Author Archives: Jacqueline Nivard

About Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

Social stress, locality of social ties and mental well-being

Nicole W.T. Cheung (2014) Social stress, locality of social ties and mental well-being: The case of rural migrant adolescents in urban China Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong. Health & Place Volume 27, May 2014, p. 142–154
By comparing rural migrant and urban native adolescents in Guangzhou, the largest city in south China, this study investigated the relationships between social stress, social ties that link migrants to their host cities (local ties) and to their rural home communities (trans-local ties), and the migrants׳ mental well-being. Non-migration social stress was more strongly related to poor psychological health than to weak self-efficacy in both migrant and urban native adolescents. This pattern also applied to the effect of migration-specific assimilation stress on psychological health and self-efficacy in migrants. Social ties directly enhanced these two well-being outcomes in both samples, with the effects of trans-local and local ties proving equally potent among migrants. Trans-local ties were somewhat more useful for migrants in moderating the effects of non-migration social stress and assimilation stress, whereas the stress moderation function of social ties was less pronounced in urban natives. These findings extend the migration, network and social stress literature by identifying how local and trans-local ties protect mental health and mitigate stress in migrants.

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Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Panhandling and the contestation of public space in Guangzhou

Ryanne Flock1 (2014), « Panhandling and the Contestation of Public Space in Guangzhou », China Perspectives [Online], 2014/2 | 2014, Online since 01 June 2014, connection on 17 December 2014. URL : http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/6449

Abstract

Urban public space is a product of contestations by various actors. This paper focuses on the conflict between local level government and beggars to address the questions: How and why do government actors refuse or allow beggars access to public space? How and why do beggars appropriate public space to receive alms and adapt their strategies? How does this contestation contribute to the trends of urban public space in today’s China? Taking the Southern metropolis of Guangzhou as a case study, I argue that beggars contest expulsion from public space through begging performances. Rising barriers of public space require higher investment in these performances, taking even more resources from the panhandling poor. The trends of public order are not unidirectional, however. Beggars navigate between several contextual borders composed by China’s religious renaissance; the discourse on deserving, undeserving, and dangerous beggars; and the moral legitimacy of the government versus the imagination of a successful, “modern,” and “civilised” city. This conflict shows the everyday production of “spaces of representation” by government actors on the micro level where economic incentives merge with aspirations for political prestige.

 More information on the author

  1. Ryanne Flock is a PhD candidate at Freie Universität Berlin.Freie Universität Berlin, East Asian Institute, Ehrenbergstr. 26-28, 14195 Berlin, Germany (flock.ry@googlemail.com). []

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Interprovincial migration and the stringency of energy policy in China

Xiaohu Luo, Da Zhang, Justin Caron, Xilian Zhang, Valerie J.  Karplus  Interprovincial Migration and the Stringency of Energy Policy in China, Tsinghua-MIT report 270, Novembrer 2014.

Abstract

Interprovincial migration flows involve substantial relocation of people and productive activity, with implications for regional energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. In China, these flows are not explicitly considered when setting energy and environmental targets for provinces, and their potential impact on the effectiveness of policy alternatives is ignored. We analyze how migration affects outcomes under energy intensity targets and energy caps. While both policies are part of the nation’s Twelfth Five Year Plan (2011–2015) and imposed at the provincial level, only the intensity targets are binding at present. We estimate a migration model, integrate it into a general equilibrium model that resolves each province in China, and simulate the effect of migration on energy use and economic activity. We find that although both types of policies are affected by uncertain migration flows, energy intensity targets (energy use indexed to economic output) are more robust than absolute caps. They are also more cost-effective, placing less burden on the relatively clean in-migration provinces. Our findings also underscore the value of moving from provincial targets to an integrated national emissions trading system, given that the choice of abatement strategies will adjust endogenously to labor relocation.

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Left-behind children and return decisions of rural migrants in China

Démurger Sylvie, Hui Xu  (2013),  Left-behind children and return decisions of rural migrants in China, with Xu Hui, IZA Discussion Paper No. 7727, November 2013.

