With the introduction of the “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals”, improving city carbon emission efficiency has become a necessary path to achieving economic, social, and environmental coordinated development. This article employs a heterogeneous spatial stochastic frontier model to estimate city carbon emission efficiency and conducts an empirical analysis of the spatiotemporal evolution, convergence, and influencing factors of city carbon emission efficiency. The research findings are as follows: (1) The heterogeneous spatial stochastic frontier model has better applicability in measuring carbon emission efficiency than the traditional stochastic frontier model. (2) Industrial structure, population density, degree of openness to foreign trade, carbon market pilot policies, and green technology innovation all contribute to improving carbon emission efficiency, while resource-based cities tend to reduce carbon emission efficiency. (3) Eastern and central regions of China generally show an upward trend in carbon emission efficiency. First-tier cities, represented by Shenzhen, consistently rank at the forefront of national carbon emission efficiency. In contrast, the northeastern and western regions exhibit a reversed “U”-shaped trend in carbon emission efficiency, and there is no evidence of random convergence at both the national and regional levels. (4) The spatial distribution of carbon emission efficiency exhibits a “north-south divide” and an “east-high, west-low” pattern. City clusters represented by the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are gradually becoming core regions for improving carbon emission efficiency, forming a preliminary “multi-polar agglomeration” low-carbon development pattern. (5) Cities in the western and northeastern regions have higher per capita carbon emissions but lack matching carbon emission efficiency, resulting in an “efficiency mismatch” phenomenon between per capita carbon emissions and carbon emission efficiency.

In recent decades, a series of disaster events caused by climate change have been confirmed by instrumental measurements and experimental records around the world. To deeply explore the characteristics and mechanism of climate change at different spatio-temporal scales is the prerequisite to establish the coupling relationship between climate change and various disaster events. The discipline of geography is mainly concerned with the spatial distribution characteristics of different natural events and their evolutionary mechanisms and therefore has unique advantages in analyzing the spatial and temporal patterns of climate change and various disaster events and their coupling mechanisms. In this paper, we examine the current funding status of climate change-related research in the geographical science discipline of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) from 2010 to 2021, based on the application/funding data. The future development of climate change research from the perspective of geographical science is summarized and prospected. The results show that from 2010 to 2021, the number of applications/grants for youth science funds related to climate change of the geographic science increased year by year, indicating that the scale of talents in this discipline is constantly increasing. On the general program, the application and funding number of projects are relatively stable. Although the number of applications for regional science funds showed an increasing trend, the amount of funding fluctuated greatly. The six research institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences are the main research units of climate change-related research in the geographical science. The results show that there are still many problems in the research on climate change of the geographical science, such as uneven regional distribution of research teams, relatively homogeneous research methods and contents, insufficient investigation of mechanisms, and weak linkage between theory and practice. In view of the above problems, it is suggested to further enhance the level of regional research strength, consolidate the research on mechanisms, promote the integration of multiple disciplines, indicators and processes under the theme of climate change, and promote the relevant results to serve the actual production and life. This will provide the relevant basis for better and more adequate response to the human and social development problems brought about by climate change.

With the deepening of regional industrial division, the phenomenon of industrial agglomeration on different spatial scales, especially among different industries, has become obvious. This paper introduces the product dynamic relatedness to construct China's export product space network using Chinese Customs Trade Statistics (CCTS) dataset from 2000 to 2016, and describes the dynamic evolution pattern and network features of China's export product space. On this basis, this paper constructs an econometric model to investigate the influence and changing trend of product relatedness on the geographical coagglomeration of China's export industry. Meanwhile, from the perspective of product heterogeneity, this paper divides all export products into different groups to supplement the relevant empirical evidence. Descriptive analysis found that: (1) China's export product space has a typical "core-edge" structure, and the spatial structure of China's export product space network evolved from loose and flat to complex and compact from 2000 to 2016. (2) Strongly related products are highly geographically copolymerized. (3) China's export product space network shows the characteristics of more agglomeration, closer connection, and more complex network structure among products, forming a dense and complex core of strong correlation. Empirical test shows that: (1) Product relatedness has a significant positive impact on the geographical coagglomeration of China's export industry, but the marginal effect decreases during the study period. (2) Products in the same or different industries and products with high/low technological complexity play differential roles in the impact of product relatedness on industrial coagglomeration. The promotion effect of products in the same industry on geographical proximity is stronger than that of cross-industry products. The relatedness between low-complexity products and any other kind of complexity products can significantly increase the probability of coagglomeration, but high-complexity related products do not show the characteristics of industrial coagglomeration. This paper may have the following policy implications. First, introducing upstream and downstream products or similar products to existing advantageous products in a region makes it more likely to experience knowledge spillovers and share elements, thereby enabling them to survive and gain advantages. Second, while introducing new industries, it is necessary to build a gathering space carrier and knowledge exchange platform for them. Finally, the selection of regional leading industries and the layout of industrial chains should not blindly pursue the quantity of high-tech industries and layout industries that do not match the local industrial structure to meet the needs of high-quality industrial development.

