With the rise of China's economic and political power, many large countries in the world shift their strategic focus on Asia and try to influence China's regional political economic environment through various economic organizations and unions, which result in a complicated environment for China's development. China responds to the situation through the creation of the "Belt and Road Initiative", Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and BRICS Development Bank. In this article, we discuss the mechanism of influence of international economic organizations, economic unions, and national economic interdependence on geopolitical structure and their spatial expression at the global, regional, and national levels. The results show that: asymmetric economic interdependence can influence national power and power distribution in world geopolitical structure, with the spatial expression of regional conflicts and change of spatial scope of influence of countries. International economic organizations and unions can influence global and regional geopolitical structure by rebalancing power, with a spatial expression of growth of influence, mosaic distribution, and spatial expansion. Within China there has been little research on how China can enhance its geopolitical influence and improve the geopolitical environment by economic approaches. In the future, research should focus on how to transform economic interdependence into effective geopolitical influence; how to expand geopolitical space by using international economic organizations and unions; the "Belt and Road" strategy, especially with regard to the spatial trends and country situations in areas that the initiative involves; and research on multi-scale economic approaches and application of quantitative models to provide theoretical support and empirical evidence for the development of China's geopolitical strategy.
Border region is an important national security barrier and opening gateway. In the context of globalization and rapid development of information technology, research on border region has become a hot topic of geography, political science, and political economy internationally. In this article, by means of bibliometric measurement of the Citespace tool and using data from the Web of Science in 1990-2015, international frontiers and trends of border research have been reviewed systematically. The results of bibliometric statistical analysis show that, since 1990, most of the articles on border research were published in political geography and geopolitics journals. The fields of international border research include political geography, environment, ecology, business, economics, public administration, culture, among others. Geopolitical territory and state power have always been important parts of the border research frontier. Since the 21st century, critical geopolitics and humanism geopolitics have been applied to border research, including rethinking societal governance and other aspects of border areas. This article also reviews the key research trends, including economic and trade exchanges, border integration, border conflicts and security, cultural and social construction, as well as cross-border cooperation systems. Finally, it recommends that Chinese border research in the future should emphasize comprehensive strategic research of border areas; build cross-border cooperation platforms and mechanism; and integrate the international political science, ethnology, physical geography, and other multi-disciplinary approaches.
Since the launch of the Greater Mekong Sub-region Economic Cooperation Program in 1992, driven by the global natural rubber market and geoeconomic cooperation mechanisms, Laos, the only land-locked country in mainland Southeast Asia is experiencing rapid land cover and land use change (LCLUC) due to the rapid establishment and expansion of rubber plantations. Rubber production expansion in Laos is of great importance for China, the largest country of rubber consumption globally, and the rubber-related LCLUC also causes dramatic socioeconomic and environmental impacts within Laos. Therefore, it is important to review rubber plantation establishment and expansion and related remote sensing and impacts studies reported during the last two decades. In this study, after briefly introducing the production, expansion mechanism, and development potential of rubber plantations in Laos, we systematically summarized the research progress on remote sensing monitoring and socioeconomic and environmental impacts of rubber plantation expansion. The review shows that existing studies lack of updated spatial information (extent and distribution) on the establishment and expansion of rubber plantations at the national scale. Effects in the socioeconomic (livelihoods) and environmental (soil erosion, water conservation, biodiversity, etc.) systems are not fully understood. These issues are also the research directions in the future. This study may help improve understanding of the characteristics of rubber plantation expansion and related impacts, and provide guidance for a sound development of rubber industry. In addition, it provides important information for rubber plantation development in Hainan and Yunnan Provinces in China.
Western geographers started to analyze masculinity in the late 1970s. The analysis first appeared in feminist studies in order to demonstrate a parallel between women and men. The most popular concept is hegemonic masculinity. Influenced by the emerging notion of cultural politics, geographers deploy a constructionist approach to integrate multiple views of social geography, cultural studies, and gender studies into their analyses of masculinity in various contexts. In general, geographers focus on the process of masculine identity construction and how different social and spatial contexts shape this process. This article reviews human geographers' work on masculinity so as to provoke more research interest among geographers in mainland China in exploring this important topic.