IZA Discussion Paper No.7727 November 2013

Abstract

Left-Behind Children and Return Decisions of Rural Migrants in China. This paper examines how left-behind children influence return migration in China. We first present a simple illustrative model based on Dustmann (2003) that incorporates economic and non-conomic motives for migration duration (or intentions to return), among which are parents’ concerns about the well-being of their left-behind children. We then propose two complementary empirical tests based on data we collected from rural households in Wuwei county (Anhui province) in fall 2008. We first use a discrete-time proportional hazard model to estimate the determinants of migration duration for both on-going migrants with an incomplete length of duration and return migrants with a complete length of duration. Second, we apply a binary Probit model to study the return intentions of on-going migrants. Both models yield consistent results regarding the role of left-behind children as a significant motive for return. First, left-behind children are found to draw their parents back to the village, the effect being stronger for pre-school children. Second, sons are found to play a more important role than daughters in reducing migration duration.

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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China and its migrants: the conquest of a citizenship

CP20144-32-Florence-COUVÉric Florence, « Chloé Froissart, La Chine et ses migrants. La conquête d’une citoyenneté (China and its migrants: the conquest of a citizenship), », China Perspectives, 2014/4 | 2014, URL : http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/6596

La Chine et ses migrants. La conquête d’une citoyenneté (China and its migrants: the conquest of a citizenship) is a major work, and along with Dorothy Solinger’s Contesting Citizenship in Urban China (1999) constitutes the most complete and solidly documented scientific study of rural migrants in the People’s Republic of China, of public policies concerning them, and of the dynamics of their relations with the Party-state. Based on a doctoral thesis, the book examines to what extent the enduring presence of migrant workers in post-Maoist China’s urban areas, and the increasingly important role they play there, have led to a redefinition of criteria for social and political affiliations. In other words, how has the Party-State transformed itself so as to preserve the basis of its power while allowing the partial integration of a social group whose politico-institutional domination is increasingly reflected in rising social, ideological, and economic contradictions? The perspective adopted is resolutely dynamic, perceiving social change as the result of interactions and conflicts between the state and society. The author, a senior lecturer at the University of Rennes 2, documents in detail not only the process of transformation of public policies relating to the management and integration of migrant populations in cities, but also migrants’ practices, norms, and representations vis-à-vis the state and Chinese society.

The work is structured in five parts. In the first, Chloé Froissart offers a genealogy of the concept of citizenship and its mobilisation in the Chinese context. She contrasts the universalist conception inherited from the Enlightenment, by which “the citizen is an abstract subject of laws, implying civic, political, and legal equality of individuals,” with the Maoist one brimming with the notion of a special political and socio-economic determination of individuals’ rights and duties (p. 45). As a framework for interpreting society-state relations, the author offers the dialectic of this dual vision of citizenship that continues to inform the Communist Party’s actions. While Chapter 1 shows that Maoist era ideology and political struggles constitute an inescapable presupposition for interpreting the reach of the constitution and laws of the People’s Republic of China, Chapter 2 documents the role and effects of the “residency permit” (hukou) administrative system that has defined individual-state relations since the 1950s, establishing a system of statuses linked to one’s position in the productive system, local inscription, and political status, and invalidating “the apparent universality of Chinese laws” (pp. 45-46).

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Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Urban China : Toward efficient, inclusive, and sustainable urbanization

“World Bank; Development Research Center of the State Council, the People’s Republic of China. 2014. Urban 881720PUB0REPL00Box385279B00PUBLIC0.pdfChina : Toward Efficient, Inclusive, and Sustainable Urbanization. Washington, DC: World Bank. URI http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18865