Comprehensively promoting the rural revitalization is an important part of realizing agricultural and rural modernization. The realization of value of lucid waters and lush mountains in rural areas can provide new driving forces for rural revitalization under the combined background of ecological civilization construction and rural revitalization strategy. China's rural areas have diverse types and distinct development levels. It is urgent to carry out the typical model of rural revitalization refining and mechanism analysis from the perspective of lucid waters and lush mountains, which is conducive to the scientific and orderly progress of rural revitalization in light of local conditions and circumstances. The results showed that lucid waters and lush mountains refer to the natural, social and economic community with specific regional characteristics formed by the interactive coupling of natural resources and cultural resources in rural areas. Lucid waters and lush mountains are the important resource for rural transformation and development, the important path for value realization, and the important carrier for comprehensive revitalization. From the perspective of lucid waters and lush mountains, the regional model of rural revitalization shows a “spindle shape” with three types of urban-rural integration, quality and efficiency improvement, relocation and evacuation, and eleven sub-categories, such as central town, communalization, industrial parks, material development, function enhancement, industrial integration, ecological migration, relocation, and village consolidation. Our study suggested the systematic and complexity of China's rural revitalization construction. Regional model database construction can provide model and path reference for regional rural revitalization. More attentions should be paid to the coordination and coupling between lucid waters and lush mountains and rural revitalization, and strive to realize the path of rural revitalization with Chinese characteristics featuring the harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.

Urban agglomeration spatial scope identification and structural feature analysis are the hot topic and the basic work of urban agglomeration research. Transportation network is not only a major driving factor for the evolution of regional system of man-land relationship, but also an important support for the spatial form of urban agglomerations. In this paper, we first took cities at the prefecture level in China as the research object, then constructed the traffic comprehensive OD matrix based on the multi-source traffic big data, and further extracted the spatial scope of the urban agglomerations through the principal component iterative decomposition algorithm. Based on the scope, we studied the structural characteristics of urban agglomerations in combination with the city connectivity and influence score. Finally, the internal connectivity and external connectivity of urban agglomerations were calculated and evaluated. The results showed that: (1) there were 21 urban agglomerations in China. (2) Urban agglomerations presented various types of spatial structures, such as single core, double core, multiple core and weak core, with single-core structure type being the main type. (3) Core cities of the urban agglomerations in different regions had different traffic radiation capacity to other cities, and played different driving roles of transportation in the development of the urban agglomerations. (4) Urban agglomerations with different connectivity levels presented a "bow" structure on the map of China, in which urban agglomerations with medium and high connectivity were symmetrically distributed. (5) The external traffic connectivity intensity of urban agglomerations was severely polarized in China. Urban agglomerations in the eastern region accounted for nearly 52% of the inter-city traffic flow, while those in the western region accounted for only 16%. This study concludes that the regional differences in traffic development, as well as the internal differences between cities inside urban agglomerations are more significant, which are also different from the scope and development planning of urban agglomerations. The government should combine the actual situation with development goals to formulate the plans of development cultivation, promoting regional integration and optimizing the structure of urban agglomerations, which will contribute to the coordinated regional development.

