Globalization and the advertising industry in China

The rapid recent growth in the size of the advertising market in China has been unprecedented, fulfilling the prediction that it will be second only to that of the United States by the Olympic year of 2008. Major Japanese and Western‐based global advertising agencies have been making their presence felt via joint‐venture arrangements with Chinese agencies since 1979, and now increasingly are serving not only their global clients, but working with large Chinese advertisers as well. This article traces recent developments in the advertising industry in China, with particular attention to the marketing strategies being pursued by global advertisers, and to the social, cultural and geographical barriers which they must overcome. Conversely, the analysis gives insight to the comparative advantages the Chinese advertisers and their agencies enjoy in this respect, although they also face challenges in establishing brands and otherwise transforming China into a harmonious nation of consumer‐citizens.     

我国城镇化发展的多维价值

我国城镇化发展具有重要的国家意义并产生深远的世界影响。城镇化是中国崛起的战略选择，是经济发展方式转变的核心动力，是破解“三农”问题的根本途径，是构建和谐社会的必由之路，是促进区域均衡发展的重要保障，是参与全球经济治理的主要平台，具有重要的经济和社会价值。     

The Structure of Intergenerational Relations in Rural China: A Latent Class Analysis

Most existing typology studies of intergenerational relations have used samples in North America and Europe. The present study expands on previous research by determining whether similar family relation typologies could be found using a sample of Chinese rural elders. The data were derived from a survey of 1,224 older adults in China's rural Anhui province in 2009. Latent class analysis revealed 5 types of intergenerational relations in rural Chinese families: (a) tight‐knit, (b) nearby but discordant, (c) distant discordant, (d) distant reciprocal, and (e) distant ascending. The authors argue that the distant ascending ties reflect the strong filial obligations that Chinese adult children have toward their parents and that the distant reciprocal ties reflect collaborative and mutually beneficial parent–child relations in rural China in the context of massive rural‐to‐urban migration. The findings of this study demonstrate how family relations in contemporary China are shaped by the larger economic, geographic, and cultural contexts.     

The sustainability dilemma of China’s township and village enterprises: an analysis from spatial and functional perspectives

The spectacular development of China's township and village enterprises (TVEs) has been highly praised by both Chinese and western scholars. The TVEs and rural non-agricultural sector were widely regarded as the most dynamic sector in the Chinese economy during the reform era. However, such a successful story and optimistic view had changed tone since 1997, seemingly from the robust boom to a deep recession. Evidently, China’s present TVEs development must be confronted by deep-seated problems that created the fundamental sustainability dilemma. To better understand China's unusual process of TVEs development, this paper focuses on the sustainability dilemma from the functional and spatial perspectives. It analyses the internal conflicts between TVEs development and agricultural production and explains why the present mode of China’s TVEs development cannot be sustained. Within the rural economy, agricultural production and the TVEs themselves have created severe conflicts that have led to a fundamental sustainability dilemma: further encouragement of TVEs or maintaining a stable agricultural output, especially of food supply. The underlying causes for the sustainability dilemma are diagnosed, primarily based on a consideration of functional and spatial division. The paper argues that the conflict is inevitable due to the dysfunctional nature created by TVEs in the rural sector. That is, farmers simultaneously perform two different functions: agriculture and industry, both of which should be functionally and spatially separated. According to Lewis's Two-sector Structural-change Model, this paper attempts to seek a possible solution that aims at an overall functional clarification between the urban and rural sectors.     

Mindfulness,Emotion and Behaviour: An Intervention Study with Chinese Migrant Children

Migrant children in China who move from rural to urban areas face significantly greater emotional and behavioural challenges than their urban peers. In recent decades, western countries have used mindfulness to enhance child psychosocial and behavioural outcomes. This approach has not yet been applied to rural‐to‐urban migrant children in China. This study utilised one‐group pretest‐posttest design to examine the effects of a 4‐week school‐based mindfulness intervention on Chinese migrant children's emotions and behaviours. The results show that mindfulness training significantly improved participants’ mindfulness. The training was particularly effective for those with lower mindfulness at baseline. There was significant decrease in students’ internalising and externalising problems after mindfulness training, particularly internalising problems.     