In the last 30 years, China’s record economic growth lifted half a billion people out of poverty, with rapid urbanization providing abundant labor, cheap land, and good infrastructure. While China has avoided some of the common ills of urbanization, strains are showing as inefficient land development leads to urban sprawl and ghost towns, pollution threatens people’s health, and farmland and water resources are becoming scarce. With China’s urban population projected to rise to about one billion – or close to 70 percent of the country’s population – by 2030, China’s leaders are seeking a more coordinated urbanization process. Urban China is a joint research report by a team from the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council which was established to address the challenges and opportunities of urbanization in China and to help China forge a new model of urbanization. The report takes as its point of departure the conviction that China’s urbanization can become more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable. However, it stresses that achieving this vision will require strong support from both government and the markets for policy reforms in a number of area. The report proposes six main areas for reform: first, amending land management institutions to foster more efficient land use, denser cities, modernized agriculture, and more equitable wealth distribution; second, adjusting the hukou household registration system to increase labor mobility and provide urban migrant workers equal access to a common standard of public services; third, placing urban finances on a more sustainable footing while fostering financial discipline among local governments; fourth, improving urban planning to enhance connectivity and encourage scale and agglomeration economies; fifth, reducing environmental pressures through more efficient resource management; and sixth, improving governance at the local level.

 

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Mobility grant for doctoral research on contemporary china

Mobility grant for doctoral research on contemporary china – 2015 campaign

The Scientific Board of research institutes in Asia attached to the French Foreign Ministry awards one nine-month PhD scholarship during its annual meeting in the spring. The scholarship comprises a monthly stipend of 1625 Euros, round-trip air travel from Europe to Hong Kong, China or Taiwan (when applicable), transportation of luggage up to 200 Euros and repatriation insurance.

Eligibility

  • be citizens of a member State of the European Union
  • be currently enrolled as PhD candidates in the field of the Social Sciences or Humanities at a French university or a university in a member State of the European Union, or an institution associated with the CEFC.
  • reside in either Hong Kong, Taiwan or mainland China during the length of their scholarship.
  • submit a research project relevant to the scientific mission of the CEFC, which is to study the political, economic, social and cultural developments in the contemporary Chinese world.

Awardees will be encouraged to submit an article and, when applicable, book reviews, to the journal China Perspectives published by the CEFC.

Application requirements

  • a research project;
  • a detailed CV;
  • a cover letter;
  • two recommendation letters from recognized scholars in the field.

The selection will be based upon the following criteria which should be outlined clearly in the research project :

  • Aims of the research;
  • Methodology, Sources, Fieldwork;
  • Provisional Calendar;
  • Scientific collaboration with Chinese and European Institutions;
  • Expected Results (publication projects…);
  • Writing skills in French.

Complete applications must be submitted in a single PDF file (max: 10 pages, 1.5 line spacing), addressed to the Director of the CEFC, by email to Alfred Aroquiame (aaroquiame@cefc.com.hk) with the subject line “AIDE A LA MOBILITE 2015” on or before January 15, 2015.

The recommendation letter should be sent directly by the PhD supervisor

  • by email to Alfred Aroquiame (aaroquiame@cefc.com.hk) or by ordinary mail (in this case it must reach the CEFC by January 15, 2015)
  • to M. Sebastian Veg, CEFC, 20/F Wanchai Central Bldg. 89 Lockhart Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong

Please send the single PDF file of the above application to Madame Aude Debarle at Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs by email only  (aude.debarle@diplomatie.gouv.fr), with the subject: “AIDE A LA MOBILITE 2015”.

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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The end of copycat China

Shaun Rein (2014),  The end of copycat China: The rise of creativity, The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia (1118926765) cover imageinnovation, and individualism in Asia, Wiley, 256 p.  ISBN: 978-1-118-92676-5

 

The End of Copycat China helps business executives and investors understand how China’s economy is shifting from one based on heavy investment to one on services and consumption by providing insight that help shape effective strategy. Drawing from over 50,000 interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, private equity investors, private Chinese companies, and multinationals, this book describes how Chinese firms are increasingly focused on innovation rather than copying what worked in America and how consumers are evolving with their hopes, dreams and aspirations. China’s growth model of the last three decades is becoming increasingly ineffective, as relying on heavy investment and exports is becoming less and less feasible. Fifty percent of China’s growth in 2013 stemmed from consumption, the government is establishing a Free Trade zone in Shanghai and ending the dominance of state-owned enterprises. This book provides a roadmap for companies and investors looking to navigate these changes and capture emerging trends, with deep insight and practical guidance on what innovation looks like in the new China.