As a socio-spatial theory, assemblage thinking provides a unique perspective to investigate spatial relations. Based on object-oriented ontology, assemblage theory claims that agency is not unique to human. It reconstructs the relationship between human and non-human and upholds that the interactions between human and non-human should be discussed in a flat theoretical system. Empirically, this paper provides a new conceptual framework for the interpretation of the relationship between leisure activities and health. This article includes three purposes. First, it demonstrates the relationships between three concepts, agency, desire and relations of exteriority and points out the potential of assemblage theory to study geographies of everyday life and health geography. Second, based on therapeutic landscapes and assemblage theory, this paper reconstructs the conceptual framework of therapeutic assemblage, on the one hand, it attempts to contextualize and concretize the grand and complex assemblage theory into empirical research, and on the other hand, it provides a means of developing therapeutic landscapes from the perspective of anti-anthropocentrism. Last but not least, it takes the Taichi activity of older people as an example, with the conceptual framework of the therapeutic assemblage provided above, to explore how heterogeneous elements in leisure landscape of Taichi activity can form a dynamic relational space through distributed management with therapeutic affect which influences older people′s health. The results show that: (1) The landscape of the therapeutic assemblage can be considered as a dynamic relational space with therapeutic affect generated by the agency of the heterogeneous elements under the promotion of the desire; (2) The therapeutic affect of the therapeutic assemblage is organized and influenced by the dynamics of heterogeneous elements; (3) Therapeutic landscape is suitable for explaining the therapeutic affect of structured and relatively fixed geographical relational space. Nonetheless, it is insufficient to explain when we are faced with uncertainty and instability. In sum, based on object and relational-oriented ontology, assemblage thinking puts the discussion of older people and health into a more flat theoretical system, and at the same time incorporates them into a more complex political, economic, social and cultural context. This may break the traditional health-disease binary hypothesis and interpret the active aging in the Chinese context from a more process, dynamic and multiple way.

With the expansion of the scale of China's outbound tourism safety incidents, the pattern of incidents is showing the characteristics of the cluster. Therefore, it is of great significance to identify China's outbound tourism safety incidents cluster and analyze their influencing factors. This study aims to identify the internal and external structural characteristics, spatial distribution, and contributing factors of China's outbound tourism safety incidents cluster. First, based on the 17746 safety incidents of China's outbound tourism from 2015 to 2019, this study uses the nearest neighbor index to identify China's outbound tourism safety incidents cluster. On this basis, using methods of diversity index, entropy, and spatial autocorrelation to measure and analyze the structure type, scale pressure, and spatial distribution characteristics of China's outbound tourism safety incidents cluster. At the same time, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to discuss the causes of the complex configuration of a cluster. The findings are as follows: (1) A total of 60 destinations in the world have experienced clustered China's outbound tourism safety incidents from 2015 to 2019. Its type structure presents complex characteristics, including five incident categories and 38 incident subcategories, such as accident disaster, natural disaster, public health, social security, and business safety. Moreover, there are multiple consequences, such as personal injury, death, disappearance, detention, and property loss. The external pressure situation is serious. (2) The diversity and scale pressure of China's outbound tourism safety incidents cluster have obvious spatial correlation and unbalanced distribution characteristics. The internal structure type and scale pressure intensity of the tourism safety incidents cluster in Southeast Asia are more prominent. (3) The regional heterogeneity of diversity and scale pressure of China's outbound tourism safety incidents cluster is the result of the differential coupling of multiple risk factors of DPSBR. Among them, the higher industrial development status (S), higher the tourist behavior intensity (B), and lower basic environment drive (D) are the main reasons that lead to the higher complexity of the internal structure of each regional incident cluster. The higher industrial development status (S) and higher tourist behavior intensity (B) are the main reasons that lead to higher scale pressure. Over time, the higher security risk pressure (P) has become the key to form higher cluster diversity and higher scale pressure in various regions.