Monitoring plant phenology with remote sensing data has important scientific value for studying the response of vegetation to climate change. A comprehensive analysis on the influencing factors of accuracy of plant phenology estimation based on principles and general technical processes of remote sensing application in vegetation monitoring was carried out by taking into account the following four aspects: the specific vegetation type and its geographical conditions; remote sensing data and pre-processing; techniques used to identify plant phenometrics; and evaluation of satellite-derived plant phenometrics. Potential methods for improving the accuracy of plant phenology monitoring are thoroughly discussed. These include: building high-resolution near-surface sensor-derived phenology observation and sharing network; developing universally applicable methods for noise removal of satellite remote sensing time-series data and reconstruction of vegetation index curves; searching more stable methods to estimate plant phenology; and exploring the possibility of synthesizing ground-based observation, remote sensing monitoring, and model simulation to achieve the spatial scaling-up of phenometrics.
During the past decades, due to the intensified human disturbance and its special geological background and ecological environment, karst ecosystem in the southwestern part of China exhibited significant vulnerability, which hinders the sustainable development of the social-economic-ecological system of the region. Based on system sensitivity and adaptability, a large number of studies have investigated the vulnerability of karst ecosystem structure, function, and habitat to external disturbance. Especially, indicators of ecosystem diversity, key species, productivity, and soil physical/chemical properties were applied to reveal ecosystem sensitivity to land use/cover change and rocky desertification. However, research on quantification of ecosystem sensitivity by field experiment, mechanism models, and mathematical statistics, is less advanced. Although some karst-suitable plants present adaptability to karst drought environment by self-regulation of morphological structure and physiological function, the ecosystem adaption mechanism or biophysical/biochemical processes in response to environmental threat (e.g. human disturbance and climate change) remain unclear. Due to the close interaction of ecosystem structure, function, and habitat, future research should examine the response of coupled ecosystem components to promote the study of driving mechanism and quantitative assessment of karst ecosystem vulnerability. Furthermore, research on ecosystem vulnerability at different succession stages of karst rocky desertification needs to be strengthened to advance rocky desertification control and ecological restoration and reconstruction.
Based on the chronology of 62 large volcanic eruption events (Volcanic Explosivity Index≥4) since 1901 and gridded CRU TS v.3.22 monthly dataset from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, we examined the effects of large volcanic eruptions by different eruptive latitude bands and seasons on regional difference of temperature in China, using superposed epoch analysis (SEA). The results show that temperature decreased in most regions in 1~2 years after large volcanic eruptions at all latitude bands, but there were clear differences in cooling intensity of different regions and seasons. After volcanic eruptions in high latitude areas, temperature decreased in Northeast and Southeast China by 1.2°C in the winter half-year and 2.0°C in the summer half-year. After middle- and lower-latitudes volcanic eruptions, the cooling regions of the winter half-year were Tibet, Southeast, and Central East China, where the temperature decreased by 1.3~2.2°C; the cooling effects in the summer half-year were less intense than in the winter half-year. After equatorial volcanic eruptions, the winter half-year temperature significantly decreased in Northeast, Southeast, and Tibet, and the cooling magnitudes were greater than 1.2°C; the post-volcanic summer half-year temperature decreased slightly in Northwest and Central East. In some regions secondary cooling occurred in the third year after large volcanic eruptions, and the cooling intensity was even stronger than the initial temperature drop. However, we did not find significant relationship between the cooling magnitude and region and the eruptive seasons of large volcanos of the same latitude bands.