  • Survey the development of innovation taking place in China’s economy, from an insider’s perspective
  • Consider the changes that must take place to shore up the broken growth model
  • Examine the consumer trends emerging in the midst of rapid market evolution
  • Understand how China’s rise will impact its neighbors like Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Cambodia

China’s dramatic shift toward consumption presents a tremendous opportunity for foreign business, but traditional tactics are outdated at best, financially fatal at worst, as local competitors focus on innovation and move up the value chain and as consumers look for new brands and categories to spend money on. New strategies are needed to keep pace with the changing regulatory and consumer environments, and “business as usual” won’t get very far. The End of Copycat China is the business guide to this emerging market, with expert guidance from the inside.

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Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Consumerist and ideological eco-imaginaries in the cinema of Feng Xiaogang

Corrado Neri (2013). China has a natural environment, too! Consumerist and ideological eco-imaginaries in the cinema of . Interactions,  pp.91-107. https://hal-univ-lyon3.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00835781

Abstract

Feng Xiaogang, the ‘Chinese Spielberg’, produces huge blockbusters and hilarious comedies directed at a broad audience. Although his work does not strictly deal with environmental issues, it provides us with a privileged perspective through which to analyse the discourses around the theme of nature. Feng Xiaogang’s works are not explicitly environmental, they do address the contradictions and differing anxieties linked to China’s economic and environmental development. For example, A World Without Thieves (Feng Xiaogang, 2004) employs the natural image of Tibetan mountains as a symbol of search for oneself and introspection, while it symbolically links Tibet to China, setting aside the political troubles that regularly hit the region. Likewise the stunning landscapes in If You are the One 1&2 (Feng Xiaogang, 2008 and 2010) sorry don’t understand; I mean: If You are the One (2008) and If You are the One 2 (2010) remind us of the importance of nature, rural surroundings, and the absence of human intervention within the changing of seasons, hinting at the same time at the dangers of losing such natural richness. Simultaneously these built-up, symbolic images refer to dreams of capitalist possession where nature turns into nothing but a marketing tool, a status symbol, a showcase of wealth and vanity parade. As forms of symbolic power imposed on the collective imagination and symptoms of the ever-growing need to be aware of the fragility of nature and the dangers of uncontrolled development, these films bring into play several contradictory discourses that cannot be ignored in the future development of China and Chinese cinema. Like every great producer of popular cinema, Feng Xiaogang produces narratives governed by the public and consumerist doxa, from which potentially subversive apprehensions emerge.

 Full text on the French multi-disciplinary open access archive HAL

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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A training on quantifying emissions of urban transport in Chengdu

HBEFA China Banner2

On 20 November 2014, GIZ and the China Sustainable Urban Transport Research Centre (CUSTReC) conducted a training on quantifying emissions of urban transport in Chengdu.

Chengdu is one of three pilot cities in the Large City Congestion and Carbon Reduction project financed through the Global Environment Fund and managed by the World Bank. One of the activities of the Project Management Office of the GEF in Chengdu is to monitor the development of their transport emissions. GIZ cooperates with CUSTReC and the World Bank to support the quantification of transport emissions, using the China Road Transport Emission Model (HBEFA China).

Read the full text on Sustainable Transport in China

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Thank you, but we prefer the salt monopoly

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Thank you, but we prefer the salt monopoly, TeaLeafNation, November 20, 2014

China is the world’s biggest consumer of salt — one kitchen staple that has so far remained unadulterated by the country’s many food safety scandals. But now Chinese netizens are worried that is about to change.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced on Nov. 20 that it will end the state monopoly on salt that has existed since 1950, according to a report by state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV). State media is touting the move as a step towards the market reforms that President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party have pushed as China’s export-oriented economy slows.

Yet the country’s netizens are far from rejoicing at what appears to be a step to rein in the power of China’s hulking state-owned enterprises. Rather, the question roiling China’s online social spaces after CCTV’s announcement seemed to be what will happen when profit-hungry fraudsters, eager to make a quick buck, jump into the newly open salt market.