As an important pool of surface water resources, lakes and reservoirs are the most basic geographical unit and the most important centralized water supply source for large- and medium-sized cities in China, and they have many functions such as water supply, flood control, and biodiversity maintenance, which are closely related to human production and living. Lake sciences act as an important part of geographical sciences, and it is important to strengthen the basic research of lake sciences to help the construction of ecological civilization in China. The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) is the main channel for funding basic sciences research in China, and the NSFC applications, to a certain extent, reflect the frontiers the frontiers and hot spots in various research fields. The analysis of key words and other information in the applications shows that: (1) The increase in the number of applications for lake sciences was mainly in two periods, i.e. from 2004-2011 and from 2018 to 2022. (2) The number of applications under the two secondary codes of D0105 (landscape geography and integrated physical geography) and D0113 (remote sensing sciences) accounted for 25.0%±8.9% and 19.8%±5.5%, respectively, during 1986-2022. (3) “Lake Poyang”, “Lake Taihu”, “Lake Dongting”, “Tibetan Plateau”, “Three Gorges Reservoir” and other research areas appear more frequently, and “mechanism”, “wetland”, “watershed”, “remote sensing” and other research content and method buzzwords appear more frequently, which is roughly consistent with the search buzzword results on Web of Science and China Knowledge Network and other platforms. (4) The affiliations with the highest number of applicants submitted in the field of lake sciences are Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jiangxi Normal University, and Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in order. In the future, geographical sciences will further optimize the disciplinary layout and keyword settings, enhance cross-field interdisciplinary crossover, guide the focus on basic theories and frontier hotspot issues in lake sciences, and promote further high-quality development of lake sciences research in China.

In recent years, the concept of “sustainability of transitions” has entered the field of economic geography, which has been applied as an important perspective to explore the spatial dynamics of green technology emergence and to understand the mechanism of regional industrial evolution. This has brought about an emerging research theme named “geographies of transitions”. However, this research theme is characterized by the strong “concepts and analytical frameworks adopting” approach specializing in empirical examinations, lacking integration of multiple perspectives. Geographies of transition studies thus have been marginalized to the mainstream transition studies, which is not in favor of geographies of transition studies. This article combines three geographical concepts, namely, contextual sensitivity, spatial embeddedness, and place-based agency, with multi-level perspective (MLP) and technological innovation system (TIS), and constructs an improved analytical framework to better explain the mechanism differences in transitions among different geographical contexts. In so doing, an updated analytical framework is formed, which not only fits the mainstream ideas of sustainability transitions, but also closely reflects economic geographical questions. This framework highlights that: (1) Regional transition is a systematic process in which context, structure and agency interplay at multiple geographical scales. (2) The geographies of transitions are about the differences in degree, capacity, pathway and process of new socio-techno systems are socially embedded in existing regimes. (3) The objects of transitions are certain, and grounded, which is strongly linked with place-based agency who promote resource alignment and institutionization on the existing social-technological systems. Based on the above, this paper also offers an empirical illustration by adopting the updated analytical framework. It finanlly puts forward several research agendas for future's geographies of transitions research in China.

Using Apple's supplier companies and their subsidiaries in 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2020, this paper examines the geographic distribution characteristics and the trend of changes of global value chains of Apple's parts. Then we analyze the driving mechanisms from four aspects: Globalization, marketization, localization, and technology control. This study reached four major findings. Firstly, the distribution of supplier's subsidiaries of Apple's parts are highly concentrated in a few countries or regions, particularly in the middle and low-value links. The United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea, China's Taiwan, and a few Southeast Asian countries have significant distribution advantages in the middle and high-end links of global value chains of Apple's parts, and China has clear distribution advantages in the middle and low-end links. Secondly, the broad pattern of global value chains of Apple's parts is that the high-value links of suppliers are led by the United States and Japan, the medium-value links of suppliers are from Japan, Chinese mainland and China's Taiwan, and the low-value suppliers are led by the Chinese mainland and China's Taiwan, which forms a new type of linked "dragon-shaped" growth pattern, with China advancing progressively toward the "body" of the dragon. Thirdly, the global production map of Apple's parts mainly shows the geographical pattern of "R&D on the east coast of Pacific and manufacturing on the west coast". The middle and high-value links of supplier's subsidiaries are tending to be located in urban areas in North America, Western Europe, East Asia and Southeast Asia, while the low-value links of supplier's subsidiaries mainly spread to large cities in and around the southeast coast of China, such as Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta. The emerging urbanized areas in Vietnam and India have released strong signals of "diversion" of middle and low-end links of supplier's subsidiaries. Fourthly, globalization has produced the basic form of global value chains of Apple's parts, which is dominated by marketization includes demand responsiveness in end markets and customer intimacy in intermediate markets, while local comparative advantage and reconstruction of comparative advantage and enterprise technology protection control and technology blockade control between countries are constantly constructing new forms, and through comprehensive interaction, the global value chains of Apple's parts are primarily concentrated in the major urbanized regions of East and Southeast Asia, North America, and Western Europe, but new changes are also arising.