The Emergence of Supermarkets with Chinese Characteristics: Challenges and Opportunities for China's Agricultural Development

The supermarket revolution is spreading faster in China than anywhere else in the world. Supermarket sales are growing by 30–40% per year, 2–3 times faster than in other developing regions. This development has been driven by factors shared by other developing countries as well as by China‐specific policies. It presents opportunities for Chinese agricultural producers to diversify into activities with higher income prospects, and for procurement systems to move into dealing directly with farmers. However, supermarket managers face several unique challenges: average farm size is small and farmers are not well organised. Hence, the whole supply chain must be upgraded, and government agricultural policy and rural development programmes have an important role in this.     

Differentiation of rural development driven by industrialization and urbanization in eastern coastal China

With the socio-economic transformation, regional development factors recombination and followed industrial restructuring have changed the rural areas in eastern coastal China deeply. The interaction between the material and non-material elements affecting rural production and lifestyles shaped different rural development types depending on a carrier, which is composed of different industries. Accordingly, this paper makes the definitions of four rural development types, i.e., farming industry dominated rural development type (FIT), industry dominated rural development type (IDT), rural development type focusing on business, tourism and services industries (BTT), and balanced rural development type (BDT), and classifies the rural development types in eastern coastal China. Then, taking the social representation approach and basing on the major factors affecting the long-term rural development and the exertion of the functions of the countryside with regard to society, the assessment indicator system of rurality degree index (RDI) was established to distinguish the rurality degree of different types. The results indicated that, to some extent, the RDI may accurately reflect the status quo of rural development and the exertion of the functions of the countryside with regard to society, and can also reflect the different stage in what the same rural development type in different region stays. The authors argue that the study on the interaction of rural development factors in the process of economic and social transformation and the subsequent rural development model is very important to deeply understand the rural development and to smoothly achieve coordinated and balanced rural–urban development in developing countries, which are experiencing rapid industrialization and urbanization.     

Repositioning in the global apparel value chain in the post‐MFA era: Strategic issues and evidence from Sri Lanka

This article examines structural adjustment in the world apparel trade following the abolition of Multi‐Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quotas through a case study of the apparel industry in Sri Lanka. The evidence suggests that, in a quota‐free global market, individual exporting countries have room for carving out a niche in specific products. The Sri Lankan apparel industry has managed to maintain growth dynamism through specialization in intimate apparel and upmarket casualwear. The expansion of the industry and its adjustment to MFA abolition was aided by an easily trainable domestic workforce and collaborative actions of industry associations and the government, with foreign buyers playing a pivotal role in linking the Sri Lankan firms to the global value chain.     

Moving the Migration Frontier: A Chinese Qiaoxiang Migration Model?

The New Chinese Migration is frequently contrasted to the earlier 19^th century mass migrations in terms of its origins (urban vs rural), migrant types (students and professionals vs coolies) and destinations (developed vs developing countries). A significant component of this new migration from the PRC however, continues to originate from the qiaoxiang – the emigrant‐sending areas of the 19^th century migrations. Based on an extensive review of the literature on the old and new Chinese migration, as well as several years of fieldwork in the major rural sending areas or qiaoxiang of China, we examine the continuities between the new qiaoxiang migration and the old, and propose a qiaoxiang migration model of the entrepreneurial nature of the migration enterprise to account for the sustained and global character of the mobility generated.     

Globalizing Firms and Small Communities: The Apparel Industry's Changing Connection to Rural Labor Markets*

Abstract This paper explores changing relationships between apparel firms and rural labor markets in Wisconsin over the last decade. Mainstream explanations of recent changes in the apparel industry suggest that rural communities will lose tedious or physically demanding, low‐skilled apparel manufacturing jobs but will gain more information‐intensive and desirable “apparel service” employment. Through case studies of apparel firms located in two Wisconsin communities, the paper argues that current changes in the industry not only affect communities unevenly but, even in regions where apparel service firms have provided significant numbers of new jobs, these jobs are less well paid, more casually structured, and less secure than manufacturing employment has been. The paper argues that current concepts of the economic embeddedness of firms in communities need to be refined to permit consideration of the kinds of leverage and voice that community organizations have in confronting new forms of corporate capital. The two case studies demonstrate that corporate embeddedness and its labor market outcomes are linked to changes in the global market in which firms compete.     

