融发展与区域创新的交互影响

基于2008—2017年长三角地区41个地级市的数据，通过构建联立方程模型，考察金融发展与区域创新之间的交互影响，探讨两者的空间溢出效应与地区交互影响。研究发现：金融发展对区域创新的正向促进作用不受时间跨度影响，但区域创新对金融发展的影响存在时间跨度异质性，短期内区域创新对金融发展影响不确定，而长期内区域创新反向促进金融发展，忽略这种反向影响会显著高估金融发展对区域创新的促进作用；区域创新与金融发展均存在正向空间外溢性，临近地区金融发展促进本地区的区域创新，但临近地区区域创新对本地区的金融发展作用并不显著。金融发展与区域创新应当融合联动，互利共生，实现双赢。