The Yarlung Zangbo River is a transboundary river with rich hydropower resources. Reliable precipitation data are important for water resource development planning of the region. Due to the high elevation, complex topography, and severe climate, especially in the western part of the basin, however, rainfall stations are sparse. Precipitation estimation from satellite data or assimilation provides potential alternatives for precipitation measurements in regions where conventional precipitation gauges are not readily available. In this study, the performance of the gridded Chinese ground precipitation dataset, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) precipitation dataset, and the precipitation data of the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) in 1973-2013 were evaluated for the Yarlung Zangbo River Basin using observations from 13 meteorological stations. The results show that the four precipitation datasets significantly differ. The annual gridded Chinese ground precipitation dataset is the closest to the observed data while CRU and GLDAS precipitation datasets should be calibrated before use due to their limited precision. The CRU precipitation data show strong correlation with the observed precipitation, which indicates that there is a relatively high consistency between the CRU precipitation dataset and observed precipitation although its mean relative error is large. Monthly data analysis shows that the gridded Chinese ground precipitation dataset can reflect the variation characteristics while the CRU precipitation dataset tends to overestimate in flood season. Different from these two datasets, the GLDAS precipitation dataset presents obvious smoothing effect during the year. Annual variation of precipitation in the gridded Chinese ground precipitation dataset is closer to that of the observed precipitation while the coefficients of variation of precipitation in the other two datasets are much smaller. The GLDAS dataset overestimates precipitation in drier areas and underestimate precipitation in areas where annual precipitation is high. All the three precipitation datasets are unable to reflect the extreme precipitation events according to the probability distribution. The probability distribution of the GLDAS dataset concentrates in the range of 300~500 mm while the probability distribution of CRU precipitation ranges from 200~500 mm, higher than the observed precipitation.
This article investigates the interdependence mechanism between firm entry and exit, which can be categorized into multiplier and competition effects. First, we present the evolutionary process of the spatial distribution of manufacturing enterprises from 1998 to 2013 that indicates the spatiotemporal trend of industry dynamics. The spatial pattern has experienced dramatic changes, demonstrating an agglomeration tendency of same types of enterprises. Using difference-GMM model we conducted a regression analysis on a dynamic panel to test how regional entry and exit rates are affected by previous exit and entry rates. We found different influences of previous exit and entry. Entry rates are determined by competition effect while exit rates are determined by multiplier effect. The impact on entry is delivered immediately and decreases monotonically. However, a delayed effect exists in the impact on exit, which reaches the peak after two years. Further, we found different interdependence relationships in different regions. Competition effect is more intense in eastern coastal cities. In the eastern area, higher exit rate leads to more entries in the next stage, which proves that firm exit is a market action optimizing resource allocation while a higher entry rate will restrain future entry due to the high industry saturation. On the other hand, in the western area where industrial development is only beginning, a certain amount of exits will aggravate the exit rate in the next stage. Finally, the article examines policy implications of the interdependence dynamics. Regions under different economy background should adopt different policies to realize the sustainable development of industries. The eastern areas should set industry entry threshold criteria and lower exit barriers of inefficient enterprises. These actions can facilitate the working of market mechanism and result in creative destruction to promote industrial restructuring and upgrading. The western area should adopt the policy to attract more entries and protect existing firms in order to prevent a butterfly effect of enterprise exit.
Existing research on the agglomeration of venture capital (VC) has mainly focused on the national level. This study explores VC's distribution and network at the city level in China. Based on the data of VC in Beijing, we conducted a spatial and social network analysis on the geography of the sector. The results show that VC is mainly concentrated in the Central Business District (CBD), Financial Street, and Zhongguancun areas, which presents a decentralized-centralized-decentralized tendency over time. The CBD and Financial Street are home to many institutions, with the former being a major settlement for foreign institutions, especially private equity (PE) firms while the latter mostly for state-owned institutions. Relying on its high-tech industry and high quality research institutions, Zhongguancun developed into a dynamic area with a large number of VC focusing on start-ups. The network analysis shows that VC collaborate with each other beyond the distance limitation. The major VC clusters have intense connections in syndication investments. The core and periphery analysis indicates that foreign institutions hold a prominent position in the syndication investment networks of VC in Beijing. The state-owned institutions occupy some key nodes in the network with less influence. Although there is a growing number of local privately-owned institutions, most of them are at the periphery in the network.