Promoting the high-quality development of ice and snow tourism practices the development concept of “ice and snow resources are as valuable as mountains of gold and silver”, boosts the construction of a leading sports country and a healthy China, and meets people's growing needs for a better life. After more than 30 years of development, China's ice and snow tourism industry has formed a relatively large scale and showed an integrated development pattern, with products of all kinds and markets all over the country. Preparations for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games have brought great opportunities for the development and prosperity of ice and snow tourism. Favorable policies have been issued one after another and consumer enthusiasm has been rising greatly and reached an all-time high. At the same time, the related research on ice and snow tourism has continued to emerge and obtained abundant research results. Based on the logic line of “connotation identification-context sorting-system construction”, the research on ice and snow tourism in China was reviewed and analyzed from the aspects of connotation and concept, context of ice and snow tourism research and development, research content, research methods and regions. The results show that the connotation of ice and snow tourism was abundant and the concept was interpreted from multiple perspectives like tourism resources, tourist motivation and travel season. The research on ice and snow tourism in China has gone through four evolutionary stages and is increasingly linked to practice, and the industrial development is driven by factors like resources, policies and markets. There has preliminarily formed a basic framework system of the research content, while the combination between the research content and the national and industrial development strategy needs to be strengthened. Qualitative research took the lead and there was short of quantitative and longitudinal research. The research areas were highly concentrated in Northeast and North China, mainly from the macro-perspectives. Finally, the innovation of future research was proposed from the aspects of theoretical construction, research perspective, research content, research method and region. This article aims to promote the theorization and system construction of ice and snow tourism research in China, take the lead in guiding future research and promote the high-quality development of ice and snow tourism in the post-Winter Olympics era.

Profile soil moisture (PSM), which is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the entire soil layer water content, is more difficult to retrieve than surface soil moisture (SSM). It is an effective approach to estimate PSM at regional scale by combining multi-source data. Based on random forest regression (RFR), this study established SSM-deep layer soil moisture (DLSM) relationship models for different seasons with in-situ observations over China. European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative Soil Moisture (ESA CCI SM) product was used to estimate DLSM. Spatiotemporal variation of SM in 10 soil layers, i.e., 0-10, 0-20, 0-30, 0-40, 0-50, 0-60, 0-70, 0-80, 0-90 and 0-100 cm, in China from 1980 to 2019 was analyzed in detail. ESA CCI SM product matched well with in-situ observations, but the former was generally higher than the latter. A method using saturated soil water content and wilting point for range constraining was proposed, which effectively reduced the overestimation error of ESA CCI SM product. As a whole, accuracy of RFR models was the highest in autumn, followed by summer and spring, and the lowest in winter. The models performed best in arid zone (ARZ), followed by temperate zone (TEZ) and cold zone (COZ), and worst in Qinghai-Tibet zone (QTZ). The multi-year mean and standard deviation of soil water storage of 10 soil layers were 1.64±0.11, 3.50±0.21, 5.29±0.30, 7.13±0.38, 10.04±0.46, 12.25±0.54, 14.47±0.62, 16.75±0.69, 19.05±0.76, and 21.36±0.83 cm, respectively. Soil profile was divided into fluctuating layer (0-40 cm), leap layer (40-60 cm) and stable layer (60-100 cm). Water storage of 1-m soil layer (WS-1m) over China increased from northwest to northeast and southeast, with lower PSM and greater heterogeneity in cold and arid regions and higher PSM and lower heterogeneity in warm and humid regions. WS-1m in tropical zone (TRZ), ARZ and QTZ peaked in summer, while that in TEZ and COZ was the lowest in summer. Soil profile became wetter in wet zone and wet season and drier in dry zone and dry season over the last 40 years. WS-1m in TRZ significantly increased after 2004-2009, and that in ARZ increased and decreased during 1985-1986 and 2013-2014, respectively. The main cycles of WS-1m over China were 5 a and 11 a.