Cosmopolitan China? Lessons from international collaboration in low-carbon innovation

Cosmopolitanism is the focus of much current debate. This literature, however, is marked by a relative paucity of detailed research that examines the impact of cosmopolitanism as a social force within different societies. In particular, two topics that have received little attention despite their utter importance for current global challenges are the scale and impact of cosmopolitanism in China and the significance of ‘cosmopolitan innovation’. This paper explores both on the basis of evidence from over 70 interviews with parties involved in low‐carbon innovation, a field that may be considered to be particularly propitious for cosmopolitan motivation. We argue that there is distinct evidence of cosmopolitanism in China but that this is a relatively fragile and elite development, despite China's increasingly deep integration into global networks and flows. Furthermore, the cosmopolitanism in evidence is a distinctly Chinese version, thereby offering important lessons regarding the nature of cosmopolitanism per se and the reciprocal challenge of China to the existing cosmopolitanism of the global North.     

An update on China in the political economy of information and communications

In prior research I have attempted to bring out the salience of two converging political‐economic trends. One originates in the communications and information sector, which throughout prior decades has evolved into the lead zone of business investment and profit‐making. The second stems from China, whose reinsertion into global capitalism has generated a powerful economic surge: in 2007, International Monetary Fund projects, for the first time, China will contribute more to global economic growth than any other nation. How, I asked, are these two vectors of change related? What connections exist between capitalism's most dynamic industry and its most expansionary growth zone? The present article constitutes a progress report on these issues, which continue to be fundamental.     

Spatial inequality of rural industrial development in China, 1989–1994

Rural industry, having benefited from market oriented reforms, has surpassed state owned industry and become the largest industrial sector in China since 1993. Using multiple indicators, this study reveals a highly unbalanced spatial distribution and an increase in inequality of rural industrial development. It also classifies the level of development at the provincial level from 1989 to 1994. The relationship between rural industrial development and internal and regional characteristics is analyzed by multiple regression analysis. A very high correlation between rural industrial development and regional market indicators resulted in the conclusion that rural industry is a market economic sector and its development is driven by market forces in China's dual economy. The spatial patterns of rural industrial development reflect the viable, even optimum, location patterns created by the experience of the market economy. Although government policies attempted to reduce the inequality of rural industrial development among regions, the widened gap between rich and poor in the period 1989–1994 demonstrated the strong impacts of the concentrating effects of market forces.     

Global neo-liberalism, global ecological modernization, and a swine CAFO in rural Bulgaria

Rural and development sociology studies have tended to credit globalization with low-wage, extractive, environmentally destructive outcomes. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have been treated as a local manifestation of the destructive tendencies of globalization. However, recent scholarship on globalization suggests that globalization may also be credited with high-wage, value-added, environmentally friendly economic growth. Moving beyond a general emphasis on the destructive tendencies of globalization, these studies reveal that variation in industry, national and international policies, firm characteristics, and local geography (socio-economic and biophysical) may influence socioeconomic and ecological outcomes. We discuss how these factors help to create a more complex understanding of the relationship between agrifood globalization and local manifestations of CAFOs. We then highlight an example of a rural Bulgarian CAFO that is locally owned and has come to internalize its waste stream. Our findings support recent scholarship that distinguishes between global neo-liberalism and global ecologically modernization and that emphasizes a more complex understanding of how local socio-economic and biophysical factors interact with global processes to influence rural development.     