“There will soon be frequent cases of industrial salt” — far cheaper than table salt — “being mixed with edible salt,” went one popular comment on Weibo, China’s huge Twitter-like microblogging platform. Another user wrote, “Soon the media will be putting out articles called ‘How to tell industrial salt from table salt.'” The topic seemed to resonate; “salt monopoly abolished” became a top-trending hashtag on Weibo, and one related post on CCTV’s official Weibo account quickly garnered over 1,300 comments. One user commented cynically, “I’ve eaten all kinds of fake products; now I will finally have the opportunity to eat fake salt!”

Read the full text on the blog  TeaLeafNation or on Foreign Policy

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Role of users in the developing eco-innovation

Nathalie Lazaric, Jun Jin, Ali Douai, Cecile Ayerbe (2014). Role of users in the developing
eco-innovation:  comparative case research in China and France. Economies et societes,
developpement, croissance et progrès – Presses de l’ISMEA – Paris, Serie Dynamique
technologique et Organisation (N 3), pp.455-476.
This article proposes a model of eco-innovation that emphasizes the role of users and regulation in the development and diffusion of eco-innovationproducts, by comparing the diffusion of two e-bike companies, CEP and Lvyan, from China and France.
These cases show that diffusion of eco-innovation in China and France is strongly linked to the institutional context and specific consumer needs, highlighting the importance of involving users in the development and diffusion of eco-innovation in order to satisfy market demand, and increase profit and competitiveness in niche markets. It also shows that, to achieve a comprehensive picture, institutions and policy makers should adopt a coevolutionary approach to regulation that includes consideration of technology, uses and practices.
The case of CEP reveals that regulation appropriate to the market fosterscompanies‟eco-innovation;compared to the case of Lvyan which shows that irrelevant regulation can become a barrier to the diffusion of eco-innovations such as the e-bikes.
The superior„ snob effects‟ of the French market are discussed and compared with the„ bandwagons effects‟ noted in the Chinese market.

 Full text on the French multi-discciplinary open access archive HAL

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Chinese migrant workers’ attitudes toward risks, strategic uncertainty, and competitivenesss

Li Hao Daniel Houser Lei Mao, Marie Claire Villeval  (2014), A field study of Chinese migrant workers’ attitudes toward risks, strategic uncertainty, and competitiveness,

Using a field experiment in China, we study whether migration status is correlated with attitudes toward risk, ambiguity, and competitiveness. Our subjects include migrants and non-migrants. We find that, migrants exhibit no differences from non-migrants in risk and ambiguity preferences elicited using pairs of lotteries ; however, migrants are significantly more likely to enter competition in the presence of strategic uncertainty when they expect competitive entries from others. Our results suggest that migration may be driven more by a stronger belief in one’s ability to succeed in an uncertain and competitive environment than by risk attitudes under state uncertainty.

Full text on the French multi-discciplinary open access archive HAL

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Pathways toward zero-carbon electricity required for climate stabilization

Richard Audoly, Adrien Vogt-Schilb, Céline Guivarch,Pathways toward zero-carbon electricity required for climate stabilization, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 7075 2014. Full text : hal-01079837v1

Abstract

This paper covers three policy-relevant aspects of the carbon content of elec-tricity that are well established among integrated assessment models but under-discussed in the policy debate. First, climate stabilization at any level from 2 • C to 3 • C requires electricity to be almost carbon-free by the end of the century. As such, the question for policy makers is not whether to decarbonize electricity but when to do it. Second, decarbonization of electricity is still possible and required if some of the key zero-carbon technologies — such as nuclear power or carbon capture and storage — turn out to be unavailable. Third, progres-sive decarbonization of electricity is part of every country’s cost-effective means of contributing to climate stabilization. In addition, this paper provides cost-effective pathways of the carbon content of electricity — computed from the results of AMPERE, a recent integrated assessment model comparison study. These pathways may be used to benchmark existing decarbonization targets, such as those set by the European Energy Roadmap or the Clean Power Plan in the United States, or inform new policies in other countries. These pathways can also be used to assess the desirable uptake rates of electrification technolo-gies, such as electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, electric stoves and heat pumps, or industrial electric furnaces.

 

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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