Tourism is an important industry for the high-quality development of China's economy, and the tourism resources are the foundation of the development of tourism. How to make best use of tourism resources is an essential research topic. Based on the geographic theories of human-land relationship regional system, and scaling transformation, 19478 “eight landscapes” (or “eight scenes”) data are selected to study the structure of tourism landscape and its spatial characteristics. The method of classification analysis is adopted, and the new concept of “ubiquitous landscape” is proposed. The new structural model of the tourism landscape resources is also explored. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The conceptual system of “ubiquitous landscape”. This research defines the connotation and attribution of“ubiquitous scenery element” and the conceptual system of“scenery element-ubiquitous scenery element-ubiquitous landscape”. The indices, such as landscape index, and the most abundant landscape hypothesis, are also developed. (2) The formation mechanism of ubiquitous landscape. The interaction of elements is the power source of ubiquitous landscape; the regionalism of elements is the cause for the formation of ubiquitous landscape; the comprehensiveness of the elements is the foundation of ubiquitous landscape; the transformation of scaling is the requirement of ubiquitous landscape's evolution. There are three main approaches to create sceneries in ubiquitous landscape: borrowing scenery, choosing time, and choosing location. (3) The structural model and characteristics of ubiquitous landscape. This study constructs and demonstrates the structure model of “two elements, three elements, and four elements” of the ubiquitous landscape, and conducts the landscape index incremental model. The four characteristics of ubiquitous landscape are also summarized, which are nearly zero cost, scarcity, timeliness and artificial creativity. (4) Composition proportion and degree of development of ubiquitous landscape. By random sampling of “eight landscapes” and the analysis of cases in Shanxi Province, most of “eight landscapes” include ubiquitous scenery element, and the ubiquitous natural scenes element and local natural landscape account for the highest proportion of 56.58%. The structure of ubiquitous landscape is mainly composed of three elements. Among these three elements, choosing time is more crucial than choosing location. Currently, the development of ubiquitous landscape is relatively backward in China. The landscape index is lower than the theoretical value. These conclusions provide a new perspective to explore the tourism resources, and a new idea for the high-quality development of tourism in practice.

Existing studies in Chinese political geography mainly focus on exogenous theories from static perspectives based on political structure. The introduction of behavioral approach may make some “Chinese contribution” to the development of political geography by strengthening the interpretation of political geographical behaviors and explanation of the political geographical processes and mechanisms. Therefore, this paper summarizes the research object, research perspective and theoretical basis of behavioral political geography, and proposes some potential research topics in behavioral political geography. Specifically, the research objects of behavioral political geography mainly include political subject, political behavior, geographical environment, political system/power relation and political emotion/attitude. Its perspective, different from the traditional political geographical research, emphasizes the analysis of micro-mechanisms, the pursuit of testable laws and the incorporation of subjective factors. The theories and methods in behavioral politics, political philosophy, behavioral geography, emotional geographies, political psychology and other related disciplines provide an important basis for the study of behavioral political geography. We further propose a theoretical framework of behavioral political geography, in which decision space is a key to interpret the interaction between individual's capability and cognition and the constraints or opportunities by geographical contexts and power relations. We call for more scholarly attention to behavioral political geography and more research based on the theoretical framework proposed in this paper. Future research can promote the development of behavioral political geography and help to better understand the political geographical processes by investigating the direct influence of geographical environment on political behaviors, the mediating roles of emotion in the relationship between geographical environment and political behaviors, and the strategies of constructing legitimacy for various political actions based on manipulation of emotions and risk-related discourse.

There is fierce trade competition between China and the U.S. not only in bilateral trade, but also in multilateral trade within the global market, especially in China's surrounding areas. Clarifying the competitive situation, where the trade influence between the two countries is ebb and flow, is of great significance to ensuring China's economic security and development. Based on bilateral trade data from 1996 to 2017, this paper uses time-constrained clustering to identify the stages of trade development of China with its surrounding areas, and builds three trade networks to compare the trade influence of China and the United States in China's surrounding areas at different stages. Four main results are presented. First, from 1996 to 2017, the trade of China and its neighboring countries showed a three-stage leaping development, and the scale of trade continued to expand; Second, the volume and coverage of China's trade with neighboring countries surpassed those of the United States. China had a widening surplus in the trade balance with its neighboring countries, while the United States had maintained a large and stable trade deficit with neighboring countries of China. Third, China's comprehensive trade influence in the surrounding areas surpassed that of the United States. China had a prominent advantage in export influence, while the United States still had a good import influence. Fourth, China's trade with Japan grew in leaps and bounds, while the United States had maintained close trade ties with Japan. The vertical intra-industry trade between China and Japan in mechanical and electrical products was developed, and China was in a relatively unfavorable position in the downstream of the industrial chain. The United States was the final consumer market for Japanese high-end products such as mechanical and electrical products and transportation equipment. The results of this study have implications for China's response to the impact of the United States while maintaining the stability and development of economic cooperation in the surrounding aeras of China.