创新驱动，加快发展上海流通产业

流通产业是现代服务业的重要组成部分,该产业增长具有超越整体经济增长的潜力。上海的流通产业历史悠久、基础好,在全国具有领先优势。未来30年,上海将发展成为“全球城市（The Global City）”,成为全球指挥和控制中心以及资源配置中心。与上海城市发展的脉络一致,上海流通产业需要加快创新步伐,不断提高市场引导力、资源配置力、科技支撑力、综合竞争力。到2020年,上海将基本建成具有国际国内两个市场资源配置功能、与我国经济贸易地位相匹配的国际贸易中心。     

Catching‐up or Leapfrogging in the Indian IT Service Sector: Windows of Opportunity,Path‐creating,and Moving up the Value Chain

Indian IT service firms are successfully competing with world leaders and research on the industry is emerging. Providing analysis at firm rather than industry level, this article identifies the windows of opportunity open to Indian firms, with the following findings: (i) the catching‐up process by Indian IT firms can be classified as a three‐stage ‘body shopping–offshoring–global delivery model’, comparable with the three steps in original equipment, own‐design and own‐brand manufacturing; (ii) the window of opportunity for Indian firms was primarily the techno‐economic paradigm shift, and secondarily the government's regulation and support of the industry; and (iii) Indian firms initially partially re‐invented their own path by offshoring and created their own global delivery model, gradually moving to higher value‐added services.     

Rural Women Knowing All: Globalization and Rural Women's Organizing in China

Rural women in China are located on the periphery of that country's processes of globalization and modernization. They also, in the 1990s, acquired a voice of their own through the magazine Rural Women Knowing All. This magazine, founded through the intersection of Chinese and transnational feminisms, provided rural women with connections, knowledge and a venue for their own aspirations. Through examining the dichotomies presented by urbanization, the ‘global economy’, ‘culture’ and education, and activism and organizing, this article discusses the ways that Rural Women Knowing All transformed the meanings of globalization for contemporary Chinese rural women, and in the process granted them agency to shape rural identities and existences in alternative ways.     

Traditional Chinese herbal medicine as cultural power along the Southeast Asian belt and road corridor

In 2013, President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a global strategy to catapult China onto the global stage through port and infrastructure development, financial, technological, trade and cultural connectivity. The BRI embraces six corridors, one of which is the Southeast Asian corridor. Among the BRI portfolio, the Chinese government has identified traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as an important health commodity for the global and Chinese Diaspora market. It is also promoted as part of the cultural and intangible Chinese heritage. This paper explores TCM as an important cultural power - a variant of soft power - that connects Mainland Chinese and global Chinese communities and enables the formation of regional social and economic networks that assist in the development of trade, leading to the formation of collaborative cultural basins between TCM institutions in China and Southeast Asian nations.     

Reports of past conferences

Since the advent of the People's Republic, the school has served as a metonym for the city in China, both in the public imagination and in state policy. This article explores how two different ideologies (socialist and post‐socialist) were manifested in two different visual images of the city and school, which in turn shaped the urban institutions and landscapes. In the socialist era, party‐state propaganda offered an image of a model society which was predominantly rural, and where formal education had been marginalized by alternative forms of learning. Cities and schools were understood to be dangerous repositories of bourgeois capitalism which must be scoured of their elitist and decadent characteristics through the importation of rural practices and values. In the post‐socialist era, the city is now envisioned as the centre of modernity and progress, and schools are seen as the path to development and ‘quality’ (suzhi). The rural is pathologized as backward. This new ideology has reshaped the Chinese urban educational landscape from one of enforced egalitarianism to one characterized by inequality and exclusion.     

Upgrading,uneven development,and jobs in the North American apparel industry

In this article we examine the developmental consequences of globalization at multiple scales, using a commodity chains framework to investigate the case of the North American apparel industry. In the first section we outline the apparel commodity chain and offer a brief typology of its lead firms. In the second section we discuss the concept of industrial upgrading and describe several main export roles in the global apparel industry. In the third section we focus on the regional dynamics resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). We contrast the Mexican experience with that of countries in the Caribbean Basin to show the impact of distinct trade policies on export‐oriented development. We argue that NAFTA is creating upgrading opportunities for some Mexican firms to move from the low value‐added export‐oriented assembly (or maquila) model to full‐package production. In the fourth section we explore the unevenness of upgrading dynamics through a comparison of two blue jeans manufacturing clusters in the United States and Mexico: El Paso and Torreon. Our conclusions about upgrading and uneven development in the North American apparel industry emphasize the importance of local, national and regional institutional contexts in shaping inter‐firm networks and their development impact.