Questionnaire survey is an important means and method for tourism study. However, when employing questionnaire survey in tourism research, there has been a general lack of concern for standardization. This article reports the findings from an analysis of 468 articles that used questionnaire survey, in four major Chinese journals in area of tourism, from 2005-2014. Based on information retrieval and statistical analysis, this study found that the number of articles employing questionnaire survey showed an increasing trend from 2005-2014, and questionnaire survey was broadly applied in all areas of tourism study. It also found problems in the application of questionnaire survey in tourism study, including: (1) The awareness for standardization of questionnaire design was low, some articles lacked necessary description of theoretical basis for the questionnaire design and test and correction of questionnaires. Only 51.71% of the 468 articles described the theoretical basis for questionnaire design normatively, and 29.06% have done the pretest and correction of questionnaires, indicating that tourism researchers did not pay as much attention to questionnaire design as we might have thought. (2) Representativeness of the samples was often unknown due to lack of introduction of sampling method, questionnaire survey respond rate, and sample size. About 64% of the 468 articles did not report the sampling method, and 26.71% did not report the respond rate. Meanwhile, 66.88% of the 468 articles' questionnaire surveys had a respond rate of above 70%, indicating an acceptable level. With regard to sample size, 66.88% of the 468 articles had a sample size of above 200 owing to the requirement of statistical analysis of the data. (3) Statistical analysis of survey data should be more normative and some articles lacked data reliability and validity test. Around 46% of the 468 articles lacked data reliability test and 52.78% lacked of data validity test. With regard to statistical analysis methods, we found that only 29.28% of the articles employed descriptive statistical methods and 70.72% employed inferential statistical methods, indicating that all kinds of inferential statistical methods were needed to explain and illustrate complicated tourism phenomena. Based on these analyses, this article puts forward a general framework for the application of questionnaire survey in future tourism study.
This study puts forward a systematic analysis tool of urban agglomeration polycentric networks according to the space of flow theory, investigates the enterprise association networks of the twelve urban agglomerations in China empirically, and identifies the basic patterns of prefecture-level cities' spatial relationships through classification. The result indicates that the internal network topology of Chinese urban agglomerations, including the three most typical urban agglomerations (Yangtze River Delta-YRD, Pearl River Delta-PRD, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region-BTH), is still far from reaching maturity. Specifically, the data of connection to some extent constitute a sparse matrix and the spatial association shows a tree structure. The hierarchy of headquarter locations (outflow) is more concentrated than that of branch locations (inflow), which shows asymmetry of the flows within the urban agglomerations. At the urban agglomeration level, two basic network connection patterns can be identified using cluster analysis of the twelve urban agglomerations internal network topology. The first type including the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Shandong Peninsula, and the western side of the Taiwan Straits, is internally closely connected urban agglomeration networks and shows characteristics of integrated networks. The three most typical urban agglomerations (YRD, PRD, and BTH) are distinct headquarter hubs. The other type containing the rest of the urban agglomerations is internally loosely connected networks and the percentages of cross-city connections are lower than the first type. Most of them show a centripetal structure around the provincial capital or sub-provincial cities topologically.
Traffic circles of different hierarchies and scopes are an important basis for the spatial organization of socioeconomic activities. With the integration of network analysis and cost-weighted distance analysis, a technical framework was designed for the quantitative identification of traffic circles. Taking commuting convenience as the primary factor, a classification of hierarchies within one hour traffic circles and a rail transportation service index were put forward. The hierarchical and structural characteristics of the one hour traffic circle of Beijing were analyzed with real-time data. Then, taking the coordination of economic activities as the primary factor, the zones inside the one day traffic circle of Beijing were divided on the basis of travel time and modes of transport. According to the spatial convergence effect of transportation infrastructure, traffic corridors were identified, and the spatial scope and economic foundation of traffic corridors inside the one day traffic circle of Beijing were analyzed with real-time data. The results indicate that the scope and shape of traffic circles of equal travel time in Beijing are greatly influenced by high-speed transportation infrastructure. These circles have significantly greater extension along high-speed transport infrastructure, and there are some “islands” on the fringe. Rail transportation provides little support within the one hour traffic circle and construction of rail transportation infrastructure in the key directions should be a priority in the future. With regard to the traffic corridors inside the one day traffic circle of Beijing, the Beijing-Tianjin corridor and Beijing-Tangshan corridor are important transport lines for the collaborative development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei Province. The Beijing-Shijiazhuang corridor should become an important recipient area for industrial transfer of Beijing. The Beijing-Chengde corridor and Beijing-Zhangjiakou corridor are suitable for developing ecological or green economy.