In the context of global warming, land surface albedo has become one of the important input parameters for climate simulation. The radiation data of 34 sites provided by Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN), GLASS land surface albedo products, ERA-Interim reanalysis data, MODIS EVI (MOD13A3) and meteorological data provided by China Meteorological Administration were used to analyze the variation characteristics of the land surface albedo in different ecosystems based on Sen's Slope trend analysis; correlations and relative importance between land surface albedo and climate variables were calculated using all-subsets regression and hierarchical partitioning methods. The results showed that the bare land and rock or gravel land had the largest slope value from 2000 to 2017, being -0.083% yr^-1 in winter. Pixels with significant correlations between land surface albedo and precipitation, EVI, soil moisture, and temperature during the growing season accounted for 73%, 79%, 56%, and 86% of the total pixels, respectively. EVI was the dominant factor in the change of land surface albedo in arid and semi-arid regions, and the independent contribution rates of these two types of regions were 41% and 56.18%, respectively. The effects of precipitation and temperature on land surface albedo in Northeast China in July lagged about 2 months. The influence of soil moisture on land surface albedo lagged about 1-2 months in the desert areas of Inner Mongolia and Middle-Lower Yangtze River Plain.

Since the early 2000s, global production networks (GPN) research has fundamentally addressed the global-local tensions first identified in Peter Dicken's Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography. As one major scholarly pillar of economic geography by the early 2020s, GPN research has undergone two phases of significant theoretical development, transiting from the earlier broad and general GPN framework to the more recent and explanatory GPN 2.0 theory. During this exciting period of theory development in GPN research, a key and novel concept of “strategic coupling” was first developed in Coe et al. and substantially further refined in Yeung. By today, this new concept has become one of human geography’s competitive “exports” to the social sciences at large! Interestingly and despite its substantial influence and governance typology, the global value chain approach does not offer a similar kind of core concept.
In retrospect, the discovery of “strategic coupling” and its further conceptual development was serendipitous in nature, when several of us became frustrated with then the rather inward-looking debate about endogenous learning and new regionalism in economic geography and regional studies. Ann Markusen found many concepts in this new regionalism literature rather fuzzy and hard to operationalize in empirical research. We wanted to “globalize” this inward-looking approach to regional transformation and thus the concept was “born”, as part of GPN 1.0 framework, to describe how and why the global can be strategically “coupled” with the local through global production networks. In my book Strategic Coupling, I demonstrate much further the concept's empirical efficacy in explaining the industrial transformation of East Asian economies in the new global economy. Again, my aim was to challenge the predominant and inward-looking narrative that this transformation had been driven primarily by the developmental state in East Asia.
Throughout the 2010s and thereafter, the concept “strategic coupling” has been hotly debated within the broad fields of economic geography, regional studies, international political economy, international business studies, and development studies. Many empirical studies across the social sciences and in East Asian studies have found the concept relevant to their diverse empirical analyses and explanations of local, regional, and national developmental trajectories in the changing world economy. In particular, most of these studies have deployed the concept to account for investment and technological linkages between local and foreign firms, cluster formation and evolution, industrial upgrading and regional change, transformations in local and regional innovation systems, urban and regional restructuring under globalization, and so on. These inter-disciplinary studies have not only added much empirical validity to the concept itself and the broader GPN 2.0 theory, but also provided further opportunities for us to take the concept to new domains and intellectual heights.
In this spirit of the broadening appeal and relevance of “strategic coupling”, I have titled this editorial as “Towards global economic geographies” to encourage a more global understanding of the changing realities of economies geographies-defined both as an intellectual discipline within human geography and as the empirical world in which economic activities take place. As an intellectual discipline, global economic geographies is becoming particularly vibrant in the early 2020s. There is now a great deal of convergence of conceptual work on evolutionary economic geography, GPN research, financial geographies, and labour geographies. These are exciting times for highly productive cross-fertilizations in our collective intellectual endeavours.
The empirical papers in this special issue of Geographical Research illustrate very well such strong tendencies towards integrated theoretical framing that draws upon not only the concept “strategic coupling” and GPN 2.0 theory, but also cutting-edge ideas in evolutionary economic geography, financial geographies, and labour geographies. The variegated empirical contexts of China also provide different sub-national “laboratories” that enable such cross-fertilizations to demonstrate their empirical relevance. The next step, though, is for these studies and voices from China to “speak back” to those fields within global economic geographies and, if possible, to add more theoretical contributions through what George Lin and I termed “theorizing back” almost two decades ago. I am happy to see that this special issue has systematically introduced and interpreted on the theorization of GPN 2.0. In line with two previous papers published in this journal about the progress of relational economic geography, the theories about strategic coupling have been well articulated for economic geographers in China.
As the always-changing empirical world, global economic geographies in the 2020s are undergoing fundamental transformations due to several recent and unprecedented challenges, from the Covid-19 pandemic to rising geopolitical tensions and severe disruptions to global supply chains and global production networks. All of these changing global economic geographies provide enormous possibilities for us not only to test our existing theories and concepts, but also to identify new ideas and thinking. As I have argued in a forthcoming book, the interconnected worlds of yesteryear's global economic geographies might be giving way to, or intertwined with, the unexpected reversal of economic globalization and the incessant demand for regional and national resilience in a world of heightened uncertainty. These empirical trends towards localization and regionalization in global economic geographies will likely kickstart new rounds of strategic (de)couplings worldwide such that the restless landscape of contemporary capitalism, as argued a longtime ago in Storper and Walker's The Capitalist Imperative, will be reshaped and reorganized again. This time though, I believe East Asia, and China in particular, may well take the lead to re-Orient the global economy in its image.
Looking forward, I hope readers of this special issue will gain both theoretical and empirical insights from these 15 well-crafted papers that address China's strategic coupling with the global economy in relation to its local and regional resilience, industrial and social upgrading, foreign investment and labour market dynamics, external trade and GPN risks, the challenge of technological innovation and intellectual property, building urban and regional clusters, and so on. As Chairman Mao said in his 1957 address in Beijing, “Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend”. I believe the original concept “strategic coupling” and thereafter GPN 2.0 theory might well be one such flower and school of thought that can be much further contended through our collective research in and on global economic geographies. May thousand flowers blossom!

Nowadays profound changes unseen in a century are evolving rapidly in the world. Accordingly, the socio-spatial patterns of cultural processes at global scales have also been radically altered. This paper outlines the spatial processes and patterns of what we call the “global cultural shift”. We use this term to refer to a spatial dialectic, namely the ways in which uneven, heterogeneous spatial outcomes have been produced under a total, universal process of intensifying mobilities and spatial connections at the global scale. We argue that amidst these uneven spatialities the visions and assumptions of a global culture based on capitalist modernity, individualism and consumerism originating from the West are being cast into doubt and challenged by emerging cultural trends that are at odds with the once celebrated cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. This study delineates the emerging spatialities of cultural changes and contestations by drawing on the world system theory developed by Wallerstein. In the center of the world system, the global division of labor has effectuated cultural backlashes, as the pursuit for the spatial fix of capital has resulted in the disempowerment of the working class within the West. Uneven development has also catalyzed flows of transnational immigration, which has fueled rampant aversion to immigrants. Emerging economies on the semi-periphery, in a different vein, not only compete with the West in terms of political and economic interests but also the need to defend the alternative modernities that they envisage and the sociopolitical models that they aspire to uphold. This trend relativises the universalism of Western modernity but also leads to heightened ideological and political competition between emerging power and the Western bloc. In the periphery of the world system, there is rampant pessimism with capitalist development, advocacy for post-development politics, and increasing suspicion both with established and the emerging powers. Based on the Actor Network Theory, this paper proposes a translation model of cultural practices to illustrate a methodological approach for understanding the ways in which cultures are dis-embedded from their original actor networks, “travel” to other contexts, and become re-embedded in the actor networks in the destinations. Finally, we draw on the theoretical contexts outlined and the methodological model to reflect on a series of opportunities and challenged faced by China’s transnational cultural practices.